Prison slowly ramps up

POINT MACKENZIE — The Goose Creek Correctional Center is currently housing inmates, with plans to slowly increase the population over the next couple of years.

At a press conference at the prison Friday, Department of Corrections Commissioner Joe Schmidt said 30 minimum-security prisoners have occupied Goose Creek for the last couple of months. Sometime this week, 128 more will move in from various department facilities. And in August, 128 higher-security inmates will move in from Anchorage.

The department will continue slowly building its population until May of 2013 when all of the prisoners currently housed in Colorado will return to Alaska.

“By the end of the first quarter of 2014 we’ll have all of the prisoners back from out of state,” Schmidt said.

That number — 128 — is equal to the number of prisoners that can be housed in each of the facility’s modules. Schmidt said the 30 currently housed there came from the Point MacKenzie Correctional Farm, a very low-security prison in the area that also supplied Goose Creek’s Superintendent, Amy Rabeau.

“They’re an easier population to manage,” Schmidt said of why DOC started with the inmates from the farm.

He said the gradual roll-out means the state will be able to put the breaks on if something happens with its staff recruitment efforts.

“We’re very happy with the number of staff coming in and the rate they’re coming in,” he said.

But if something happens and that recruiting stops, the state doesn’t want to get stuck with too few staff to watch over the inmates.

He said it will be nice to have a full module next week.

The inmates are being used to test the facility, to make sure everything works the way it’s supposed to.

“It’ll be nice to get (128) here and push it a little harder,” he said.

His presentation emphasized rehabilitation. The prison was built with rehabilitation in mind, with classrooms and space for programs to teach inmates skills they can use when they’re released.

And, since the majority of them will be released and job skills make them less likely to reoffend, Schmidt said that rehabilitation fits with DOC’s core mission.

“The focus is always on public safety,” he said.

The prison was a source of controversy last year when lawmakers in Juneau balked at the estimated cost of $71 million per year to run it as well as what they described as cost over-runs in getting it built.

The Mat-Su Borough, which built the prison and will recoup its money through payments from the state until the state has purchased it, has said the project was not over budget.

The borough’s numbers consider the sewer treatment plant next door a separate project in terms of costs.

At any rate, that $71 million operating cost figure isn’t quite what the state is paying yet.

During the ramp up phase, department figures show, the first year of the prison’s life will cost the state $32 million, a cost that presumably increase once operations at Goose Creek are in full swing.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.