Prisons get closer look

Jan. 12, 2007

By Russell Stigall

Frontiersman

ANCHORAGE - Mat-Su Borough Assembly members recently spent some time in prison.

The elected members toured area prisons Tuesday and Thursday with Corrections Commissioner Joe Schmidt to get a feel for the structure, culture and working environment of Alaska's prison system. They plan to use the information when deciding where to place the proposed Mat-Su medium security prison.

The preferred site is in Point MacKenzie, with the alternate site in Sutton.

Schmidt's administration is pushing for a modular layout for the proposed prison, with the facility composed of at least three main buildings for housing prisoners. That would provide redundancy in case of fire or mechanical failure in one of the buildings, he said. The single-story modules would have graduated security levels: heavy security down to light, which would reduce costs and prepare inmates for release from the planned 2,251-bed facility.

The assembly visited three prisons - the Anchorage Correctional Complex, the 400-bed Hiland Mountain Correctional Center women's facility in Eagle River, and the high-security Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward.

Anchorage Correctional is made up of the Anchorage Jail and Cook Inlet pre-trial facility. The multi-floor buildings face each other across Fourth Avenue in Anchorage. Schmidt played a role in combining the facilities.

The exterior of the complex is a huge windowless box, like a Wal-Mart. Inside, past the metal detector and X-ray machine, the halls are white paint over cinderblock. Yellow metal handrails and polished concrete floors are the only signs of architectural flair. Voices echo up the 48 steps to the facility's second-floor C-Block. The group has to pass, 15 at a time, through two sets of locked doors. One door cannot be opened until the other is locked.

Commissioner Schmidt said the pre-trial facility has a different atmosphere than Mat-Su's medium-security prison would have. Pre-trial prisoners are going through a tumultuous time, he said. They do not know their future. Their jobs, families and friends may or may not be waiting. Their lawyer may get them off, or they may get 20 years. Things at Anchorage's pre-trial are tense, Schmidt said.

Inside C-Block, the inmates, dressed in bright yellow, sit and stand in an open two-floor room. Some talk on wall phones, some watch the two televisions hung 12 feet up, tuned to local stations. Again, voices and footfalls echo.

&#8220I'd always heard prisoners were treated better than, well, fill in the blank. I didn't see that here,” said Cindy Bettine,

Mat-Su Borough Assembly member.

Once prisoners make it to the medium-security prison in the Mat-Su, they'll know their future.

&#8220They may not like it,” Schmidt said, but they'll have settled down.

The Anchorage facilities are not long-term. The Mat-Su medium-security prison will be the more permanent home to many from the complex, and those returning from Arizona.

During a question-and-answer meeting before the tours, Dan Fauske, CEO of Alaska Finance Housing Corp., discussed the reasons Alaska needs a new prison.

Some families of inmates from other states were winning cruel-and-unusual-punishment lawsuits against states that ship their inmate overflow out - similar to Alaska's transfer of prisoners to Arizona - Fauske said, in part because the distance makes it difficult to take advantage of visitation rights.

Fauske also assured assembly members that the prison would not lower property values. If people can live close to their work, they will. New homes, new businesses and extended utilities would bring higher property values, he said.

Senate Bill 65 set certain parameters for the construction costs of the new prison. Per-bed cost was estimated at $135,000. With inflation, it is now around $156,000. Extra delays mean extra costs, estimated by RISE Alaska at $50,000 per day of delay.

The contract will be a design/build process. Fauske said bond money has to be in the bank before the project can start. And, because the bonds can be refunded, the borough would not be liable if the project fell through.

With 400 to 600 new jobs to fill when the prison opens, Schmidt said he was optimistic DOC would find and train sufficient employees.

&#8220High schools dump out hundreds every May looking for these types of jobs,” he said. It is just a matter of recruiting.

On his return from Spring Creek Thursday, assembly member Kluberton said the maximum-security facility gave him a better sense of the footprint needed for Mat-Su's proposed prison.

&#8220It is a facility that needs a big perimeter,” he said.

It is far more palatable to have a surrounding population go to the prison rather than bring the prison to a population, he said.

The Hiland Mountain Correctional Facility in Eagle River is a good example, he said. The prison went in before other development, but due to its central location, there are now $500,000 homes built up against it.

The size of the proposed project requires careful planning for its location.

&#8220Kind of like landing a 747. Once you bring it in, the margin of error is very small,” Kluberton said.

With the new information for the prison visits, he said, Point MacKenzie still is the preferred site. &#8220It would take a wildcard at this point to change the equation,” Kluberton said.

Contact Russell Stigall at 352-2267 or russell.stigall@

frontiersman.com