Toward the back of Casa Grande Transitional Center's seven-acre Russell Road campus are two apartment-style buildings with 50 rooms each—housing quarters for up to 400 minimum-security inmates sent here to live and get jobs as they transition back into society. Inside the first-floor office of the southeast-area building, an officer sits in front a computer watching more than a dozen still frames of various spots on campus: bathrooms, inmate units, outdoors. The whole place is under surveillance.
Three inmates form a line near the officer's desk. One of them is coated in sweat and grunge, likely from the hard-labor jobs (construction and the like) held by the majority of Casa Grande's 283 residents. Another has a backpack on, presumably headed for other work. The last appears antsy and jumpy, like a kid who needs to go to the bathroom. He's eying the clock.
As soon as they leave for work, inmates have a set amount of time, usually two hours, to get back to campus. Clock in late or not at all and they risk losing their placement and their relative freedom.
"Every inmate has a movement plan," says Albert Diaz, Casa Grande's correctional manager. "They have to sign in and out. We know their work schedules, when they depart and when they arrive. We verify employment. We do on-site work checks—we don't show up in officers' uniforms, we show up in regular clothes. We conduct inmate counts and we also have 16 correctional officers on staff."
Necessary precautions, all. These are inmates, after all. Minimum security (purportedly the least risky because theirs are mostly property and drug crimes) and four months away from being released, but inmates nonetheless. But Casa Grande is not a prison in the truest sense. There are no cells, residents have freedom leave if approved and work is mandatory (they pay $16.85 a day for room and board and are employed by more than 61 companies). And because inmates are trusted to behave once they're off grounds, if they decide, Hey, I don't want to come back, there's really no stopping them.
Since December, 24 inmates have signed out and then bailed. All but a handful have been captured. Some, like 35-year-old Chante Stafford, serving one to two and a half years for battery with substantial harm, bounced just weeks before being released from the program.
"I won't comment on the intellect of some of our inmates," quips Howard Skolnik, deputy director of the Nevada Department of Corrections and my tour guide.
There's a sterile feel to Casa Grande. Most of the classrooms where inmates receive life skills and job readiness training are empty. Two mattresses take up most of the darkened room where the state's prison industries program—makers of everything from vehicle licenses to furniture—will go. Four workers sit outside the massive but empty kitchen. Chicken is on the menu tonight. Skolnik says most of the food is "pretty damn good." Diaz blames the heat for the empty basketball court and volleyball pit. It's eerily quiet, too quiet almost, like something's about to happen, or like all 283 inmates just up and left.
"If they leave, they can be categorized as escapees," Skolnik says. "We refer the cases to the attorney general's office. The AG can prosecute the escape as a new crime, which can take away good time and lengthen sentences, and they will never have an opportunity to be housed in anything below medium-security sentencing again."
Therein lies the dilemma of where to draw the line over monitoring inmates: How much freedom is too much freedom? At least with the three-hots-and-a-cot approach, you can control their movements.
Lawmakers approved the $23 million Casa Grande to tackle Nevada's above-the-national-average recidivism rate. Nearly 70 percent of the 1,600 inmates annually released from Nevada prisons eventually return to the system within two to three years, compared to 66 percent nationally. If they don't have family, friends, a support network or skills honed via a job with the prison industries work program, Skolnik bemoans their chances of staying out. "All they get is the $25 every inmate receives upon release," he says.
Casa Grande is seen as a way to save millions on incarceration, improve the economy—"Inmates work in all areas, from construction, culinary, fast-food restaurants, the automotive industry," Skolnik says—and reduce crime. Seventy-five percent of residents (213) have jobs and 10.5 percent (25) are searching—45 inmates lack proper identification to pursue employment. Casa Grande averages 50 or so new inmates each month, Diaz says. June had an unusually high 116. The general length of stay is four months. Diaz says dozens have successfully graduated.
Purposely precluded from participating in the program are violent offenders, sex offenders and criminals Skolnik says are too risky. As such, he says the escapees aren't a really big concern. "Two walked away a few days ago," he says.
In a matter of weeks, he says, they'd have been on the streets anyway: "Most [of the inmates who left] went home and their families called to tell us where they were. We haven't had any problems so far [with inmates re-offending]. Knock on wood."
Frederick Jenkins says he'd be nervous if he was tossed into society without a support network. After serving time for possession of a stolen vehicle, he went to a prison camp. The next step would've been a halfway house, then to the streets. Once done at Casa Grande, he says he'll be ready for a halfway house.
"I'm dealing with real people daily. I can express myself. I don't have corrections officers standing in the way of my goals. I don't have to worry about violence," he says. "I'm interested in coming back to the community slowly."
Anthony Bowley, 28, plans to return to Reno and pursue firefighting after his time is up. Desperate for methamphetamine, he got a 12-month-to-34-month sentence for embezzlement of a motor vehicle. While incarcerated, he worked for the Nevada Division of Forestry. When not cleaning cat cages for an animal shelter, he's taking anger management and substance abuse classes. "This place is helping me turn around," Bowley says.
One disgruntled former employee claims that Choices Group Inc., the private company offering drug counseling to Casa Grande inmates, means well but is ineffective. "They don't have the right people to deal with that kind of element over there," says the source, who was fired earlier this year. Casa Grande has a small medical unit. An inmate was getting his blood pressure taken during our visit.
"Guys who have drug problems are being assessed as not having drug problems and once they get out in the community, they get tempted," the source says.
A Choices representative declined comment on the allegations, saying the corporate office handles all media requests. A phone message left with Providence Service Corp., which runs Choices, wasn't returned.
Skolnik says inmate quarters are routinely searched for narcotics and that other remnants of prison life—violence between inmates and inmate-on-staff assaults—are nonexistent.
"I will say that we are understaffed, 16 corrections officers for up to 400 inmates. We hope to get more resources in the next legislative session," he says. "Nothing has happened so far, knock on wood."