Panel examines state prison needs

CARSON CITY -- Corrections Director Howard Skolnik said Tuesday that the Southern Desert Correctional Center and other prisons are about to "implode" because water, sewer and other infrastructure have not been expanded to accommodate the increase in prison beds.

Skolnik told the newly appointed Advisory Commission on the Administration of Justice that the prison in Indian Springs, which now houses 1,630 inmates, will add beds for 480 more prisoners under the $300 million prison construction program approved by the Legislature.

"At this point, there have been no plans to increase the infrastructure, which means it will implode when we put all those people in," he said. "The sewers will back up, the water will stop running and the electricity will be inadequate."

Skolnik said the same problem exists at most other prisons across the state. Appropriations have been approved to construct new cells to handle an increased prison population, but additional infrastructure to handle the growth remains in the planning stages.

"Prisons are self-contained cities," he said. "They need everything a city has, from water to sewer to everything in between."

There have been 18 water-main breaks at the Southern Desert prison, he said.

"We have lost millions of gallons of water. We have to tell inmates they can't take showers because the pipe broke again."

Skolnik spent three hours addressing the panel directed by the Legislature to evaluate the effectiveness of the prison system and the state Board of Parole Commissioners.

"Our department has not received the funding that was required for many, many years," he said. "We have an old infrastructure that has not been properly maintained."

The commission, chaired by Supreme Court Justice Jim Hardesty, must prepare a report with recommendations for improvements by Oct. 1, 2008.

"We aren't just going to make speeches here," Hardesty said. "We are going to sit down and work."

But he noted three previous commissions since 1997 have prepared reports on prison and parole problems and few of their recommendations have become law.

"My biggest complaint about the reports is they sit on a shelf and there is no follow-through," Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said.

Skolnik became director of the department in February, after the retirement of Glenn Whorton.

In his presentation, Skolnik noted that at the end of June there were 13,159 inmates in the prison system, about 1,000 more than projected. That number is expected to grow to 20,956 by June 2017. Prison officials have announced they need $1.9 billion over the decade to add facilities to handle the growth.

Because he only recently became director, Skolnik said in an interview that he did not prepare the prison system's budget request to the 2007 Legislature. He said he hopes funds for prison infrastructure improvements will be approved at the 2009 Legislature.

"I got the beds. I don't know if we will get anything else."