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Nevada: State prepares to take over CCA prison.

Brian Allen, Reporter
Women's Prison Plan For North Las Vegas

(Aug. 17) -- Eyewitness News investigates a new plan for the state's women's prison in North Las Vegas. Since opening in 1997, it has been privately operated by the Corrections Corporation of America. In October the state will take over and they promise a whole new way of doing business.

They're not the words you'd expect to hear from a veteran prison guard. "I treat the inmates the way I want to be treated. You treat them with respect." Robin Kiser's golden rule has carried her through a 20-year career at prisons in five states; she's now training in jean for a new job at the North Las Vegas women's prison.

"It's no girl scout camp being there." Dorothy Nash Holmes with the Department of Corrections is fashioning a new plan for the facility. "Women are very emotional and needy. With women you really have to focus on the pathways that got them into prison."

When the state takes over, there will be many additions: a full time psychiatrist and psychologist and 11 other staff members focusing on drug addiction and mental health, making for a prison that provides punishment and progress. "It's individual work, it's group therapy, it's them looking at themselves and doing some of their own therapy really."

Also by design, 70-percent of the prison's employees will be female. The new warden, Jennifer Lozosky, is a woman and says it just makes sense. "I think it's a safe decision as far as having female staff with female inmates during pat searches, strip searches."

The state also wants to avoid a repeat of last year's case of a male guard impregnating a female inmate. By reassuming control of this facility, the state hopes to avoid any future controversies and will instead focus on a plan they say will provide imprisonment can lead to improvement.

The state has conducted research as it prepares for the October 1 take-over date. They found over 50-percent of the inmates in North Las Vegas were the victims of sexual assault, while 85-percent had problems with drug and alcohol abuse.
http://www.klastv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2186914&nav=168YPyNp