Tag: Charleston Correctional Center

W.Va. Park Uses Inmates to Fill Jobs

Kanawha County parks officials have made up for a shortage of summer workers at Coonskin Park by using prison inmates.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports Parks Director Jeff Hutchinson told members of the Kanawha County Parks and Recreation Commission that 11 inmates from the Charleston Correctional Center began work at the park this week.

The inmates are cutting grass, trimming weeds, painting and doing maintenance. Hutchinson says all the inmates are non-violent offenders in the process of being released on parole.

Hutchinson made arrangements with the state Department of Corrections to provide part-time labor in the park after struggling with an ongoing problem getting and keeping workers. Inmates supply the work for free, in exchange for lunch.

Charleston Correctional Center Increases Access to Community Based Treatment

Offenders looking for treatment and rehabilitation within their communities now have a new home in a Charleston facility that celebrated its opening today. 

Dozens of Division of Corrections employees joined with state and local officials to celebrate the opening of the Charleston Correctional Center on the city’s East End Thursday.

The 40,000 square-foot facility has 96 beds for both male and female work-release participants and an additional 32 bed female Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Unit.

The facility is part of Governor Tomblin’s larger plan to reduce incarceration rates in West Virginia by focusing on community based treatment options for non-violent offenders. That plan started with the governors’ Justice Reinvestment Act passed by lawmakers during the 2013 legislative session.

“The problems of substance abuse, the problems with criminal justice, they’re not going to be solved in this next year. They’re not going to be solved in Gov. Tomblin’s term. They’re not going to be solved most likely for a long time,” Joseph Garcia, Tomblin’s legislative affairs director said during the dedication ceremony, “but what we can do and what Gov. Tomblin has strived to do is build a foundation to face these problems.”

The Charleston Correctional Center will replace an aging Charleston Work-Release Center that currently houses 60 offenders.

The new building will also hold the offices of the West Virginia Parole Board. 

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