Prison has few inmates

The inmates are coming from Baltimore, eastern Virginia and D.C.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- With 130 federal detainees, the newly reopened private prison on Hubbard Road is operating at roughly 6 percent capacity.
The Northeast Ohio Correctional Center, a 2,106-bed facility, is double-bunking the 130 inmates and therefore using a very small area to house them, Roseann Rubosky, public information officer, said Tuesday.
The prison, mothballed in July 2001, reopened in early April when it contracted with the U.S. Marshals Service to hold sentenced federal inmates. The inmates stay until placed in nearby federal prisons in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Rubosky said inmates are coming mostly from the Baltimore, Md., area, eastern Virginia and Washington, D.C. A few inmates also came from southern California to be placed in federal prisons east of the Mississippi river, she said.
Arrive twice a week
Rubosky said inmates generally arrive twice a week by van or bus from districts that have overcrowded county jails. Once sentenced, federal inmates typically stay in county jails until placed in a federal prison, which can take up to 45 days.
The marshals service pays NOCC about $70 per inmate per day. In turn, NOCC pays Mahoning County an administrative fee of just under $3 per inmate per day.
NOCC takes what has been termed the "overflow" of federal inmates from the Mahoning County jail, which recently increased its federal inmate population from 70 to 100. The county receives the going rate of $70 per day per inmate.
As of Tuesday, the county jail held 97 federal inmates, said sheriff's Maj. Michael Budd. To increase capacity, 40 beds were added last month to allow double-bunking in cells that had been equipped with only one bed, he said.
Operating at 6 percent capacity hasn't deterred Corrections Corporation of America, NOCC parent company based in Nashville, Tenn.
"We're very happy it has reopened and, with time, hopefully it will be [fully] utilized," said Steve Owen, CCA spokesman in Nashville. "I don't think we would have invested the money to reopen if we didn't think it would be viable."
Owen said CCA continues to market the prison at the state and federal level. He declined to identify any potential takers.
"It would be wonderful if we filled it up with federal inmates," Rubosky said. "This is first time this facility operated this way with marshal detainees."
First federal inmates
She said other CCA facilities house federal inmates but this is the first time for NOCC.
To reopen, NOCC hired 135 employees. Officials have said that to partly reopen and remain viable, NOCC would need 300 to 500 inmates.
In its heyday, NOCC had 400 employees and an annual payroll of $11 million and paid the city $250,000 in income tax its last year.
meade@vindy.com