NORTHEAST OHIO CORRECTIONAL CENTER Plan would shift inmates

The proposal would add jobs but cost county jails millions.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Up to 375 federal detainees housed in 10 county jails in Ohio could be moved to the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center, a federal official said Wednesday.
"My goal is to consolidate the inmates," U.S. Marshal Peter J. Elliott said Wednesday. "If everything is in place, we'll move pretty quick." While the decision is not final, he said few issues remain.
The NOCC population is around 400, 125 from Elliot's Northern District of Ohio, the balance mostly low-risk federal detainees from Washington, D.C. and Virginia. The prison receives around $65 per inmate per day.
The transfer would be good news for NOCC, which has never come close to its 2,106 capacity since it opened in 1997 and was closed for three years between July 2001 and April 2004 after it lost a federal prisoner contract. NOCC expects to hire 320 employees to manage the increased population. The private prison is on Hubbard Road.
The plan, however, is a blow to county jails, which get $70 per day to house federal inmates and used the money to cushion cuts to their funding.
Mahoning County would still get about $3 per inmate housed at NOCC but could lose more than $5,000 per day for housing federal detainees in the county jail.
Conditions
Indeed it was deteriorating conditions at the county jail that motivated Elliott to consider the switch to NOCC.
The loss of sales tax revenue means county jails are understaffed and the U.S. Marshals Service needs to ensure the best facilities it can for inmates awaiting court hearings or placement in federal prisons, he said.
Elliott said roughly 30 federal inmates were moved to NOCC from the Trumbull County jail within the past month. Mahoning County has about 80 federal detainees.
Elliott noted that Mahoning County is waiting for a federal judge to rule on its jail conditions. Akron lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of inmates, alleging understaffing and overcrowding.
"I do not know what is going to happen with that lawsuit. That is also one of my concerns," Elliott said. "The federal judge may come back and order all those [federal] inmates out of Mahoning County."
He also said consolidating inmates now in Ohio jails would save "tons of money" for the Marshals Service. The savings includes transportation.
Tour
Elliott and Police Chief Robert E. Bush Jr. held a news conference Wednesday at The Bean Counter downtown before touring the private prison on the city's East Side.
Afterward, Elliott said the tour went well and was very informative, and only a few issues remain.
He had wanted to make sure that the prison can keep certain inmates, such as witnesses, separate from others. "They'll be able to do that," he said after the tour.
Elliott said no decision was reached Wednesday, and he'll wait for NOCC officials to get back to him.
Bush said he suggested to Elliott that federal prisoners now housed in counties with financial problems be moved to NOCC.
He said increasing the prison's population means more staff, which ultimately benefits Youngstown and surrounding areas. He said it's not a mandate of the sheriff's departments to house federal detainees.
In December 2004, the Federal Bureau of Prisons awarded a contract to Corrections Corporation of America of Nashville, parent company of NOCC. The contract calls for the federal government to use about half of capacity, housing 1,195 prisoners classified as low-security at NOCC. That population number will remain in effect for four years.
Damon Hininger, CCA's vice president of federal customer relations, has said the contract requires NOCC to start taking inmates around July 1.
Most of those coming are designate as "criminal aliens," men who illegally have entered the country and who have committed some type of federal offense.
CCA will be paid $129 million during the initial four-year contract period. It also will have three, two-year options to extend the contract.
The prison opened in 1997 and was mothballed in July 2001, when it lost its contract to house federal prisoners. It reopened in early April 2004, when it contracted with the U.S. Marshals Service to hold sentenced federal inmates from the Washington, D.C., area.