‘Prison delay will not affect consent decree’

The delay in the completion of the new adult prison facility project in Susupe, estimated to cost about $20 million, will not hamper the consent decree agreement between the federal government and the CNMI, according to construction administrator Alexander Hadaro.

“The federal government is very forgiving,” he said shortly after officials, including Gov. Juan N. Babauta, were given a tour of the facility. “They know it’s being built, they know the situation, they know the time and shipping constraints.”

The consent decree agreement, signed in 1999, required the island government to correct deplorable conditions in its prison.

Under the deal, the CNMI will adhere to fire and safety codes, provide livable conditions for inmates, promote sanitary measures in food handling as well as secure medical screening and health standards for prisoners and improve security within the facility.

“Once the facility is technically complete and the U.S. Department of Justice sends its inspectors to certify that we’ve met all the requirements, then the consent decree will probably be lifted,” Babauta said.

Hadaro disclosed that U.S. Department of Justice inspectors have inspected the facility on several occasions, and “like what’s happening.”

The construction of the facility, which Hadaro said is about 85-percent complete, is expected to be completed by December. He said, though, that it would only be ready for use in March 2005.

“We still have testing and other things,” he said. “The guards have to be trained on the systems, mechanical systems have to be tested to run the water, generator, and we have to wait for approval from the federal and local government.”

The facility is capable of housing 344 prisoners, and could be upgraded to accommodate about 600 inmates, and includes a 600,000 gallon water tank with its own osmosis system, air conditioners, and televisions, among others.

“We’ll be taking water from the roof and two salt water wells…all will be mixed together and will run through an osmosis system and then that system will be fed into the building. That water will be as good,” Hadaro said.

He said it would take a week to fill over 300,000 gallons of water.

The facility consists of four major housing units, which would serve as housing for women, immigration detainees, as well as inmates requiring maximum security.

The facility will also house federal marshal prisoners.

“[Federal] would pay on a daily basis to have their prisoners here,” Hadaro said.

Babauta said the administration will create a department—Department of Corrections—that will handle matters related to the facility.

“Our aim in the creation of the Department of Corrections is that we want to view the department as [one] that has the overall mission of rehabilitation of prisoners as opposed to just throwing them into prison and forgetting about them,” he said. “We want to put them through a program of rehabilitation so that if they can return to society as productive citizens.”

About 40-60 additional personnel would be needed to run the facility on a 24-hour basis.

“Once we appoint a secretary of the department, that person will be working with people who knows what it takes to run the facility, and we will make a determination on how many people we’re going to need,” Babauta said.

Further, Babauta said funding of operations would be “a challenge.”

“We would have to be ready by then. Once the facility is up and operational, the challenge is to fund maintenance and utilities…basically the cost of running the facility,” he said. “It’s going to be a challenge, so those are things that we would have to make sure we plan for accordingly.”

Cost of operations for the facility is estimated to be around $1 million a year, Hadaro said.

Babauta said that funding to run the facility has yet to be confirmed. “We had to find additional funding to continue the construction of the facility because we weren’t able to identify all of the funding.”

Babauta said the old Corrections facility would be used either as an expansion of the new facility or kept by the Department of Public Safety.

Construction of the project began on April 5, 2002.