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. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe federal government is very forgiving,\u201d he said shortly after officials, including Gov. Juan N. Babauta, were given a tour of the facility. \u201cThey know it\u2019s being built, they know the situation, they know the time and shipping constraints.\u201d <\/p>\n
The consent decree agreement, signed in 1999, required the island government to correct deplorable conditions in its prison.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
\u201cOnce the facility is technically complete and the U.S. Department of Justice sends its inspectors to certify that we\u2019ve met all the requirements, then the consent decree will probably be lifted,\u201d Babauta said.<\/p>\n
Hadaro disclosed that U.S. Department of Justice inspectors have inspected the facility on several occasions, and \u201clike what\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have testing and other things,\u201d he said. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll be taking water from the roof and two salt water wells\u2026all 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,\u201d Hadaro said.<\/p>\n
He said it would take a week to fill over 300,000 gallons of water.<\/p>\n
The facility consists of four major housing units, which would serve as housing for women, immigration detainees, as well as inmates requiring maximum security. <\/p>\n
The facility will also house federal marshal prisoners.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Federal] would pay on a daily basis to have their prisoners here,\u201d Hadaro said.<\/p>\n
Babauta said the administration will create a department\u2014Department of Corrections\u2014that will handle matters related to the facility. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur 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,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to put them through a program of rehabilitation so that if they can return to society as productive citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
About 40-60 additional personnel would be needed to run the facility on a 24-hour basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce 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\u2019re going to need,\u201d Babauta said.<\/p>\n
Further, Babauta said funding of operations would be \u201ca challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would have to be ready by then. Once the facility is up and operational, the challenge is to fund maintenance and utilities\u2026basically the cost of running the facility,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a challenge, so those are things that we would have to make sure we plan for accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cost of operations for the facility is estimated to be around $1 million a year, Hadaro said.<\/p>\n
Babauta said that funding to run the facility has yet to be confirmed. \u201cWe had to find additional funding to continue the construction of the facility because we weren\u2019t able to identify all of the funding.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Construction of the project began on April 5, 2002.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}