By Amanda Iacone

Virginia Statehouse News

RICHMOND – Virginia is running out of room to house offenders convicted of sexual crimes at a mental rehabilitation center and the state now has plans to open a second facility in Brunswick County.

Southern Virginia lawmakers support plans to renovate the closed Brunswick Correctional Facility because it would bring much needed jobs to the region.

“It’s a shame that it’s sitting vacant. It actually costs money for the state to sit on it,”said Sen. Frank Ruff, R-Clarksville.

The closed prison would house offenders who are civilly committed by a judge using the state’s sexual violent predator program.  It would serve as a step-down facility for offenders as they prepare to transition back to their home town.

Gov. Bob McDonnell has requested that the Legislature give him authority to borrow $43.5 million to renovate the former prison and provide 300 beds in Brunswick. He also requested another $24.4 million to continue operating the existing facility in Nottoway County and to ensure it can run at full capacity.

The Nottoway facility, which is called the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation, is not a prison and is not run by the Department of Corrections.  Offenders are assessed during their last 10 months in prison to determine whether they are eligible from the program. Offenders eventually go through a civil trial to determine whether they are to be released or sent through the predator program.

In 2008, the state opened the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation and hoped it would eventually house 300 offenders. By the beginning of December, the facility housed 239 men, according to a report by the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, which operates the facility.

Legislators provided funding to staff and house only 200 inmates for the current two-year budget.

Lawmakers also expanded the number of crimes that make prison inmates eligible for the program from four to 28. That increased the number of eligible inmates by 350 percent and has bolstered the need for another building, according to a report by the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services.

General fund dollars would repay what is a relatively small bond issue. In comparison, the governor has proposed issuing $3 billion in bonds to fund transportation projects.

Borrowing for Brunswick will have to be considered along with all other spending. But if the building is needed, lawmakers may not have much choice, said Del. Thomas Wright, R-Victoria.

Del. Roslyn Tyler and Sen. Louise Lucas, both Democrats who also represent the area, could not be reached for comment.

The Brunswick facility once employed 700 to 800 people. Its closure in late 2009 was devastating to the town of Lawrenceville, Ruff said.

The southern part of the state was hurting before the recession hit, and officials from the area fought to keep the facility open. But it fell victim to budget cuts, Wright said.

The facility had provided jobs to workers in Brunswick and surrounding counties, he said.

“We are really suffering. We need jobs. That’s why we are very anxious to see this facility reopen and put people back to work,” Wright said.

Neither Huff nor Wright is concerned about housing men who have been convicted of rape or child molestation in their district.

Wright lives 18 miles from the Nottoway facility, and he said he has heard no complaints and there have been no problems there. He said the state will take proper steps to keep the offenders secure.

Constructing the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation in Nottoway County sparked some controversy, however. Residents there worried about their safety and whether the offenders would be released to Nottoway instead of  their original home communities, said Ronnie Roark, the county’s administrator.

But those concerns proved unfounded and the facility has helped put people to work and secured the jobs of the workers at the nearby Piedmont Geriatric Hospital, which helped staff the Nottoway facility, Roark said.