Newton prison to house 200 sex offenders for treatment

10-15-15 Iowa:

Iowa Department of Corrections officials plan to move the state’s sex offender treatment program, which serves about 200 inmates with criminal histories of sex crimes, to the Newton Correctional Facility.

State Corrections Director Jerry Bartruff confirmed this week to the Des Moines Register that a decision has been made to shift the program to Newton from the Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility, where it has operated for decades. The treatment is provided to inmates with backgrounds of crimes ranging from rape to child molestation.

The program's impending move is news to local officials in Newton — about 35 miles east of Des Moines — who say they haven’t received any advance notice about the changes.

“This is the first I have heard about it. This is going to catch people by surprise, quite frankly,” said state Rep. Dan Kelley, D-Newton.

The Mount Pleasant prison, which houses a total of 875 inmates, has a dormitory-style environment that has prevented the treatment of some sex offenders for security or disciplinary reasons, Bartruff said.

In contrast, the medium-security Newton prison — which has about 1,300 inmates confined to cells and dormitories — offers a more versatile and secure setting that will permit the treatment of more sex offenders, Bartruff said.

Assistant Corrections Director Fred Scaletta said a work group representing both institutions will be formed to develop a transition plan and a timeline for implementing the changes.

“This will take quite a bit of time, several months, to get done, but there will be no reduction in staff” at either state prison, Scaletta said.

The future mission for the Mount Pleasant prison will focus on preparing inmates for release to the community, as well as substance abuse treatment, and housing inmates classified as part of the general prison population, Scaletta said.

As part of the shift, the Mount Pleasant prison will be downgraded from a medium-security environment to a minimum-security facility, which means there will be fewer restrictions on inmate movement.

State Sen. Chaz Allen, D-Newton, and Frank Liebl, executive director of the Newton Development Corp, both said they had no knowledge about plans to move the sex offender treatment program to the Newton prison until they were contacted this week by a reporter.

But neither said they had any immediate worries and they don’t expert alarm in the community.

“The prison has been out there a long time” with relatively few problems, Allen said. “In talking with folks at both facilities, this is a better plan because Newton is a secure facility and Mount Pleasant is not as secure.”

Scaletta said state prison officials hadn’t intended any secrecy behind the shift of the sex offender treatment program from Mount Pleasant to Newton. He said the Iowa Board of Corrections had been advised of the changes at a public meeting, and legislative caucus staffs and some legislators were also aware of the plans.

State Rep. David Heaton, R-Mount Pleasant, said he initially felt apprehension when he heard about plans to shift the sex offender program to Newton. But he’s been assured by employees at the Mount Pleasant prison that it’s a positive change and there will be no loss of staff. He added that Newton residents shouldn’t have any worries about public safety after the sex offender program is moved to the state prison there.

“We have had hundreds of sex offenders here for years, and we haven’t had any incidents locally,” Heaton said.

State Sen. Rich Taylor, D-Mount Pleasant, said he doesn’t’ necessarily agree with all of the changes. But he recognizes that Bartruff — who assumed Iowa’s top corrections post earlier this year — may have a different perspective.

“I think he is trying to do a good job and we have to give him a chance to run the department the way he thinks it needs to be run,” Taylor said.

A total of 191 inmates are currently receiving sex offender treatment at Mount Pleasant. Their average stay in the program is 11.3 months, although the tracks for treatment vary based upon an inmate’s risk to reoffend. ..Source.. by William Petroski