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Juveniles at the Dona Ana County Detention Center were moved into the adult detention center. County Spokesperson Jess Williams said minor construction was done to keep them secluded from the adult population.
“We consolidated the two,” Williams said. “So, that we have a lower overall inmate to staff ratio. We’ve made some construction modifications to the adult center so that the juveniles were completely separated sight and sound from the adults. They have their own medical area, they have their own recreational area, they have their own booking, they have their own release. Everything is separate, so there won’t be any interaction.”
Williams says the move was necessary because of the low staffing issues, something he says the county is working on.
“Well it’s really hard to recruit and retain people,” Williams said. “That’s a very hard job and a lot of people think they want to do it, and then they get in and realize there in jail. So, it’s a difficult job to keep people in, but we’re doing everything we can. We’re ramping up our recruitment efforts, and we’re going to continue to run academies and get that place back up to full staffing. So, we can continue re-open the juvenile center and get up to full capacity again.”
At first, people were concerned that the juveniles may have to be moved to a facility in Gallup, but Williams says this is a better option.
“All the stakeholders have come to the table,” Williams said. “We’ve determined that the best course of action to meet our needs in terms of staffing, and to meet the juveniles needs is not to farm them out to other facilities in other counties. But to keep them right here where they can go through their court processes, they are close to their support networks and to their defense teams, so we think it’s a win win for everybody.”
Another concern raised was that the county was not communicating with all of the stakeholders involved, Judge Fernando Macias says that all of the stakeholders came together to help with this plan.
“There was a little concern that was voiced at the beginning,” Macias said. “By some of the partners, some of the stakeholders in this process that suggested that the communication wasn’t good at the beginning, there may have been some lapse in that communication, but once we sat down with the county they were very flexible in exploring alternatives to what was the original plan, and you can see the result of it with this plan.”
Macias says that this is the best option for the juveniles while the county deals with the low staffing issue.
“Certainly the courts would have preferred that we not have to exercise this option,” Macias said. “And I think that we were very clear that what we wanted to see was the continuation of the full time operation of the juvenile facility. We understand the situation that the county is in, we believe that the county can address that situation, and I believe that certainly this is a temporary measure only.”
Currently the detention center has 54 officer vacancies.
