Nebraska unveils reimagined Reception and Treatment Center in southwest Lincoln

Gov. Pete Ricketts and a number of officers with the Nebraska Division of Correctional Providers toured the brand new portion of the ability in southwest Lincoln at a personal occasion Wednesday morning forward of the middle’s official opening subsequent Monday.

The brand new construction, constructed atop a former parking zone that used to separate the Lincoln Correctional Heart and the Diagnostic and Analysis Heart on West Van Dorn Road, is outfitted with state-of-the-art amenities that might be shared by the populations, stated Scott Frakes, who has led the division of corrections since 2015.

“It is a massive day for this division,” Frakes instructed a crowd of round two dozen jail officers, building and design representatives and reporters earlier than main a tour of the brand new facility.

Frakes stated the complicated “is the proper instance of when you’ll be able to take, on this case, two outdated prisons, rehab them, rework them, add new area, make changes and switch it into one trendy, extremely useful jail. And there is no query that is what we have completed.”

The brand new construction contains an consumption middle the place practically each man admitted into the state’s jail system might be processed earlier than being assigned to a long-term location, be it the Nebraska State Penitentiary, the Tecumseh State Correctional Establishment or a wing of the Reception and Therapy Heart itself, Frakes stated.

Additionally included within the new construction is a 32-bed expert nursing facility, 32 behavioral and psychological well being beds, an on-site dentist’s workplace and expanded medical middle, a brand new kitchen, three inmate meals halls, a spacious visiting middle and expanded amenities for jail workers, together with a health middle and a exercise room.

And the crown jewel of the $125 million undertaking, Frakes stated, is a 384-bed most safety wing, which is able to start to deal with inmates later this summer time, a improvement that ought to assist ease overcrowding on the state’s different prisons, significantly on the former Diagnostic and Analysis Heart. 

“That is gonna give us the flexibility to lastly get again all the way down to operational degree, operational capability — maybe even under,” Frakes stated, earlier than pausing to knock on the picket lectern he stood behind. “It has been years. But it surely’s time.”

When completed, Warden Taggart Boyd stated, the 384-bed wing would be the highest-security jail within the state.

Ricketts, who heralded the work of Frakes and Boyd, stated the undertaking’s completion aligned together with his personal administration’s most important precedence: to develop Nebraska. The governor stated the undertaking has introduced greater than 200 out-of-state workers from 36 completely different states to work on the new Lincoln jail.

Frakes credited Ricketts with recognizing the significance of the undertaking’s preliminary phases — in addition to a looming third section that may come within the type of a further 96-bed facility on the similar complicated, which is able to embrace 32 geriatric beds and 64 beds for cognitively impaired or developmentally disabled inmates.

When the 384-bed wing opens later this summer time, Frakes stated the Reception and Therapy Heart’s operational capability will increase to round 1,350 — a determine that won’t be as malleable as inhabitants totals on the State Penitentiary resulting from American Correctional Affiliation requirements.

As of now, the southwest Lincoln amenities home roughly 1,105 inmates.

Frakes stated the still-in-progress most safety amenities may function a mannequin of types for a brand new jail that the director and governor each hope will exchange the growing older State Penitentiary.

However he was adamant the addition of beds on the Reception and Therapy Heart wouldn’t remove the necessity for additional funding into the division, whether or not it comes within the type of a considerable rework on the State Penitentiary or a brand new jail altogether. Frakes would like the latter.

“The NSP alternative speaks for itself,” he stated. “A method or one other, we’ve got to do one thing.”