Aging Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center in Devore quickly closing for renovations

The getting older Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center in Devore will quickly near endure renovations, transferring its 303 inmates to different jails throughout San Bernardino County and reassigning its workers, the Sheriff’s Department introduced Tuesday, Aug. 6.

The closure will happen over the following a number of months, however sheriff’s officers wouldn’t disclose a exact date due to security considerations.

Inmates and workers are anticipated to largely be relocated to the High Desert Detention Center in Adelanto, which opened in 2006, was expanded in February 2014 and is including 353 jail beds beneath the third section of its development, officers stated.

“The reassignment of workers will enable the division to fully open all housing models at HDDC,” in keeping with a Sheriff’s Department information launch. “With the county-funded staffing at HDDC, the division will be capable of provide a extra sturdy psychological well being and medical companies to the next acuity inmate.”

Sheriff’s spokesperson Gloria Huerta stated in an electronic mail that the closure won’t have an effect on Glen Helen’s vocational packages, together with the culinary and baking program through which inmates can acquire meals handler’s certificates to assist them get jobs within the meals service trade upon their launch from custody. Nor will the closure have an effect on the jail’s work launch program, Huerta stated.

Just as its identify implies, the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center is an establishment tailor-made to rehabilitate inmates and supply them important life expertise, providing each court-ordered and voluntary tutorial, vocational and cognitive courses, 12-step packages, disaster counseling and non secular companies, in keeping with the jail’s webpage.

Additionally, in response to California jail realignment that took impact in October 2011, the Sheriff’s Department partnered with the San Bernardino County Fire Department in 2013 to launch an inmate firefighter pilot program on the jail, and opened an 8-acre inmate hearth camp.

Huerta additionally stated the jail closure won’t create overcrowding issues at any of the county’s different jails.

“Our day by day inmate inhabitants in all our jails is under what is required to redistribute the inmates,” Huerta stated in an electronic mail. “This won’t trigger overcrowding and we’ll nonetheless have mattress area out there for brand spanking new arrests.”

The 64-year-old Glen Helen opened in 1960, first working as a piece camp for males whereas additionally housing the sheriff’s coaching academy earlier than it later moved to a web site simply north of the jail. The ladies’s facility opened in 1988, and the utmost safety unit was added in 2003.

Glen Helen, in keeping with its web site, has an inmate capability of 1,446 and averages about 800 female and male whole inmates day by day. But as of Tuesday, the jail was solely housing 303 inmates, in keeping with the Sheriff’s Department. It was not instantly clear why the jail was housing lower than half of its common day by day inmate inhabitants.

“It’s a extremely outdated facility, and the actual fact they need to renovate it does make some sense,” stated Donald Specter, a senior workers lawyer on the Prison Law Office in Berkeley, a nonprofit advocating for prisoner civil rights.

Glen Helen, in keeping with the Sheriff’s Department, in the end will reopen as “a future re-entry facility for the whole corrections system,” serving to inmates transition from jail again into the neighborhood. The renovations will price $10 million and are available from capital enchancment funds, in keeping with the Sheriff’s Department.

“These are thrilling instances throughout the corrections bureau of the Sheriff’s Department. I couldn’t be extra happy with the workers and their revolutionary concepts to take us into the longer term and supply the very best re-entry expertise for our incarcerated individuals returning to the neighborhood,” Sheriff Shannon D. Dicus stated within the launch.

Although the information launch stated the Board of Supervisors authorised the third and ultimate section of the High Desert Detention Center in July, there was no indication of that on agendas from the board’s two common conferences in July, nor on a July 30 particular assembly agenda.

“The Board of Supervisors helps the Sheriff in his efforts to securely and effectively function the county’s jail system, which is beneath his purview with funding allotted by the board,” county spokesperson David Wert stated in an announcement on Tuesday. “The board has all the time valued its partnership with the Sheriff’s Department in offering county residents with the very best stage of public security. We plan to work intently with the Sheriff to judge his proposal for a reconfiguration of the Glen Helen facility to serve the general public.”

Supervisor Joe Baca Jr., whose district contains Glen Helen, didn’t reply to repeated requests for remark.