The ribbon cutting Tuesday of the Golden Grove Correctional Facility expansion project on St. Croix was one of mixed emotions.
While the $24 million project came in $1 million under budget and ahead of schedule, and will alleviate having to house local prisoners in costly mainland penitentiaries, the reality not lost on anyone in attendance was that the project increases the number of Virgin Islanders who can be locked up. The expansion adds 280 beds to Golden Grove, bringing the total to approximately 600, including 125 for short-term detainees.
"It says something about us as a community . . . when we have to increase the number of beds" in the prison, Senate President Almando "Rocky" Liburd said. "Each of us has a role to play to make this community a better place. It’s not about locking people down but maximizing the potential."
The expansion was mandated by a consent decree between the federal and local governments to end overcrowding. It also allowed the V.I. government to bring back approximately 140 local prisoners being held in mainland jails, said V.I. Attorney General Iver Stridiron, who oversees the V.I. Bureau of Corrections. That move, completed last month, spurred the federal government to forgive the territory’s nearly $10 million housing cost debt but also ended $200,000-a-month payments.
"Yes, it is unfortunate that we have to build new prison facilities . . . but it is better than risking overcrowding," said Brian Turnbull, program coordinator for the Public Finance Authority, the agency that managed the project’s funding. "A better facility translates into a better-protected prisoner."
Currently, about 400 prisoners are doing time at Golden Grove, along with 73 federal immigration detainees for whom the V.I. government can charge the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
On Tuesday, Gov. Charles Turnbull said he would have rather been presiding over a school or library expansion. Still, he noted that the expansion project was a measure of progress for his financially troubled government.
"Yes, crime is going down but there is still too much crime," he said. "One crime is too many."
Under a soon-to-be signed agreement with the Commonwealth of Virginia, about a dozen prisoners, including the twice-escaped murder convict Bradley "Hurtie" Maxwell, will be sent back to maximum security prisons, Stridiron said. The cost to house those prisoners off-island will be roughly the same as it would be to hold them locally, he said.
Golden Grove Prison opened in 1973 with 135 beds and 115 inmates.
