Editorial: Sex-offender unit must deliver on its promises

Considering economies of scale as well as humane treatment, it makes sense to think about placing inmates convicted of similar abhorrent sex crimes in the same prison. Intuitively, the grouping should reduce the need for protective solitary confinement as well as help ensure a streamlined delivery of treatment options to offenders who ultimately will rejoin society, whether society wants them to or not.

But there are questions surrounding the state’s choice of controversy-plagued jail operator Management and Training Corp. of Utah to take charge of its 288 predators in an Otero County lockup.

From a taxpayer standpoint it sounds good to shell out just $71 a day for each inmate’s care rather than the state standard of $108 a day or even the state’s private-contract amount of $87 a day. It sounds even better if that amount includes treatment for compulsions many of those inmates apparently are not getting now.

But MTC has a troubled history. It drew fire for its operation of the Santa Fe and McKinley county jails and was running the Kingman, Ariz., prison in 2010 when three prisoners escaped and two joined an accomplice to allegedly murder a couple on vacation in New Mexico.

Corrections and MTC officials maintain the Otero facility is secure and problems have been addressed.

Meanwhile, the Legislative Finance Committee raises the concern of growing a system that doesn’t need to expand. It says last fall Corrections had 451 empty beds in state and private facilities as well as a 40 percent vacancy on its mental health counseling staff.

Yet those openings are spread across the state and do not allow for a uniform system that keeps perhaps the lowest order of inmates safe and gets them treatment.

If the state has truly done its homework on MTC — and monthly audits show it delivers what’s promised for taxpayers’ $71 a day — then it makes sense for the public as well as these inmates to lock down this deal. At this point, that’s a big “if.”

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.