Inside Nevada (1999-2006)
News and information about the criminal justice system in Nevada
Basic Facts About Prison and Nevada
June 1, 2005 - 2:49pm| Number of Prisons | 9 prisons, 10 conservation camps, and 1 restitution center administered by the Department of Corrections. There was 1 prison operated for profit in Las Vegas, but it was transferred back to the NDOC in 2004. |
| Number of Prisoners | NDOC reported to the Governor that they expected to have 10,800 prison beds in FY 2005. |
| Women Prisoners | NDOC does not provide this information on their website |
| State Population | 2,241,154 (based on 2003 figures from the US Census) |
| DOC Budget | Budget information for 2005 is on the web at
http://budget.state.nv.us/bb0607/
BB0507DOC.pdf |
| DOC website | http://www.doc.nv.gov/ Their site has a prisoner database, visitor guidelines, but not very many statistics or budget information. |
| Death Penalty | Nevada uses the death penalty. The DOC website reports that in 2004 there were 88 men and 1 woman sentence to death. |
| Newspapers | The main newspapers in the state that cover stories related to prisons and Corrections policy are the Las Vegas Review Journal and the Las Vegas Sun. You can see a fairly complete list of Nevada newspapers here. |
NV: Nevada Shortchanging Rehabilitation Programs
December 11, 2006 - 11:11am Nevada Assemblyman Bernie Anderson stated that Nevada is spending a lot of money on new prisons and is shortchanging programs that might rehabilitate people. Assemblyman Anderson is the vice chairman of the Assembly Select Committee on Corrections, Parole and Probation. This is a new legislative committee that has many responsibilities, including looking into sentencing alternatives for nonviolent crimes.
NV: More Money For Corrections Officers
December 6, 2006 - 12:11pm Nevada Director of Corrections Glen Whorton asked the governor for more money to hire 264 more corrections officers. That total would increase the number of corrections officers in the Department of Corrections by 20% and cost an additional $27.5 million over the next two years. That number is in addition to the $50 million the governor already suggested should be spent on the prison system over the next two year budget cycle.
NV: Planning Board Recommends Prisons not Schools
November 29, 2006 - 11:22am The Nevada Public Works Board recommended in September that the state spend half of the public money set aside for construction projects on prisons. The state has $764 million to spend on capital projects, and the Public Works Board suggested that $360 million of that should be spent on prisons.
NV: Dispute over open meeting law suspends parole board hearings
November 21, 2006 - 12:52pmOn October 2, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that the state’s parole board must follow Nevada's open meeting law. After the ruling, the Nevada Parole Board canceled all hearings, leading the Nevada Supreme Court to issue a stay on their own ruling at the end of the month. The stay permits the Parole Board to continue hearings without having to comply with Nevada's open meeting law.
