Corrections Experience
Los Angeles County (CA), Mira Loma Detention Center Campus Planning Services for Women’s Detention Facility Lancaster, California Contact: Mr. Greg Williams, AIA, CSI Architect, AZ#15256 DLR Group th 3130 Wilshire Boulevard, 6 Floor Santa Monica, CA 90403 (310) 828-0040 Email:
[email protected]
Project Completed ........................ August 2014
The Mira Loma Detention Center project involved the renovation, re-purposing and construction of new facilities to house female detainees for Los Angeles County. The Mira Loma Detention Center was designed and constructed in 1985 as a Women’s Detention Facility. It is located on the site of a former World War II air training base, near Lancaster, California. The facility shares the site with a County Human Services facility and a County Medical Center, currently slated for closure. Additionally, many of the original airfield buildings are used to house County maintenance activities. In 1993, in response to budget constraints the facility closed. It was reopened in 1997 to house immigration detainees being held pending the completion of deportation proceedings as a contract operation for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Recently, the ICE contract was terminated and the potential to repurpose the facility for female offenders became a viable alternative. The AB 900 funded Mira Loma Center for Women (MLCW) renovation project will be designed to meet the rehabilitative needs of incarcerated women in Los Angeles County by providing an evidence based program model in the most normative environment possible for female inmates.The MLCW is a “campus style design” facility that affords the female inmates greater ability to move throughout the facility to various programs without requiring escort personnel to move them. This requires greater personal accountability and more focused engagement in rehabilitative programming while in custody, which is a more normative approach to managing lower risk females than a command and control approach to correctional supervision. With the supervision of over 1,200 AB 109 sentenced inmates at any given time, and an average length of stay of one year, the MLCW program is designed to work with the women in a meaningful way while in custody. This increased time of incarceration creates an opportunity to provide evidence based rehabilitative programming. The MLCW will follow nationally recognized gender responsive programming models that target individual needs for each female offender based on their risks to reoffend. While the MLCW will meet the needs of the majority of the incarcerated AB-109 inmates, it will not provide programs for those who need restrictive housing, mental health, and specific medical care. Female Offender Profile: There are many common characteristics between the women who would be housed at MLCW:
Fifty-three percent of the women are between the ages of 18 and 34.
Typical crimes of these women include non-serious crimes, such as drug possession and sales; petty theft; check fraud; prostitution; domestic violence; and driving under the influence.
Many of the women are single mothers whose children are living in foster care or with another family member while their mothers are in custody.
Researchers have estimated that nationally 55% to 80% of female inmates are mothers of minor children.
Corrections Experience
In most cases the women have been physically or sexually abused in their childhood and well into adulthood.
Such abuse has caused a lack of trust in relationships and lack of self-esteem.
The education level of the majority of the women is less than a high school diploma and evidence shows they have not been provided ample vocational training for living wage jobs.
The racial make-up of the incarcerated women in LASD jails is 33% Black, 31% Hispanic, 23% White, and 4% other.
Irrespective of race, age or criminal history, the common factors between female inmates include:
chronic substance abuse histories unstable relationships lack of living wage job opportunities, untreated medical and mental health needs and lack of safe housing.
Rarely do female inmates have just one unmet need that needs to be targeted by the criminal justice system when preparing them for re-entry.
