Juvenile inmates will move to part of Dona Ana County Detention Center

Juvenile inmates in Dona Ana County will be moving because the County can’t hire enough detention officers to watch them.

Juvenile inmates will be moving to the east wing of the Dona Ana County Detention Center.

It will be a smaller and more controlled space, so the 26 detention officers it takes to staff the juvenile side can be split with the adult inmate officers.

“The adult facility officer ratio is very very low,” said Chris Barela, Doa Ana County Jail director.

Barela says they are down 54 detention center officers overall due to comparatively low pay and employee attrition.

The in-house move will save an estimated million dollars over nine months in what it would cost to have the juvenile inmates at another facility.

“We will unfortunately have to reduce temporarily the number of youth that we’re able to accommodate in that smaller space,” Barela said.

The new space will be capped out at 27 inmates total, so there’s not much room for error.

The County hopes the new gross receipts tax can go to getting new officers so the youth offenders can be moved back to their facility

“We’ll be doing basically double time to recruit and to get more officers to apply, get approved, and through the academy,” Barela said.

As part of the effort to attract new officers, Dona Ana will have a job fair on May 15. Dona Ana County reports starting pay for new correctional officers is $11 to $12 an hour.

DOA ANA COUNTY JOB INFORMATION FAIR MAY 15
The Commission Chambers, meeting rooms and halls of the Doa Ana County Government Center will be bustling on Friday, May 15, as job seekers have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with representatives of all county departments.
The all-day event also will feature workshops to assist applicants with the county’s online application process, and there will be sessions devoted to interviewing tips, county benefits and other critical information for applicants seeking to join the Doa Ana County team.
Drawings for door prizes will be held throughout the day during the event.
Special emphasis will focus on recruiting applicants to both the Doa Ana County Sheriff’s Department and the Doa Ana County Detention Center.
Food trucks will be set up in the parking lot, along with displays of county emergency-services equipment and technology resources. In addition, the Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley will facilitate pet adoptions from an area on the north lawn.
“Doa Ana County is critically understaffed in some areas, and this job-information fair represents a concerted push by all departments to educate the job-seeking public about what positions we offer and the lengths to which we are willing to go to first recruit and subsequently retain the very best potential employees to our workforce,” said Doa Ana County Manager Julia T. Brown.
Brown said each department has created and printed tri-fold brochures that list the types of jobs available within their respective areas of public service. Even departments that currently have no openings will be represented, because the openings will inevitably occur at some point, Brown said.
Applicants are discouraged from bringing their children to the event, because day care will not be provided.