LACASSINE — Residents on Monday said they are concerned about plans to expand the Academy of Training Skills that include a work-release facility for nonviolent state and parish inmates.

Academy of Training Skills founder Lee Mallett wants to build a 200-bed National Trained Workforce facility adjacent to the academy, which has been open for three years.

“I understand nobody wants it in their backyard, but we need to step up to the plate,” Mallett said during a town hall meeting.

The proposed facility could help Jeff Davis Parish law enforcers to serve some 1,000 outstanding warrants and ease overcrowding of the parish jail.

Assistant District Attorney Bennett Lapoint said the parish jail can house 70 inmates. Its population is closely monitored, and the federal government can shut it down if it is overpopulated, he said.

To avoid overpopulation, lesser offenders are often released, he said.

“If we had this place here, we wouldn’t have to turn those inmates loose,” Lapoint said.

The facility would provide rehabilitation and job training similar to that of the Academy of Training Skills.

“These are people who have made mistakes in their lives and are trying to get it back,” Lapoint said.

“The community and society as a whole will benefit from it,” Academy of Training Skills Superintendent Kelvin Smith said. “We are helping another man so we don’t have the same problems over and over again.”

Resident George Gotreaux said the offenders would be “better off” in the facility than running the streets.

The proposed facility would assist inmates in their transition into society by providing education, job skills training and guidance, Mallett said.

Some in the audience were not impressed.

“I am worried about the elderly people and the widows,” resident Naomi LeBlanc said. “If you have a criminal, you have a criminal. I don’t care if its his first time or not. ”

Resident Kevin Miller said he doesn’t want the facility in Lacassine “because of the kids.”

“I just think there are better places,” he said.

Resident Bobby Bourgeois said he felt better about plans for the facility after the meeting, but said he still could not support it in his community.

Under the proposal, inmates would pay $62 a day for boarding, meals, transportation, training and counseling. About $600 would be returned to Jeff Davis Parish and Lacassine, he said.

If a parish inmate is sent to the National Trained Workforce facility, the parish would be allowed to keep $3 per day and would receive another $3 per offender once that offender finds a job, Mallett said.

The parish would be allowed to keep 85 percent of any state correctional funds for state inmates, he said.

Mallett said future plans for the facility include a trade school for both academy residents and the general public.