After more than a year of sitting dormant, Phelps Correctional Center in DeQuincy may soon be repurposed.

DeQuincy Mayor Lawrence Henagan announced at a news conference Friday that bids will go out to those interested in leasing the 55-year-old prison to run one of the state’s transitional work programs.

“We’ve got this far with the facility, and now we’ve got a chance to get people back to work,” Henagan said.

“We had the idea of making Phelps a workers’ village for construction people. That’s fine, but down the road when all of the construction is over we would be right back to where we were at. This is about longevity, the jobs that people lost here that are now coming back.” 

State Sen. Ronnie Johns, R-Sulphur, said the program is one that “will grow over time.”

“This has been a yearlong project that has been in the works,” he said. “It has been a team effort.”

All bids must be received at the Department of Corrections office by Tuesday, May 13. Pam Laborde, DOC spokeswoman, said the date might be extended if any changes or additions need to be made to the request for proposals.

The facility’s name will be changed to the Southwest Workforce Development Transitional Work Program. Laborde said the program is designed for inmates imprisoned for nonviolent and non-sex crimes to get counseling and skill training, which will prepare them to re-enter the workforce and community. The program is open to inmates who are within six months to three years of their release date, Laborde said. 

“Those offenders are then able to earn money to help them with their transition when they are released from prison,” she said.

Laborde said inmates who already have craft training or vocational certification will be eligible to enter the program four years from their release date.

Through the program, she said, the DOC would guarantee that 300 male inmates would gain employment in a craft-related field.

“This is just a start,” she said. “If the program is successful, and we think it will be, we will be able to expand over the years as we go along.”

Henagan said the winning contractor would be responsible for the facility’s maintenance. The contractor must also provide insurance. 

The winning contractor will also be responsible for finding “meaningful, skill-oriented job placement for offenders in the program” and providing 100 hours of decision-making skills, money management and anger management training, which is part of the program’s pre-release curriculum, Laborde said.

“Hopefully, what we’re going to be able to do is not just get them into a job while they are in the transition work program, is being able to keep them in that job if they wanted to stay,” Laborde said. “If they are not from Lake Charles, it will be about finding them a job wherever they are going back to.”

Henagan said that once the contractor is hired, the facility will no longer be classified as a prison.

The 942-bed, medium-security prison closed on Nov. 1, 2012, putting 269 of its employees out of work. Most of the prison’s inmates were transferred to Angola State Penitentiary.

The prison opened in 1958, three years after Edgewood Land & Logging Co. deeded the land to the state, with the stipulation that it be used for a prison. Edgewood was purchased in March 1966 for $9.5 million by Owens-Illinois, a glass bottling company from Toledo, Ohio. Owens-Illinois moved to Perrysburg, Ohio, in 2006.

House Speaker Chuck Kleckley, R-Lake Charles, said the program is a “long-term fix for the center.”

“Over the last months, there were a lot of opportunities to do something at Phelps,” he said. “A lot of these were short term, some of them pretty good. Some would have been beneficial, but they were all short-term fixes. We wanted a long-term fix for DeQuincy and Southwest Louisiana, and I think that’s what you’re going to see with this program.”

Henagan said the state owns the facility. Laborde said the winning bidder will be chosen within “the next several months.” 

(American Press Archives)