By Matt Robinson
Las Cruces Sun-News
LUNA COUNTY, N.M. — Matthew Elwell, warden of the Luna County Detention Center, has ambitious plans to get his facility accredited all while ensuring inmates are ready to reenter society once their terms are finished and restoring the jail’s image.
He has been on the job since Nov. 2011, when the then new county manager Kelly Kuenstler hired him. He hails from a background of about 13 years experience in corrections and most recently, before the LCDC, he ran the operations center at the Metro Detention Center in Albuquerque.
That experience on the operations side of corrections has helped him cultivate a data-based approach to running the facility with a focus on having the correct policies in place to fit the jail’s needs.
“Redoing all policies and procedures is a goal,” he said, noting he wishes to create “action plans” at the facility to reflect goals over the next year, second year and three-to-five years down the line.
Driving the restructuring of policies and procedures is part of his philosophy of providing well-defined rules for inmates and facility staff.
He described the need for policies that first maintain safety, but also put the inmates on a path to be readmitted into society. The idea is to get convicted criminals who have not followed the rules to learn the importance of following society’s laws once released.
But it is not as simple as telling the inmates what to do. Not only must the jail staff provide a high standard of behavior, but he says there needs to be a safety net in place to help keep those who have served their time from returning to crime.
He pointed to his professional contacts accumulated over his time in corrections and blossoming local relationships as vital to helping reduce recidivism, a term used to describe a person who is released from jail only to commit more crime. The Social Security Administration and New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions are two agencies he says can help those who have newly-released find food, work and shelter.
“‘Wow, I can eat. I can be warm,’” he said, describing how an inmate might feel upon receiving help after his sentence. “So they don’t go out into the community and back into crime.”
The ideas are not necessarily ground breaking in the corrections world, but with improvements to training, the facility itself and procedures, he feels the facility can work toward being accredited by the New Mexico Association of Counties. He says accreditation can “validate your work amongst your peers.”
That will, county officials hope, help improve the facility’s reputation in the community and around the state.
“It’s all about communication and an open door policy,” he said.
The facility houses about 265 inmates, approximately 145 of which are federal inmates. He says federal inmate numbers have “seen a decline,” but that is expected to change in the summer months. He points to overall declines in Border Patrol and Department of Homeland Security apprehensions as having a hand in the lower figures.
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