Wilmington's Howard R. Young Correctional Center showed off its new 32,000 square foot kitchen facility during an Open House Friday afternoon.
Updates include a new training area, space for a recycling program, increased storage and new equipment, including a blast freezer for rapid cooling of food.
Under construction since January 2012, the final touches to the 26.2 million dollar project were completed just this month.
Department of Corrections Commissioner Robert Coupe says the old kitchen did not grow along with the prison's population and its improved successor is long overdue.
"We weren't as efficient as we'd like to be in delivering the meal service to our offenders," said Coupe. "With this new kitchen it's going to improve efficiency and basically improve the quality of life here in the facility for the offenders, which is what we're responsible for."
The majority of the state's detainee population is housed at Howard Young, also known as 'Gander Hill' after the neighborhood it's located in, and nearly two thirds of correctional system admissions are processed through the facility.
Originally built in 1982, it was designed to hold 360 detainees, but subsequent expansion has increased capacity to 1,180 while averaging a population of 1,500.
Daily about 60 of those offenders will perform regular tasks in the kitchen, serving a 4-cycle rotating menu of over 5,000 meals a day and nearly 2 million each year.
Commissioner Coupe says new cameras and door-lock systems will improve the kitchen’s security which, he adds, is necessary to succeed with rehabilitation programs.
“That’s paramount importance but as far as dignity, as far as treatment being a priority, that is a priority. And we want this to be a healthy environment so that when folks come here they leave here better than when they came in. So this is a big part of it,” said Coupe.
