Bent County Correctional Facility's Warden to Move to Crowley County

~Anne Boswell

Warden Virgil Ensey sat in front of the Bent County Board of Commissioners Thursday to tell them news he felt they might have already heard.

"If you haven't heard, it's a small town I would be surprised if you haven't, um, our company has decided to move me to Crowley as the warden, um I've been back and forth this last week, probably going to have some of that back and forth for a little bit." Ensey explained.

Ensey said it was a decision Core Civic, his company, made to fill a need in Crowley.

Assistant Warden Steven Salazar will be the interim warden at the Bent County Correctional Facility when Ensey departs until a full-time warden can be appointed.

Ensey told commissioners that the same commitment to community involvement and community service for Bent County will continue under Salazar.

"The schools the community and things along those lines, Steven and I have had some very healthy conversation about the impact we believe our facility brings to our community, and I think we have developed a larger impact in the last four years that I've been able to be the warden here we just want to continue to make that strong."

In meeting with the commissioners in Crowley County, Ensey told them they would be investing in the community there much as they have done for Bent.

"There's just the need at that facility that's a little greater than ours right now there's some additional inmates that are going to start rolling in there this next week. As we have talked for several years about the state's population growing and things. Uh, that's going to happen. I'm just going to be down the street, I'm not moving or anything along those lines, so I'm still going to be a citizen of the great county of Bent."

Core Civic, the Bent County Correctional Facility, has a ribbon cutting coming up in October for a program involving inmates and repairing wheelchairs, called "Wheels for the World."

Bent County Correctional Facility (Core Civic) Warden Virgil Ensey speaks at the Bent County Commissioners Thursday Meeting

The facility also has planned for the second year in a row a cancer walk to raise money for the local hospices in the Arkansas Valley. That walk is set for October 23rd and 24th at the correctional facility in Las Animas. However, Warden Ensey said they were excited to have some staff from the Crowley County facility of Core Civic come to join in.

Ensey said one of the other things he would like to see happen is being able to employ some of the Safeway workers who will be without a job once the two locations, in La Junta, and Lamar, close. He said they have reached out to Safeway to inform them of the positions currently open at the facility.

The Las Animas location Core Civic operates currently holds, 1,392 inmates. The facility is one of two private prisons left in Colorado, with the second one being in Crowley County at the facility where Warden Ensey will be transferring.

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