TALLULAH – While attending a two-week training course, rookie prison guards will sleep on bunk beds used by juvenile inmates not too long ago.

It’s one of the mementos from the new Steve Hoyle Rehabilitation Center’s former life as the Swanson Correctional Center for Youth – Madison Parish Unit, one of the nation’s most notorious youth prisons.

Louisiana prison officials continued the transition of the facility into a medium-security rehabilitation prison and guard training center in a ceremony Monday morning.

The dedication is yet another blow to the hopes of some citizens in building a regional learning center on the site of the former youth prison. Although the state Legislature approved turning the jail into an educational center, they stipulated that the state must own the facility before the change could take place. No funds have been appropriated to buy the facility, which is owned by TransAmerican Corp.

The state pays the bond debt on the prison because it was built when the state had to finance debt through private companies. At the time, the state had spent more than the public debt cap.

But even after the debt is paid and even though the state took over operating the prison in 1999 because of mismanagement and lawsuits claiming inmate abuse, TransAmerican will own the facility.

The youth prison closed June 4 after 10 years of changes in management, lawsuits and judges ordering youths out of the prison because of its brutal environment. Prison officials quickly began converting it to the Steve Hoyle Rehabilitation Center. The medium-security adult jail is the first in Louisiana to be dedicated to drug- and alcohol-abuse rehabilitation, corrections spokesman Pam Laborde said.

Other parts of the youth prison have been converted to a correctional guard training center. The only other guard-training facility is at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. New guards will spend two weeks in residence at the center taking classes in corrections.

Several citizens pushed for a learning center that would include a residential community college and a high school. At least one part of that plan is moot now, since Madison Parish residents approved a tax election for a new $22 million high school in November.

Tallulah Mayor Theodore Lindsey said the community is grateful to have the prison.

“We really need the jobs,” he told the audience of about 100.

The new prison is named for a longtime employee Steve Hoyle, who worked as a guard and maintenance supervisor in several Louisiana prisons. Hoyle died in May 2000.

“Given a choice, a citizen probably wouldn’t choose a prison to be in their name. But Steve would probably like it,” regional warden Venetia Michael said of Hoyle.

Corrections Secretary Richard Stalder, who worked with Hoyle at several prisons, said each guard class and new inmates would be briefed on Hoyle’s service to the Louisiana prison system.

The rehabilitation center will house 260 minimum- and medium-security inmates, Laborde said. The program will consist of a half-day of treatment and a half-day of work. The average stay will be one to two years, Laborde said.

The prison treatment program is aimed at lessening Louisiana’s recidivism rate. Stalder said in an earlier interview that Louisiana releases 15,000 prisoners a year and 7,500 return within five years.