CLOVIS, N.M. -- To ensure staff at the Curry County Detention Center can focus on a more in-depth training program, 60 of the jail inmates are being transferred outside of the county.

The transfer will take place sometime this week, and the inmates will be gone for no more than 90 days.  Curry County Detention Administrator Gerry Billy said having fewer inmates in the jail will take stress off of the staff and give them the time they need to undergo training.

"That training covers just a myriad of areas," he stated.  "It covers everything from an introduction to the criminal justice system all the way through some of the psychomotor skills, including tasers, unarmed self defense, those sorts of things...policies, procedures, protocol, legal issues."

The jail academy has been extended from a two-week program to one month.  And staff who have already gone through training will also undergo the extended process, Billy said, hopefully improving their skills even more. 

No inmates have escaped from the jail since Billy took over as administrator back in February, and he said he hopes the new training will continue to improve the safety of the jail- both that of the staff and the inmates.

"The one thing to recall or to remember about the inmates is that they're people who have made big mistakes," he pointed out.  "When they're released from the institution, where do they go?  They go right back into our communities and, so, I think we're taking a more diligent look at the way the inmates are treated, the way we interact with the inmates."