Carbon County's prison is in pretty good shape, officials said.

During the county prison board's meeting this week, acting Warden Timothy Fritz reported on the recent inspection at the prison.He said that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections visited the Nesquehoning facility last Thursday and were overall "impressed by the cleanliness" of the prison."We never seemed to have a problem with that," he said.Fritz said a few things in policies need to be updated. The prison will have to do some minor repairs, inventory on kitchen equipment and cleaning up of the maintenance area because of clutter.Inspectors said they would provide some information in the preliminary findings report on where the prison needs to tighten up in policies to help speed up the process to get things corrected.Once the report is received, which takes approximately 60 days, the county prison will prepare a plan of action report and submit it to the state.Fritz said that the reason for the policy updates is because the state wants prison policies correct in case the prison would get sued."They want our policies to be able to help us in litigation," Fritz said. "Overall they said their report would be favorable."Fritz added that he informed inspectors of the county's new agreement with the Carbon-Monroe-Pike Drug and Alcohol Commission for in-house counseling services."That brings us closer to being up to code with having counselors here," he said.In other matters, Fritz reported that he met with representatives of the Pennsylvania Counties Risk Pool to look over the prison's new firing range, located behind the prison on the Broad Mountain.He said that they may be looking at some minor additions before giving the range full approval for use.Frank Shubeck, work release director and the lead for the range project, said safety is the prison's main concern when operating the range, which will only be used a few weeks a year by county corrections officers, probations officers, sheriff's deputies and Nesquehoning police for firearm certification purposes."We run a cold range," Shubeck said, adding that a cold range means that the instructors tell the shooters when to load their guns, how many rounds to load, only allow a certain amount of time to shoot and then inspect the gun to make sure it is clear.Plus, he noted, there will be a maximum of four officers to two instructors at the range at one time.The 75-foot by 150-foot range includes a 30-foot high berm and will be used to shoot from distances of 3, 5, 7 and 15 yards.The firing range was an aggressive project by the county as a way to help officers train without having to travel great distances to a range.The project began in the summer, and to date has cost $2,040.Volunteers who worked to make this project a reality have saved the county approximately $13,000.