ENROLLED
Senate Bill No. 379
(By Senators Wooton, Yoder, Wiedebusch, Dittmar and White)
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[Passed March 11, 1995; in effect ninety days from passage.]
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AN ACT to amend article twenty, chapter thirty-one of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated section twenty-seven-a, relating to arrest authority for correctional officers employed by the regional jail authority.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That article twenty, chapter thirty-one of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended by adding thereto a new section, designated section twenty- seven-a, to read as follows:
ARTICLE 20. WEST VIRGINIA REGIONAL JAIL AND PRISON AUTHORITY.
§31-20-27a. Arrest authority of correctional officers.
(a) Persons employed by the regional jail authority as correctional officers are hereby authorized and empowered to make arrests of persons already charged with a violation of law who surrender themselves to such correctional officer and to arrest persons already in the custody of the regional jail authority for violations of law occurring in the officer's presence.
(b) Nothing in this section shall be construed as to make a correctional officer employed by the regional jail authority a law- enforcement officer as defined in section one, article twenty-nine, chapter thirty of this code.