Prisons are 'time bomb,' officers say

The Montgomery Advertiser
By Sebastian Kitchen
February 3, 2009

 
Officials are describing Alabama's prison system as a time bomb that could explode at any time.

Gov. Bob Riley and state corrections officers said on Monday that the prison system is bulging at the seams and the overpopulated, understaffed system could be headed toward a dangerous explosion.

"I'm here today to tell you as an officer who works inside a correctional facility each and every day, our prisons are an absolute time bomb waiting to explode," said Capt. Lloyd Wallace, president of the Alabama Correctional Organization.

State correctional officers, with the legislative session starting today, apologized Monday for not being more candid with the public about the condition of the state's prison system.

Wallace said his comments were not a scare tactic.

"The fuse is clearly lit and moving fast," he said.

Three other corrections employees joined Wallace, who works at Limestone Correctional Facility in north Alabama, at the news conference. He has been with the department for 23 years.

Publicly, governors and prison commissioners have said "all is well from a safety standpoint," Wallace said.

"Efforts by employees to say anything to the contrary have always been discreetly but clearly discouraged under the guise of departmental regulations" and to avoid alarming the public, which Wallace said the employees are sensitive to.

"We bought in as loyal em ployees with our deafening silence, and I am somewhat ashamed not to have said more before now," Wallace said.

The officers pledged to do everything they could to maintain the highest level of safety in prisons with the most limited resources in the nation. They also pledged to be more forthright with people about the conditions of staffing and its effect on safety.

Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen, when addressing lawmakers last month, said it is amazing that there has not been another major incident since a riot at St. Clair Correctional Facility in 1985.

Wallace said those words are very telling because Allen, as a political appointee of Riley, is restricted about what he can say.

"Commissioner Allen knows as we do we are at a critical safety point that can't be sustained with level funding or less," Wallace said.

Riley, in a meeting with the Montgomery Advertiser editorial board later in the day, said everyone has been very candid about the potential danger of overcrowding.

He said there has been work to reduce the population by reducing recidivism, which he said cannot be done overnight, and to promote the work release program. He said there are also more training programs available to inmates.

Wallace said governors have repeatedly come into office promising to reform the system. He said Riley was no different and did not follow through on his promises.

In his 2006 plan for re-election, Plan 2010, Riley vowed to reform the state prison system. The plan noted that the system was holding twice as many inmates as it was built for with one officer sometimes forced to monitor a prison dorm with 250 to 300 inmates.

In the plan, Riley said his top priority was to reduce prison overcrowding. Another priority, he said, was to recruit and retain officers.

"We will ask the Legislature to approve a 10 percent raise for our Department of Corrections officers to ensure they will be competitive with other state law enforcement agencies," the plan states.

Wallace talked about Riley's "shortcoming to date to follow through on commitments made to employees of this department and the people of Alabama which have been adversely affected by staffing and safety."

Jarrod Massey, president of Mantra Governmental, which represents the correctional organization, said Riley's shortcoming has been the failure to move forward with the 10 percent pay raise discussed during the campaign and because of the unreasonably small operating budget proposed for corrections.

Massey said the pay is not competitive with other law enforcement agencies.

Riley responded by saying no one has spent more time and given more attention to corrections to eliminate those problems than his administration. He also said he has two more years to work on the 2010 plan.

The department has sold some land to address some of its capital needs, the governor said, and said his administration pushed for a better pay scale.

Riley also exempted correctional officers from the current hiring freeze and said he realizes the department cannot cut 10 percent from its budget, as he requested of state agencies.

The Alabama Department of Corrections is one of many state agencies faced with smaller budgets because less money is coming into the state due to the economy. Corrections' proponents say the department's historically under-funded budget has already been cut by millions.

Massey and Wallace, echoing comments from Allen last month, said if the cuts continue, one of the only options will be to release inmates. And, in this economy, without vocational training, those prisoners will return to the system, Massey said.

These conditions contribute to the potential for riots and escapes, he said.

They said they hope Riley will propose a solution during the upcoming session and are willing to work with him, Allen and legislators to find solutions.

They want a better plan to fund the department.

Wallace also called on legislators to listen to department employees as they crafted the 2010 budget.

Massey proposed several taxes that he said could help with state budget shortfalls. He said the correctional organization would not push those measures during the session because they would not pass without support from the governor and other Republicans.

Wallace said department regulations kept him from giving specifics about safety concerns at specific institutions. He said the odds are against being able to avoid another major incident much longer.

Alabama does have the highest inmate to correctional officer ratio in the country.

"The reality we correctional employees face is we too know it is only a matter of time before we too are overrun," Wallace said. "Our numbers simply don't add up."

Wallace said Allen has been the most outstanding prison commissioner during his time in the department. He also said the Riley administration has implemented some progressive measures.

Alabama is 49th in the nation, with one state not responding, in the amount of its General Fund budget that goes to corrections at 2.6 percent, according to information from the Pew Trust Fund.