Rep. Cardoza blazes trail that officials say will lead to safer conditions in U.S. prisons
BY SCOTT JASON
Merced Sun
MERCED, Calif. — U.S. Penitentiary Atwater has a new warden on the way in and its most dangerous inmates on the way out.
Both changes, many hope, will lead to safer conditions at the high-security complex where a corrections officer was stabbed to death in June.
It may seem to some as if the Bureau of Prisons, at Rep. Dennis Cardoza’s prodding, is simply moving the problems elsewhere to satisfy local concerns.
But Cardoza and prison officials say the measures should address safety issues, not just in Atwater, but across the country. Still, Merced’s congressman said more needs to be done.
While stab-resistant vests have been ordered, there have been calls for increased staffing and nonlethal weapons for correctional officers, such as Tasers or batons.
He’s also trying to schedule congressional hearings about the Bureau of Prisons system, though the financial crisis has remained Capitol Hill’s top priority.
The need for increased safety within the national prison system was punctuated Monday with two more violent outbursts.
A correctional officer at USP Coleman in Florida was stabbed 15 times by an inmate who ground Plexiglas into a sharp weapon, according to the union’s daily violence report online.
Another correctional officer at USP Big Sandy in Kentucky was stabbed five times, twice near his head and three times near his back and lungs. The prison is managed by Warden Hector Rios Jr., the official who’s being transferred to Atwater.
“Clearly, there’s still a problem,” Cardoza said.
He likened the federal prison system, with more than 100 compounds across the U.S., to an oil tanker. “It takes a long time to turn that ship around,” he explained. “Time will tell if their plan works.”
Sometime next year, the federal prison system will begin transferring the system’s most dangerous inmates to an East Coast compound, prison spokeswoman Tracy Billingsley said.
Officials have begun classifying the inmates and deciding which ones should be transferred to U.S. Penitentiary Lewisburg in Pennsylvania. It’ll be a six- to nine-month process, she said.
The high-security prison will be converted into a “special management unit,” which has stricter restrictions. For example, smaller groups of prisoners are allowed in the recreation yards, and all inmate visits with friends and relatives are conducted through glass windows.
Other safety measures, including increased weekend and evening staffing, have been taken at Atwater’s prison, Billingsley said.
The prison has no plans to give nonlethal weapons to correctional officers, she said.
Friends and Family of Correctional Officers, the community group that formed after the death of Jose Rivera, is eager to meet with the incoming warden, spokesman Andy Krotik said.
Krotik is reserving judgment about Rios, even in light of the correctional officer assault at his prison.
People in Tucson, Seattle and Illinois -- areas that host federal prisons -- have contacted the community group to get help in starting a local chapter, he said.
The group also has an invitation to speak to a city council in a town a few hours away about officer safety.
The two past assaults are evidence that more needs to be done within the prison system, he said.
“We continue to be accurate that the inmate of today is not the same as the inmate of yesterday,” Krotik said. “The inmate of today is more violent and has less of a regard for life.”
Copyright 2008 Merced Sun-Star