Knoxville News-Sentinel
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Tennessee Department of Correction does its officers, its image and state taxpayers no favors by whitewashing the violence that erupts behind prison walls.
An audit of the prison system has recommended the Correction Department change the way it classifies some inmate assaults on staff members. If adopted, the reclassification policy would at least force the department to acknowledge the true level of violence in Tennessee’s 13 prisons.
Since 2008, the number of reported “staff-inmate provocations” has more than doubled from 390 to 937, while the number of reported assaults on staff has gone down by nearly half, from 604 to 350. Those numbers are misleading.
Presently, when an inmate assaults a staff member and no one is injured, the Correction Department classifies it as a “staff-inmate provocation,” which is considered a nonviolent offense. The “no blood, no foul” mentality might work in pickup basketball, but the safety of prison workers is too serious an issue for semantic games.
Richard Stadler, one of the auditors who looked into Tennessee’s prison system, testified Wednesday at a meeting of the Senate Corrections Subcommittee. According to The Associated Press, Stadler explained to committee members why the classification needs to be changed: “If I swing a baseball bat at your head and just barely miss you, it should be sanctioned the same way whether I hit you or not.”
Correction Commissioner Derrick Schofield said incidents as minor as throwing spit wads had been listed as assaults prior to the change in classifications.
Auditors are recommending new disciplinary classifications for “staff assault with a weapon” and “staff assault without weapon.” According to the AP, the definitions make it clear that inmates do not have to make contact, much less injure the staff member, for the incident to be considered an assault.
In previous subcommittee meetings, some employees blamed a new 28-day work schedule for making prisons more dangerous. The schedule includes eight-hour shifts, but also requires some double shifts and extends the time between overtime hours earned and compensation for those hours. The Correction Department contends the 28-day schedule reduces the amount of overtime and gives supervisors more flexibility in scheduling.
The audit recommends changing to a 14-day schedule with 12-hour shifts, which would eliminate the need for double shifts and would speed up overtime payments. Stadler said at the hearing that a 14-day schedule would “minimize some of the turnover based on morale, stress and anxiety,” the AP reported. More than 300 correctional officers have quit their jobs since the 28-day schedule was implemented in August 2014.
Schofield is scheduled to return to the subcommittee this week to discuss whether the department intends to accept the audit recommendations. The scheduling question might require more study, but it is clear that the reclassification of assaults is necessary. Tennesseans need to know the extent of violence inside the state’s prisons.