WILMINGTON (AP)- A counselor who was taken hostage and raped by an inmate is speaking out against Delaware's prison system, saying the Department of Correction is plagued by mismanagement and inadequate, often incompetent, staffing.
Cassandra Arnold, 27, spoke out for the first time Friday since being taken hostage at the Delaware Correctional Center in Smyrna on July 12.
Arnold barely survived the harrowing ordeal, which lasted almost seven hours and ended with the shooting death of her attacker, serial rapist Scott Miller, 45.
Arnold met with reporters for almost three hours Friday, describing in graphic detail the horror she experienced and warning that the prison system is fraught with danger for others.
"There are a lot of people's lives that are in jeopardy," she said. "Inmates aren't safe and the staff aren't safe."
The Associated Press does not normally report the identities of rape victims. Arnold said she decided to speak out to draw attention to the problems in the prison system and protect DOC employees who do take their jobs seriously.
"There are a lot of excellent people there, and that's why I'm doing this. I don't want them to get hurt."
"The way the system works needs to be stopped and changed," said Arnold, adding that too many Department of Correction employees are "just going through the motions."
"People need to get rid of inadequate and incompetent staff and put in managers who hold people accountable, who train people properly, who are intelligent and who have respect for each other," she said.
Gail Stallings Minor, a DOC spokeswoman, said an internal investigation by the department has not yet been completed, and until it is, the department would not comment.
"We know she's been through a lot," she said.
Arnold is particularly appalled about the response by DOC employees to the hostage incident, saying at least three guards were on the scene when Miller grabbed her, but that none attempted to overpower him before he barricaded himself in her office.
During the long standoff, DCC warden Thomas Carroll refused repeated demands by both Miller and Arnold, who was in constant fear for her life, to talk to Miller, who wanted to be moved to a Virginia prison.
Instead, hours into the standoff, Carroll sent a one-sentence note informing Miller that he would have the opportunity to talk only after he released Arnold.
Enraged by Carroll's response, Miller bound and raped Arnold, saying he had "nothing to lose."
"He asked to talk to the warden the whole time, and it never happened, and I was raped," Arnold said as she wept. "I felt abandoned, like no one cared at all."
Paulette Arnold, 57, said prison officials kept the family confined in an internal affairs building during the standoff and refused to tell them what was happening with her daughter. Shortly after 5 p.m., a counselor who is a friend of the victim and was assigned to stay with the family received a telephone call informing her that the standoff had ended.
"I said, 'Was she hurt?' and Jayme didn't answer," Paulette Arnold recalled. "I said 'Was she raped?' and Jayme didn't answer. So I yelled at her, 'Was Cassie raped?" and she said 'Yes.' It was really obvious that the people in that building were angry at her for telling us anything."
Afterward, the family wasn't even told what hospital her daughter was being taken to, Arnold said.
The final insult, Cassandra Arnold said, was Gov. Ruth Ann Minner's comment after the incident that "in prisons, you almost expect this to happen."
"I am truly insulted by that statement," Arnold said through her tears. "If she knows it was going to be like that, then she promoted understaffing and she promoted an unsafe environment. I was embarrassed that she said that."
Arnold said she felt particularly betrayed by Carroll's refusal to intervene in the standoff, given that he often had singled her out for praise and was her partner in a department-wide effort to improve employee morale and efficiency.
"He signed a contract to make it a better place, and he never came to talk to me," she said.
As part of the Positive Prison Culture program, headed by a select group of only about 30 DOC employees, Arnold and Carroll jointly signed a contract pledging their commitment to the effort.
But Arnold, who conducted about a dozen PPC training sessions for other staffers, said her repeated concerns to Carroll about lazy staffers and security lapses, such as doors to buildings and even guard control booths being propped open, were met each time with the same response.
"It takes time to make change," she quoted Carroll as saying.
As a result, the program resulted in only "superficial" changes, such as the posting of employee birthdays, Arnold said.
Arnold, a senior counselor who has worked for the DOC for three years, said her prison experience has left her disillusioned.
"It used to be I thought I was making a difference, and I enjoyed working with the inmates," she said. "I didn't pay attention to the politics and how other people were doing their job."
But when her supervisors took note of how well she did her job, they heaped more responsibilities on her.
"It was cleanup work from people who weren't doing their job or weren't doing it well," Arnold said. "I felt the more I did, the less other people were doing.... How come you have six clerical people, and they can't build a database? I was dumped on left and right. I brought it up several times to the warden."
While criticizing some DOC employees for their apathy and incompetence, Arnold said she sympathizes with members of the Correctional Officers Association of Delaware, who have long complained about staffing shortages and low wages and only recently ended a job protest sparked by the hostage incident.
Arnold said the DOC's practice of "freezing" guards, forcing them with little or no advance notice to work 8-hour overtime shifts following their regular work shifts, creates family hardships for many and has a negative affect on morale and job performance.
"With so much lack of staff, how alert can someone be on their 15th hour, wondering if their cousin was able to pick up their child?" she asked.
Last week, COAD filed unfair labor practice complaints accusing the Department of Correction of improperly using mandatory overtime shifts and illegally regulating sick leave.
