Department will police itself By PATRICK JACKSON
The News Journal
03/13/2005
DOVER -- Delaware legislative leaders said they do not think the General Assembly will pass laws or conduct hearings on the contents of two recent reports that were highly critical of conditions in the state's prisons - and of prison managers.
Lawmakers said many of the criticisms can be traced to staffing shortages caused by low pay and inadequate benefits, which Gov. Ruth Ann Minner and the Legislature will try to correct as they work up a budget for the 2006 fiscal year, which starts July 1.
But the flaws in policies, procedures and assignments cited in reports by a state task force and the National Institute of Corrections will be left for the Department of Correction to resolve - without pressure or meddling by House or Senate committees.
House Speaker Wayne A. Smith, R- Clair Manor, and Senate President Pro Tem Thurman Adams Jr., D-Bridgeville, said there are no plans to hold hearings on the reports. But Sen. James T. Vaughn, D-Clayton, said a lot of that rests with the department.
Vaughn, chairman of the Senate Corrections Committee, said both reports point out flaws "the department needs to clean up.
"If they take them seriously, we don't need to bring them in," said Vaughn, a former state corrections commissioner. "But if I hear about them keeping the ... sally ports and security doors blocked open and nonsense like that, they're going to come in and answer to us."
The reports examined security and reviewed the July hostage incident at the Delaware Correctional Center, when serial rapist Scott Miller, who was serving a 699-year sentence, kidnapped and raped a prison counselor. A guard later shot him to death.
The reports said that prison and others were significantly understaffed because of the state's problems in hiring and retaining enough corrections officers.
"There are questions about staffing levels, salaries and other funding issues, and those are questions I feel quite comfortable leaving in the capable hands of the Joint Finance and Bond Bill committees," Smith said. "If there are questions that go beyond those issues, there's definitely an interest and I'm sure we would take them up in due course."
Department spokeswoman Beth Welch said Commissioner Stan Taylor and department staff have been discussing the recommendations.
"I don't know if the commissioner has issued formal orders yet," she said. "But I know that as they've been reviewing, there have been informal talks on getting things done."
Staff Sgt. Kevin Rolph, the legislative director for the corrections officers' union, said changes are being made.
"None of us can change the past, as much as we'd want to," he said. "But we can try to keep the same thing from happening again. Right now, it looks to us like they're taking these reports seriously and taking them to heart."
Rolph said pay, staffing and equipment are critical issues for union members. He's encouraged by the willingness of Minner and lawmakers to settle those issues.
Vaughn said he has discussed some of the recommendations with Taylor, as well as his concerns about the inmate classification system that allowed Miller to be placed in the prison's medium-security unit.
Before the hostage incident, Vaughn had spoken out against the classification system, which he describes as "one of those liberal ideas from Canada that got picked up in Minnesota and eventually got here."
"But both the reports say he was placed correctly in the classification system. ... The General Assembly has never messed around with the classification system," Vaughn said, "but if they don't do something to fix it, that might have to change."
Contact Patrick Jackson at 678-4274 or pjackson@delawareonline.com.
REPORTS CITE PROBLEMS
Besides the chronic staff shortages and wage issues, the reports pointed out other failings that include:
• Lax enforcement of security rules that allowed doors to be propped open inside the prison's secured areas.
• Failure to update security rules for different guard posts in the prison or, in some cases, haphazard updates of the rules.
• Insufficient staffing in the control center that locks and unlocks doors at peak times.
