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| Lawmakers call for inquiry into prison security |
| By statesman.com |
| Published: 12/10/2009 |
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Calls for an outside investigation and audit into continuing prison security breaches intensified Wednesday as new details emerged about how a convicted child molester escaped using a loaded pistol smuggled into one of the state's highest-security lockups. Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire, D-Houston, said prison officials have promised for more than a year to tighten security at Texas' 112 state-run prisons, "but we definitely continue to have security breaches and lapses." "Why are our courthouses and airports more secure than our prisons?" Whitmire said Wednesday after sitting in on an interview two Texas Rangers had with Arcade Joseph Comeaux Jr., 49, who escaped from a prison van in Baytown on Nov. 30 while he was being transferred from the Estelle High-Security Unit near Huntsville to the Stiles Unit in Beaumont. Whitmire is among several legislative leaders who have been pressing for strict enforcement of a no-tolerance policy on contraband for more than a year.In October 2008, a death row prisoner called Whitmire on a smuggled cell phone — that bust triggered a rare lockdown of all state prisons, from which officials found weapons, cell phones, drugs and other contraband. Since then, $10 million in additional security equipment — including metal detectors, parcel X-ray scanners, video surveillance and a special chair that checks for contraband in body orifices without a strip search — has been installed or soon will be in more than a dozen prisons where the contraband problems are the worst. Read More. |
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