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| Pressure building at jampacked state prisons |
| By seattletimes.nwsource.com - Jennifer Sullivan |
| Published: 03/26/2012 |
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SHELTON, Mason County, WA — Each week, about 150 inmates arrive at the Washington Corrections Center for processing before they're assigned a permanent home in the state prison system. Most are destined to spend their first days in prison as "rugs," the term used by inmates and corrections officers to describe offenders who have to sleep on the concrete floor of cells because of overcrowding. The newcomers bed down on thin rubber mats spread out between the cell's toilet and sink — just feet from two occupied bunks. Inmates don't like having a third man squeezed into their cells; they complain about the heat generated by three people in a 6-foot-by-9-foot space. "We don't want any rugs in here. It's crowded enough," inmate William Rivers, a 34-year-old from Wenatchee, said recently from his cell at the Shelton prison. Rivers doesn't have a voice in the matter. And, increasingly, neither do corrections officials, who find themselves shoehorning more and more inmates into prisons designed for much smaller populations. The recent closures of three prisons, coupled with a spike in incoming inmates, have some prisons bursting at the seams, according to the state Department of Corrections. The problem is particularly acute at the Shelton prison because it's the first stop for all male inmates, except for those destined for death row at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Rivers, who is serving time for residential burglary and assault, complains that inmate housing at the Washington Corrections Center is far worse than at any other prison he's encountered. "It's the worst. It's crowded and we're [locked up] 22 hours a day," he said. The crowded conditions can also lead to safety issues among inmates whose resentment boils over into anger, as well as the corrections officers who are assigned to watch over them. Officers regularly have to squeeze into the tight living units to break up inmate fights, said Dan White, associate superintendent at the Shelton prison. "Any time that we have to put folks on the floor there is potential for an increase in violence. We can't move anybody where there's no space," White said. Read More. |
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