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| S.C. Prison Disturbances, Escapes Grow |
| By Greenville News |
| Published: 03/17/2003 |
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Inside South Carolina prisons, disturbances have almost doubled over the past two years as the Department of Corrections' budget was cut by $80 million and its officers reduced by nearly 500. Escapes almost tripled. Assaults on staff, as a percentage of employees harmed, increased to the highest point in four years, according to state records reviewed by The Greenville News. Sen. Mike Fair, a Greenville Republican and chairman of the Senate Corrections and Penology Committee, said fewer officers dealing with more inmates is to blame. 'Until we fund them adequately so they can have adequate levels of guards, it's going to be a Band-Aid approach,' he said. While some may not care if those serving time harm each other, officials say the increased violence carries a cost, not only for inmate and staff medical care but in protecting the public. 'Our primary mission is to protect the public,' said Sgt. Calvin Arnold, a correctional officer at Perry Correctional Institution near Pelzer. 'If we're not here, we're not going to be able to protect the public.' New Corrections Director Jon Ozmint told Gov. Mark Sanford and other members of the State Budget and Control Board recently that the prison system has far fewer officers and far more inmates than it did five years ago, leading to more incidents of violence. The agency, which has 29 prisons housing more than 23,000 inmates, is operating with a $27 million deficit, primarily caused by repeated budget cuts and swelling ranks of prisoners. Ozmint told officials inmates have noticed the cuts in manpower and some have exploited the thinned patrols. Since 2000, records show, prison disturbances have gone from 47 to 80 last year. Inmate attacks on each other have climbed from 264 in 1999 to 350 in 2002, and attacks on staff, as a percentage of employees, increased last year to the highest point since 1999. The agency employs almost 600 fewer security staff than it did four years ago. 'It concerns the wardens who work with me that these categories have gone up, and we're trying to find ways to move those numbers down,' said Robert Ward, who supervises all the state's maximum-security prisons. Ward said he thinks much of the increase is due to newer inmates who show less respect for authority and are more prone to violence. Officials are conducting more shakedowns to find prison-made weapons and have moved nonviolent inmates away from violent ones, he said. Joann Morton, a former state prison administrator who studies prison issues at the University of South Carolina's Department of Criminology, attributed the increased violence to budget cuts, a shrinking staff and management changes caused by five new prison directors in the past five years. She said the figures should prod Sanford and lawmakers to invoke emergency procedures to release nonviolent offenders and re-evaluate the state's sentencing system. Prison officials have said prisoners with less than a year to serve should not be sent to the state prison system. 'We simply can't afford to lock up everybody that we have,' Morton said. Ozmint told officials he is considering drastic personnel cuts, including the furlough of educators, chaplains and other nonsecurity staff if lawmakers cannot find a way by July to increase funding for the agency. But Morton said such steps could pose more harm to the public. 'Cutting out programs and warehousing people - that's a dangerous solution,' she said. 'It's dangerous in the short term having 20,000 inmates with nothing to do and only the supervision that officers can give them. And it's also dangerous in the long term when these people get out and they are no better off.' |
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