Low Numbers Put Indiana Co. Officers in Danger

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By Indianapolis Star

Published: 06/16/2003

Changes in patrol priorities and employee turnover often leave the Marion County Jail with a ratio of less than one officer for every 100 prisoners, a situation that makes the facility the most dangerous jail in the state, Indiana's chief jail inspector says.
And without improvement, inspector Paul E. Downing predicts, someone will be killed.
'I don't believe there is sufficient staff to protect each other,' Downing testified in federal court last week. 'There is a potential for loss of life.'
The danger simmers in a crowded jail that at times has fewer than 15 corrections officers on duty, according to the inspector. The state average is one officer per four inmates; the national figure is one for every six.
The precise number of officers on patrol is so low in Marion County that jail officials and the Indiana Civil Liberties Union agreed to keep the exact figures a secret in the federal case over jail crowding. They worried that the inmates would find out.
One reason the staff is as small as it is: An effort under then-Sheriff Jack Cottey to put more deputies on street patrol moved more than 40 officers out of the jail -- and they haven't been replaced.
The size of the officer force aside, the root of the problem remains overcrowding, the subject of a decades-old federal lawsuit. A jail with beds for 1,300 prisoners now sometimes houses nearly 1,700. Crowding and poor conditions have propelled Marion County's jail to national attention: The U.S. Department of Justice has ranked it the country's ninth most overcrowded facility.
While attorneys, politicians and county judges weigh a range of plans to solve the problem -- U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker has given them until July 8 come up with something concrete -- officers like John Livingston continue to confront the symptoms every day.
As Livingston walks slowly through 4 West, his eyes never linger for long on any one spot. Down a hallway, someone bangs on a steel door.
It could be a mentally ill prisoner coming off his medication, inmates fighting over a mattress -- or a trap.
'Any time you're outnumbered, you feel vulnerable,' said Livingston, 25. He has been a corrections officer for almost two years and says the danger may be something that drew him to the field. He rides a motorcycle and calls himself 'an action junkie.'
His job pays about $13 an hour.
For that, officers such as Livingston encounter brutal conditions. Reports of serious incidents in April alone reveal officers had been pelted with urine and feces, physically threatened by inmates and broke up at least two serious fights. In January, an officer was stabbed.
'You never know what kind of hornets' nest you are walking into when you come to work,' said Officer Stephen Hart. A husband and father of three, he earns about $25,000 a year. He thinks the pay needs to be increased to give officers more incentive to stay.
Sheriff's Department officials can't say what the turnover rate is among employees, but many law enforcement jobs pay more. Even before they complete training, many candidates are lured away to jobs with the Indianapolis police, for example, or at the new Arrestee Processing Center, where pay is higher. The center, due to open in August, is a $12 million project that will help streamline court proceedings and provide additional beds to alleviate jail crowding.
Last month, the Sheriff's Department started training a new class of 11 corrections officers. Five in that class already have resigned, at least two of them to take other policing jobs.
'We don't have enough people; that's the problem,' Hart said.
Hart has only to look at his left hand to see a reminder of the hazards. The moon-shaped scar is the work of an inmate who bit him three years ago.
Much of an officer's day is spent moving inmates. The more inmates, the busier the officers are shuttling prisoners to court appearances, medical treatment, recreation, visitation or attorney conferences. The more time spent on that, the less time there is to spot -- and head off -- looming trouble.
In January, Richard Cornell and two other officers were transferring inmates when one produced a homemade knife and lunged for another prisoner. Like all officers, Cornell was armed only with pepper spray and wore no body armor.
He jumped into the middle of the fight and was stabbed in the chest. The officers subdued and disarmed inmate Darrell Williams with the help of chemical spray. They later found two more makeshift weapons in his sneakers.
'We know going in what could happen,' said Annetta Unseld, a corrections officer who witnessed the attack, and who managed to get the shank out of the inmate's hand.
Jail Commander David Pankoke agrees his facility faces a critical staffing shortage.
But he credits the professionalism of the staff for keeping things under control. 'If they weren't as effective as they are,' he said, 'I know we would have had some serious issues before now, as badly as we're outnumbered.'

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