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  1. #51
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    From left: Christopher Tignor, 29; Kyle Glen Tiffee, 23; Michael Mayden, 26; and Anthony Fulwilder, 31. All four died in a brawl at a private prison in Cushing.



    Names of offenders killed at CCA's private prison in Cushing released

    By Barbara Hoberock, Andrew Knittle and Graham Lee Brewer
    The Tulsa World

    OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma Department of Corrections on Monday released the names of four inmates killed during a weekend incident at the Cimarron Correctional Center in Cushing.

    The private prison holds Oklahoma inmates and is operated by Corrections Corporation of America.

    Listed as dead were Anthony A. Fulwilder, Kyle G. Tiffee, Michael E. Mayden Jr. and Christopher Tignor. The Oklahoman reported that the men were stabbed to death.

    Fulwilder was serving time from Oklahoma County for crimes including robbery with a firearm and shooting with intent to kill. One of his tattoos, according to prison documents, is often affiliated with white pride or white separatist prison organizations.

    Tiffee was serving time from LeFlore and Oklahoma counties for assault and battery on law enforcement and possession of a controlled dangerous substance.

    Mayden was serving time from Oklahoma County for offenses including possession of a firearm after a felony conviction and possession of a stolen vehicle.

    Tignor had convictions out of McClain, Cleveland and Oklahoma counties including concealing stolen property and burglary.

    Three men — Jesse Hood, Cordell Johnson and Jared Cruce — remain hospitalized from injuries suffered in the brawl.

    Hood, 31, of the Tulsa area, has a lengthy criminal record and was most recently convicted of assaulting a police officer in 2013, which earned him four years in prison. According to the prison system’s online records system, Hood has numerous tattoos, including a swastika on his chest.

    Johnson, 24, was convicted of drug charges and domestic abuse by strangulation in Kay County in 2011. He was sentenced to 10 years behind bars when he was 20.

    Cruce, 33, has been convicted in McClain and Oklahoma counties of drugs charges, several alcohol-related charges and assaulting a police officer. He was sentenced to 10 years in 2011.

    All of the dead inmates and those sent to hospitals with injuries were white, records show. Prison officials did not answer questions Monday about whether race played a role in the inmates’ deaths and injuries.

    According to officials, an “inmate-on-inmate altercation” broke out at 4:39 p.m. Saturday in a housing pod. The altercation lasted less than two minutes. Staff worked for 38 minutes to secure the housing area. No staff were injured.

    The facility remains on lockdown during the investigation being conducted by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and CCA.

    Meanwhile, Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton was preparing for an execution on Wednesday and was not available for an interview to discuss his agency’s oversight of private prisons with which it contracts, said Terri Watkins, DOC spokeswoman.

    Likewise, the contract monitor was not available for an interview, Watkins said.

    The DOC referred questions to CCA, which did not return a phone call seeking comment.

    Justin Mayden, older brother of victim Michael Mayden, told The Oklahoman that he’s been told by authorities “not to talk to anybody until the investigation is done.” However, he did post some details about his brother’s death on a GoFundMe page Sunday.

    “My little brother was recently a bystander in a prison fight that tragically took his life,” Justin Mayden wrote on the fundraising website. “His family and friends are still at a loss of words why this happened and have yet to really get any answers. My brother was a loving father to a little boy and loved him more than anything in this world.”

    A woman, Kathy Barber, spoke to a Tulsa-area TV station, claiming victim Anthony Fulwilder was targeted before his death. Barber said Fulwilder was her fiancé.

    “I’m just literally devastated, and I miss him horribly right now. Just watching my phone hoping this is not real, and I know it is,” Barber told the station, adding that Barber had changed his life since he was locked up in 2003.

    “He went from being a very bitter person to someone who was very loving and caring.”

    The state has 5,904 inmates in medium- and maximum-security private prisons, Watkins said. Private prison expenditures between July 1, 2014, and June 1 of this year were $92,675,632, according to DOC.

    Violence among inmates has resulted in multiple lockdowns at Cimarron since 2013.

    In June, the facility went under lockdown after inmates from three housing units got into a fight that sent 11 of them to the hospital.

    In March 2013, a unitwide fight involved inmates smashing windows, breaching security doors and being pepper-sprayed after making weapons from destroyed property.

    Another incident at the prison in May 2013 involved 10 offenders and began when one of them hit an inmate who was eating lunch in the dining hall. Officers used more than a pound of pepper spray against the inmates after they refused orders to stop fighting.

    The Tulsa World filed an open records request in June for copies of incident reports from state-run and private prisons in Oklahoma, including Cimarron Correctional Facility since July 2013. The request has not yet been fulfilled.

    http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/capit...2ef135158.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  2. #52
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    Fight at Oklahoma prison result of gang feud, authorities say

    CUSHING — A deadly fight at a private prison in this small oil town was the result of a feud between two white supremacist gangs, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

    Four inmates were killed and four others hospitalized in the Sept. 12 altercation at the Cimarron Correctional Facility, a 1,720-bed prison operated by the Corrections Corporation of America. The four injured inmates have been returned to the facility.

    Corrections Director Robert Patton confirmed Monday the fatal brawl was between the Irish Mob and the Universal Aryan Brotherhood.

    Two inmates were stabbed to death, the medical examiner's office reported last week. The other two died from “multiple sharp force injuries.” All of those injured were white.

    All state prisons went on lockdown after the incident and have since gone back to normal operations, with the exception of Cimarron.

    “As of right now we are easing the lockdown at the Cimarron Correctional Facility with the exception of known associates and members of the two gang affiliations," Patton said in a news release.

    “Rumors and speculations of disturbances at other facilities across the state on the evening of Sept. 12 being connected to the Cimarron altercation remain under investigation and we hope to have answers to these questions soon."

    Sean Wallace, director of Oklahoma Corrections Professionals, which represents prison workers, said correctional officers have reported to him that several fights took place at other facilities on the day of the Cushing attack.

    State Corrections Department spokesman Alex Gerszewski confirmed the following incidents at other state prisons on Sept. 12:

    - There was a fist fight between several offenders Dick Conner Correctional Center in Hominy. The involved offenders were treated at the facility for minor injuries.

    - An inmate named Charles Overton was stabbed at the Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite. He has been returned to the facility.

    - There was a fist fight between several offenders at the William S. Keys Correctional Center in Fort Supply. Several offenders were taken off site and treated for minor injuries. All the inmates involved have been returned to the facility.

    - There was also a fight at the James Crabtree Correctional Center in Helena, but no further details are available.

    Patton has toured the Cimarron facility three times since the Sept. 12 attack, and said he is pleased with the progress of the investigation and the facility's operations.

    The investigation into the fight continues, and the state Corrections Department has yet to release the names of the inmates who led the attack or what charges may be filed as a result of the investigation.

    http://newsok.com/fight-at-oklahoma-...448418/?page=2
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  3. #53
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    Investigative report: Burl Cain's business dealings possibly violate rule barring contact with inmates’ relatives

    Angola warden had dealings with stepfather, friend of inmates

    By Maya Lau, Steve Hardy and Gordon Russell
    The Acadiana Advocate

    Burl Cain,
    the legendary warden of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, entered into business partnerships a few years ago with two men who had close ties with state inmates, despite Department of Public Safety and Corrections policies designed to limit relationships between prison officials and relatives and friends of the offenders they oversee.

    Cain, 73,
    was trying to develop a subdivision in West Feliciana Parish, near his home in Jackson and about 30 miles from the nation’s largest maximum-security prison, which he has overseen as warden for two decades.

    He transacted with two businessmen, one the stepfather of a double-murderer and the other a friend of a killer who helped underwrite the convict’s appeals.

    State law does not specifically address whether wardens can do business with family and friends of inmates.

    But personnel rules for corrections officials ban “nonprofessional relationships with offenders or with offenders’ families or friends.” The rules frown on even minor interactions, like writing letters or making phone calls to such people. They require that “mail or phone calls received from offenders or their families outside the normal course and scope of the employee’s job duties must be reported at the earliest opportunity to the employee’s supervisor.”

    Cain’s boss, state corrections Secretary James LeBlanc, did not respond to a question about whether Cain reported his financial entanglements with the two businessmen during the time they were his partners in the real-estate development, between 2007 and 2014.

    “All (DPSC) employees are expected to conduct themselves in a professional and ethical manner. If, after reviewing a more complete set of facts, it is determined that Warden Cain did not meet this standard, then the

    Department will take appropriate action,” department spokeswoman Pam Laborde said in an email response.

    Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans, who chairs the Senate committee that oversees the state corrections department, said it is clear to him the rule was written precisely to prohibit scenarios like Cain’s real-estate dealings.

    “Obviously, the intent of the rule is that if you’re a warden, you don’t fraternize with people who are friends or relatives of inmates,” Morrell said. “Obviously, this should never be allowed to happen again.”

    Morrell said if state corrections officials somehow determine that Cain didn’t violate the rule, he’ll sponsor legislation that clarifies the regulation so that there can be no wiggle room.

    An ambitious project


    Cain began buying land for his subdivision, outside Jackson, in March 2006. By early 2007, he had amassed more than 150 acres, for which he paid just over $2.1 million, according to land records. Most of it was in the name of a firm Cain had recently incorporated, Bluffs North LLC, while about a fifth of it was in Cain’s own name.

    In September 2007, Cain’s corporation, Bluffs North, sold two big chunks of its land to developer William Ourso, of Baton Rouge, for $700,000.

    Two weeks later, at Ourso’s request, Cain provided an unusual boost to Ourso’s friend, an inmate named Leonard “Lenny” Nicholas. The warden coaxed a deathbed confession from another state prisoner, who claimed he was responsible for the 1980 barroom murder for which Nicholas was serving a life sentence. Nicholas used the confession — which got details of the killing wrong — in an unsuccessful appeal that Ourso helped orchestrate and at least partially bankrolled.

    Another man who bought into Cain’s venture was Charles Chatelain, a prominent Carencro businessman whose stepson had arrived at Angola in 1999 to begin serving life in prison for an execution-style double murder.

    The inmate, Jason Lormand, was selected in 2007 for a coveted spot as a trusty at the Governor’s Mansion, considered the best perch from which to launch a bid for clemency. But according to his mother, Jessica Landry
    Chatelain, her son was abruptly removed from the mansion in 2011 and sent to another prison. She believes the transfer was due to a federal investigation into Cain’s business dealings. FBI officials declined comment on the probe, which never produced charges.

    When The Advocate asked Cain about his real-estate transactions related to Bluffs North, he said the matter “has been looked at and talked about” already.

    He initially agreed to an interview with The Advocate, but then asked the newspaper to send him questions via U.S. mail.

    “We’d rather not put it on a state-owned computer, if you don’t mind,” said Cain’s lawyer, L.J. Hymel, the former U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Louisiana who now works as a defense attorney.

    Eventually, Cain declined to answer the questions at all.

    “As much as he would like to respond, it would take hours for him to set you straight,” Hymel said in a letter to The Advocate. “Consequently, Warden Cain declines to lower himself into the world of gossip, rumor and fantasy.”

    Charles Chatelain, in an email sent by his attorney Stephen Oats, said, “It is vehemently denied that the real estate transaction was in any way related to the incarceration of Jason Lormand. Anyone who says otherwise does not know what they are talking about.”

    Requests to the corrections department to speak to Lormand and Nicholas were denied. Ourso died in 2012.

    Bad timing


    It was in 2006 that Cain — who has a well-known entrepreneurial streak — came up with the notion of developing a subdivision of large estates along La. 421 near Jackson. The subdivision is not connected to The Bluffs
    Country Club and Resort, a luxury golf-course development roughly five miles away.

    His timing wasn’t fortuitous. Just months after Cain’s big investments, which caused him to take on more than $2 million in debt, the nation began spiraling into its deepest recession in decades, and the real-estate market took a nosedive.

    In late 2007, Cain started selling off parts of his acreage, with Ourso purchasing two lots from Bluffs North for $700,000. And in early 2009, Ourso bought Cain out of Bluffs North altogether, taking over its debts of more than $1 million.

    Around the same time, Cain sold a two-thirds share in his personal 30-acre parcel to a company Chatelain presides over. That firm, La Parisienne LLC, agreed to handle all of Cain’s debt related to the land for the next five years — a total of $151,000 — and two-thirds of all remaining mortgage bills thereafter.

    Chatelain has been a licensed real estate broker since 1968, he said in an email.

    In 2014, Cain and La Parisienne sold the land the warden had once purchased in his own name for $435,000, about $25,000 less than what Cain had paid for it seven years earlier. Chatelain, through his lawyer, said La

    Parisienne and Cain actually made money on the deal because another one of his holding companies purchased the note on Cain’s mortgage at a discount. Cain made $3,413 and La Parisienne netted $6,832, Chatelain said.

    Cain and his partners have now sold off all their West Feliciana holdings.

    The Bluffs North subdivision, which counts one of Cain’s two sons as a homesteader, is still only partially built. The properties share a continuous fence along the road punctuated by dramatic gates, built in brick, iron or wood. One is flanked by saplings; another is covered in ivy.

    At least one house has been built. Others are in construction. On several lots, though, nothing lies beyond the gate.

    It’s unclear from the documents in the public record how much money Cain made or lost on the Bluffs North project.

    An inmate’s champion


    Ourso was a noted developer in Baton Rouge; he built several subdivisions, among them Riverbend, Laurel Estates and Laurel Lake Estates, according to his obituary. He was also a frequent visitor to Angola, according to Jerry Arbour, a lawyer and former East Baton Rouge Parish School Board member who handled one of the West Feliciana transactions involving Cain and Ourso.

    Ourso was a horse enthusiast who took an interest in Angola’s prison stable, where inmates tend horses that are mostly used in cattle operations at the 18,000-acre prison. They’re also ridden by guards monitoring its 6,000 offenders.

    Ourso began visiting Angola out of his friendship with Cain, and given the developer’s equestrian interests, he became friendly with Nicholas, an inmate who trained horses, said Spencer Calahan, a Baton Rouge personal-injury lawyer recruited by Ourso to represent Nicholas.

    Nicholas maintains his innocence in the 1980 murder of Charles LeBreton Jr., who was killed in the barroom he owned on Franklin Avenue in New Orleans.

    “(Ourso) kind of just lent an ear to (Nicholas) and heard his plight. Will liked to stick up for people that he thought were being bullied. He thought this was a horrible injustice and wanted to help him out,” Calahan said.

    A contemporaneous account in The Times-Picayune said that the killer stabbed LeBreton, 57, and stole $5,500 in cash from his business, Charlie’s Bar. The killer also forced LeBreton’s girlfriend to perform oral sex on him at knifepoint, according to a police report.

    The woman, 36 at the time, identified Nicholas as her assailant, first in a photo lineup, and then in a live one. He was convicted at trial the next year.

    Nicholas maintained his innocence and found an ally in Ourso, who became so passionate about the case that he hired an investigator and arranged for lawyers, including Calahan, to seek a new trial for Nicholas. They filed an ambitious motion in August 2008 that rested in large part on the videotaped confession of Clarence “Mike” Myers, which Cain had secured just four days before Myers died in September 2007. Myers, who suffered from hepatitis C, died at Earl K. Long Hospital in Baton Rouge. It’s not clear how Cain happened to record his confession at the hospital, but Ourso soon had the tape, and he delivered it to the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office.

    Myers and Nicholas knew each other: In fact, a month after LeBreton was killed, they were arrested together, along with two women, in a trailer park in St. Bernard Parish.

    Myers was not charged in LeBreton’s killing at the time. But decades later, with Nicholas’ appeal pending, prosecutors would portray him as an accomplice. One of the two women who was arrested with the two men told the government in 2008 that Myers and Nicholas had come home that night with a large stash of cash.

    Myers spent his final years in prison after being convicted of a string of burglaries in Jefferson Parish.

    On the tape, Cain asked Myers whether he knew Nicholas. He said he did.

    “Did you do it or did Lenny do it?” Cain asked, using Nicholas’ nickname, according to a 2008 Times-Picayune article on the motion.

    “I did it,” Myers responded.

    “You shot him?” Cain asked.

    Myers replied that the murder was committed with his “hands,” adding: “strangulation.” In fact, reports from the time mention LeBreton being stabbed, while the coroner eventually ruled he died of “blunt head injury.”

    Nicholas’ motion for a new trial was denied in 2008. He’s now jailed at Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel.

    Donna Andrieu, then the head of the appeals unit for the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office, called the confession taped by Cain a “fraud perpetrated on the court,” in part because Myers didn’t name the victim and misremembered how the killing occurred.

    But then-Criminal District Judge Julian Parker never even watched the videotape, saying that he didn’t want to do so until or unless he determined Nicholas’ appeal deserved a hearing.

    Killer seeking clemency


    Like Ourso, Charles Chatelain became a friend of Cain’s.

    In March 2004, Kathleen Blanco, then the newly minted governor, appointed Chatelain — whom she described to The Advocate as a close friend of one of her neighbors — to the volunteer board of Prison Enterprises. The agency, which is part of the DPS&C and uses inmate labor to grow food and manufacture items for sale, used to be called the Office of Agri-Business. It was once overseen by Cain.

    Chatelain, now 72, had a reason for taking an interest in Louisiana prison affairs. His stepson Lormand, now 43, had been in Angola since November 1999 for the murders of Justin Fitzgerald, 23, and Heidi Studler, 20.

    Blanco said she believed Chatelain’s interest in serving on the board owed to his stepson’s imprisonment.

    Lormand killed his victims based on the belief that they were drug informants — a belief Fitzgerald’s mother said was mistaken. Lormand initially fled the state, but returned to turn himself in.

    He was convicted at trial of two counts of first-degree murder. The jury deadlocked on whether to give him the death penalty, and he got life in prison.

    He is currently seeking a pardon.

    Fitzgerald and Studler had gone out to a club on McKinley Street near the University of Louisiana at Lafayette on the night they were killed. Alida Anthony, Fitzgerald’s mother, described her son as a cheerful and “charming” young man who helped customers in her store in Lafayette.

    She said he smoked marijuana and used other drugs, though she believed he was trying to get himself clean.

    For reasons that are unclear, Lormand that night decided Studler and Fitzgerald were informants, and he dispatched both of them with a shot to the back of the head. Their bodies were discovered days later near another club on Lake Martin Road.

    Cain and Chatelain got to know one another after Chatelain joined the board of Prison Enterprises in 2004. Within a few months, Lormand had been upgraded to trusty status.

    The next year, he began cooking for Cain at the Ranch House — the warden’s sprawling headquarters for entertaining guests — a position that lasted two years, according to his clemency application.

    While working at the Ranch House, he bunked at the canine training facility, Jessica Landry Chatelain said. Known as the “dog pen,” it’s considered one of the best assignments at Angola because it allows inmates freedom to move around, according to several former employees of the prison.

    In 2007, Lormand was off to the Governor’s Mansion, even though he had run up two disciplinary infractions that year, one of them just two months before his reassignment.

    In that case, he was charged with unspecified misconduct. Corrections spokeswoman Pam Laborde said full details of the misconduct are not public record, but she characterized it as minor, saying Lormand got in an argument with another inmate, who struck him. Lormand did not retaliate, she said.

    Laborde said the other infraction stemmed from an incident in which a prison employee drove Lormand to a residence on the Angola grounds where alcohol was available. She said the inmates were “intimidated” and reported the incident, and that the employee resigned.

    It’s up to the State Police — not the Angola prison staff — to decide who works at the Governor’s Mansion, as those inmates stay at the State Police Barracks in Baton Rouge. State Police conduct their own interviews, Laborde said.

    She said Lormand “fits the traditional profile” for an offender assigned to the State Police barracks “so his transfer there is not unusual,” although only a small fraction of Angola’s roughly 6,000 inmates ever get posted to the Governor’s Mansion.

    State Police officials said the barracks house 146 offenders. They wouldn’t specify how many inmates are assigned to the mansion, but a source with knowledge of the mansion said the number is generally less than 20.

    Chatelain noted that his stepson left Angola in 2007, two years before Chatelain entered into real-estate deals with Cain. Lormand, however, continued to be an inmate under the corrections department regardless of his prison assignment, and wardens are prohibited from fraternizing with the families of any inmates.

    ‘Handpicked inmates’


    State Police Superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson, who was not in charge of the department when Lormand was selected, said those decisions are largely based on what the warden says.

    “When we accept inmates at the State Police Barracks, we interview the inmate and consult with the warden,” he said. Of the warden’s word, he said: “We give (it) a tremendous amount of weight. I don’t move an inmate (if) the warden doesn’t approve that move.”

    Neither of the two men in charge of the State Police at the time, Henry Whitehorn or Stanley Griffin, said they could recall the transfer, but said they would have taken seriously any inmate misconduct reports if they’d been provided by the corrections department.

    “Those are handpicked inmates,” Griffin said.

    Blanco said despite receiving campaign contributions from Chatelain, she had nothing to do with getting Lormand posted to the Governor’s Mansion.

    “When Jason came into the mansion, he introduced himself as Mr. Chatelain’s son,” Blanco said. “I did not request Jason. He was sent through the regular channels as far as I understood. I was surprised when he introduced himself.”

    But Alida Anthony, whose son was gunned down at 23 by Lormand, was skeptical when she learned from a relative in the State Police that Lormand had gotten a plum post in the Governor’s Mansion.

    “He had special treatment,” Anthony said. “I know he did.”

    In 2008, Chatelain was reappointed to the Prison Enterprises board by Gov. Bobby Jindal, whom he has also supported with campaign donations. Chatelain eventually became the board’s chairman, a role he continues to fulfill.

    Though Lormand’s disciplinary record is spotless from 2007 on, he was abruptly moved from the Governor’s Mansion to Hunt Correctional Center in 2011.

    His mother described the change as a setback, and she attributed the transfer to pressure from the federal probe.

    “I understand there was some sort of investigation on Warden Cain, that they had people watching him all the time, and I think that may have been one of the reasons ... that they actually moved my son away from the Governor’s Mansion,” Jessica Landry Chatelain said.

    “It was almost like being convicted all over again,” she said.

    She said her son worked hard to rehabilitate himself from a crime he committed while addicted to drugs.

    Neither Anthony, her husband Jim nor Sarah Marie Mills, the mother of Studler, Lormand’s other victim, had any idea that Lormand’s stepfather had a financial relationship with the warden at Angola until they learned of it from The Advocate.

    “I think it’s shocking. … It is unfortunate,” Jim Anthony said. “There’s no doubt about it being unethical.

    “I can’t believe he’s (Cain) in power doing some of these things. … That’s typical politics in Louisiana — you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”

    The Anthonys remain fearful that Lormand will be set free. The state Pardon Board this year voted to give him a clemency hearing. In order to be eligible for such a hearing, an inmate serving life must have clocked at least 15 years behind bars, a milestone Lormand passed in September 2014.

    If the board votes to grant his request for a commutation, it will be up to Gov. Bobby Jindal to make a decision.

    Wardens serve as nonvoting members of the Pardon Board. But thanks to Lormand’s 2011 transfer to Hunt Correctional Center, Cain will not be among those considering his case, corrections officials said.

    Blanco, the former governor, punted when asked whether she thought it was appropriate for the warden to be doing business with the father of an inmate seeking clemency.

    “I’d rather not comment on that. It’s awkward,” she said. “I find it awkward.”

    Asked what she would have done as governor if she had become aware of such a relationship, she said: “I think that I would have tried to decide if there was an attempt to do anything with the son. The whole thing I feel is awkward, but I don’t think I can pass a judgment at this juncture.”

    http://theadvocate.com/news/acadiana...cains-business
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  4. #54
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    Charges against five inmates filed in prison riot

    By Lori Pilger
    The Lincoln Journal Star

    State and local prosecutors filed assault and terroristic-threat charges Thursday against five inmates, three of whom were already serving time for assaulting prison guards, in connection with the May 10 riot at Tecumseh.

    And officials indicate it may just be the start.

    In a press release, Suzanne Gage, a spokeswoman with Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson's Office, said the killing of two inmates and property crimes, which involved an estimated half-million dollars in damage, remain under investigation.

    She said the Attorney General's Office worked with Johnson County Attorney Rick Smith's Office on the criminal cases filed Thursday, and they resulted from hundreds of interviews and hours of reviewing videotape.

    The inmates charged include:

    * John Zalme, 69, Roger Weikle, 59, and Frederick Gooch, 29, who are all accused of assault by a confined person. Gooch allegedly punched an officer, and Weikle allegedly kicked the officer in the head while on the yard during the start of the uprising.

    Zalme is accused of hitting a second officer in the head as he tried to restrain Weikle and Gooch.

    * Ian Yelton is accused of the first-degree assault of Cory Bewley, an inmate serving time on a murder charge.

    * William T. Harris, 22, who is accused of making terroristic threats against a corrections employee.

    The Clerk of the Johnson County Court's office said they haven't yet been given court dates and likely wouldn't get them until next week.

    Nebraska Department of Correctional Services Director Scott Frakes called it an important step as the prison and the department moves forward.

    "Accountability is an important component to effectively managing a prison, and the action taken by the Johnson County Attorney today sends a strong message that assaultive behavior toward staff or other inmates will not be tolerated," he said in a news release.

    The Nebraska State Patrol and Attorney General's Office declined to provide details on the allegations, and court records don't include a narrative.

    But an incident summary released in June did identify Zalme, Weikle and Gooch, as well as a fourth man, 27-year-old Rashad Washington, as inmates involved in the riot.

    Washington, who was shot in the leg by an officer firing from the tower, wasn't charged Thursday.

    At a hearing earlier this month of the Legislature's Department of Correctional Services Special Investigative Committee, state Ombudsman Marshall Lux and Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers questioned whether a corrections officer may have hit him in error.

    The incident summary described Washington as a leader and said he had incited others during the initial incident in the yard.

    Of the five men now facing charges, three -- Zalme, Weikle and Gooch -- are doing time for assaulting guards.

    Zalme stabbed a fellow inmate in 1975, stabbed three guards at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in 1981 and killed another inmate in Oregon by beating him and starting him on fire in 1997.

    Weikle, too, stabbed a guard at the State Pen in 1989.

    Gooch went to prison for assaulting four officers in Douglas County in 2007.

    A grand jury hasn't yet convened to review the death of the two inmates, Shon Collins and Donald Peacock, which is still under investigation.

    Collins and Peacock, both 46 and doing time on child sexual assault charges, were found dead in a living unit. They died of blunt force head injuries, reportedly at the hands of fellow inmates.

    Prison officials have said that more than 400 inmates were involved in the uprising, which started on a Sunday afternoon and lasted 11 hours.

    Inmates tore up a living unit and set fires. Nineteen staff and a volunteer had to be rescued from different areas of the prison.

    http://journalstar.com/news/state-an...2c393e998.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #55
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Oregon Department of Corrections: Criminal Alien Report June 2016

    The Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) June 2016 Inmate Population Profile indicated there were 14,709 inmates incarcerated in the DOC's 14 prisons.

    Data obtained from the DOC indicated that on June 1st there were 954 foreign nationals (criminal aliens) incarcerated in the state's prison system; more than one in every sixteen prisoners incarcerated by the state was a criminal alien, 6.48 percent of the total prison population.

    Some background information, all 954 criminal aliens currently incarcerated in the DOC prison system were identified by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a federal law enforcement agency that is part of the U.S.

    Department of Homeland Security. If an inmate is identified by ICE as being a criminal alien, at the federal law enforcement agency's request, DOC officials will place an "ICE detainer" on the inmate. After the inmate completes his/her state sanction, prison officials will transfer custody of the inmate to ICE.

    Using DOC Inmate Population Profiles and ICE detainer numbers, the following table reveals the total number inmates, the number of domestic and criminal alien inmates along with the percentage of them with ICE detainers incarcerated on June 1st in the state's prisons.

    OREGON DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
    Month/Day/Year DOC Total Inmates DOC Domestic Inmates DOC Inmates W/ICE detainers DOC % Inmates W/ICE detainers
    June 1, 2016 14,709 13,755 954 6.48%
    Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 June 16 and Inmate Population Profile 01 June 16.

    Using DOC ICE detainer numbers, the following table reveals the number and percentage of criminal alien prisoners incarcerated on June 1st that were sent to prison from the state's 36 counties.

    OREGON DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
    County DOC Total Inmates W/ ICE Detainers DOC % Inmates W/ICE Detainers
    Marion 237 24.84%
    Multnomah 209 21.91%
    Washington 184 19.29%
    Clackamas 69 7.23%
    Lane 50 5.24%
    Jackson 32 3.35%
    Yamhill 22 2.31%
    Linn 18 1.89%
    Umatilla 18 1.89%
    Klamath 14 1.47%
    Polk 14 1.47%
    Benton 12 1.26%
    Malheur 12 1.26%
    Lincoln 10 1.05%
    Deschutes 8 0.84%
    Coos 6 0.63%
    Jefferson 6 0.63%
    Josephine 6 0.63%
    Clatsop 4 0.42%
    Crook 3 0.31%
    Douglas 3 0.31%
    Tillamook 3 0.31%
    Wasco 3 0.31%
    Morrow 3 0.31%
    Hood River 2 0.21%
    Union 2 0.21%
    Columbia 1 0.10%
    Gilliam 1 0.10%
    Lake 1 0.10%
    OOS 1 0.10%
    Baker 0 0.00%
    Curry 0 0.00%
    Grant 0 0.00%
    Harney 0 0.00%
    Sherman 0 0.00%
    Wallowa 0 0.00%
    Wheeler 0 0.00%
    Total 954 100.00%
    Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 June 16.

    Here are the ways Oregon residents were victimized by the 954 criminal aliens.

    Using DOC ICE detainer numbers, the following table reveals the number and percentage of criminal alien prisoners incarcerated on June 1st by type of crime.

    OREGON DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
    Crime DOC Total Inmates W/ ICE Detainers DOC % Inmates W/ICE Detainers
    Sex Abuse 186 19.50%
    Rape 173 18.13%
    Homicide 136 14.25%
    Drugs 102 10.69%
    Sodomy 92 9.64%
    Assault 77 8.07%
    Robbery 55 5.76%
    Kidnapping 32 3.35%
    Theft 24 2.51%
    Burglary 18 1.89%
    Driving Offense 9 0.94%
    Vehicle Theft 3 0.31%
    Arson 0 0.00%
    Forgery 0 0.00%
    Escape 0 0.00%
    Other / Combination 47 4.93%
    Total 954 100.00%
    Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 June 16.

    Using the DOC Inmate Population Profile and ICE detainer numbers from June 1st, the following table reveals the total number inmates by crime type, the number of domestic and criminal alien prisoners incarcerated by type of crime and the percentage of those crimes committed by criminal aliens.

    OREGON DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
    Crime DOC Total Inmates DOC Domestic Inmates DOC Inmates W/ICE Detainers DOC % All Inmates W/ICE Detainers
    Sex Abuse 1,733 1,547 186 10.73%
    Rape 971 798 173 17.82%
    Homicide 1,665 1,529 136 8.17%
    Drugs 934 832 102 10.92%
    Sodomy 1,034 942 92 8.90%
    Assault 1,922 1,845 77 4.01%
    Robbery 1,574 1,519 55 3.49%
    Kidnapping 294 262 32 10.88%
    Burglary 1,382 1,358 24 1.74%
    Theft 1,159 1,141 18 1.55%
    Driving Offense 250 241 9 3.60%
    Vehicle Theft 431 428 3 0.70%
    Arson 78 78 0 0.00%
    Forgery 37 37 0 0.00%
    Escape 48 48 0 0.00%
    Other / Combination 1,197 1,150 47 3.93%
    Total 14,709 13,755 954
    Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 June 16 and Inmate Population Profile 01 June 16.

    Using DOC ICE detainer numbers, the following table reveals the self-declared countries of origin of the 954 criminal alien prisoners by number and percentage incarcerated on June 1st in the state's prisons.

    OREGON DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
    Country DOC Total Inmates W/ ICE Detainers DOC % Inmates W/ICE Detainers
    Mexico 763 79.98%
    Guatemala 24 2.51%
    Cuba 16 1.68%
    El Salvador 14 1.47%
    Russia 11 1.15%
    Ukraine 11 1.15%
    Vietnam 11 1.15%
    Honduras 10 1.05%
    Federated States of Micronesia 6 0.63%
    Canada 5 0.52%
    Laos 5 0.52%
    Philippines 5 0.52%
    Other Countries 73 7.65%
    Total 954 100.00%
    Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 June 16.

    Beyond the DOC criminal alien incarceration numbers and incarceration percentages, per county and per crime type, or even country of origin, criminal aliens pose high economic cost on Oregonians.

    An individual prisoner incarcerated in the DOC prison system costs the state approximately ($94.55) per day.

    The DOC's incarceration cost for its 954 criminal alien prison population is approximately ($90,200.70) per day, ($631,404.90) per week, and ($32,923,255.50) per year.

    Even taking into account fiscal year 2015 U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice, State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) award of $1,602,510.00, if the State of Oregon receives the same amount of SCAAP funding for fiscal year 2016, the cost to incarcerate 954 criminal aliens to the DOC will be at least ($31,320,745.50).

    None of preceding cost estimates for the DOC to incarcerate the 954 criminal aliens includes the dollar amount for legal services (indigent defense), language interpreters, court costs, or victim assistance.

    Bibliography

    Oregon Department of Corrections Population Profile June 1, 2016:
    http://www.oregon.gov/doc/RESRCH/doc...ile_201606.pdf

    Oregon Department of Corrections Population Profile (unpublished MS Excel workbook) titled Incarcerated Criminal Aliens Report dated June 1, 2016.

    Oregon Department of Corrections Issue Brief Quick Facts 53-DOC/GECO: 3/23/16:
    http://www.oregon.gov/doc/OC/docs/pd...ck%20Facts.pdf

    U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance, State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP), 2015 SCAAP award: https://www.bja.gov/funding/FY-2015-SCAAP-Awards.pdf

    David Olen Cross, Salem writes on immigration issues and foreign national crime. He is a weekly guest on the Lars Larson Northwest Show. He can be reached at docfnc@yahoo.com or at http://docfnc.wordpress.com/.

    http://s.oregonlive.com/cYjls9G

  6. #56
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Private Prison Stocks Sink After U.S. Signals the End

    The U.S. Justice Department halted a decade-long experiment of hiring private companies to help manage the soaring prison population, sending shares of facility operators Corrections Corp. of America and GEO Group Inc. plunging.

    Corrections Corp. fell 35 percent to $17.57 at the close of trading, the real estate investment trust’s biggest drop since its initial public offering in 1997. GEO Group plummeted 40 percent to $19.51, also the largest decline in its 22-year history as a publicly traded company. The stocks pared losses of about 50 percent as analysts said the impact may be less severe than initially expected. Corrections Corp. climbed to $18.85 in after-hours trading after saying that today’s decision relates to facilities that represent just 7 percent of its business. GEO Group rose to $20.72.

    The Federal Bureau of Prisons will phase out the use of privately operated prisons with the goal of ultimately ending contracts with them, according to an order today from Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. Private prisons “simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs and resources” and “do not save substantially on costs,” and there’s less need for such facilities as the federal prison population declines, she said.

    “I am directing that, as each contract reaches the end of its term, the bureau should either decline to renew that contract or substantially reduce its scope in a manner consistent with law,” Yates said in her memo. The Federal Bureau of Prisons accounts for 25 percent of the U.S. Justice Department’s budget annually, Yates wrote.

    The Federal Bureau of Prisons began contracting with private operators about 10 years ago, after incarceration grew beyond what it could handle. The U.S. prison population increased by almost 800 percent between 1980 and 2013, often at a far faster rate than the Bureau of Prisons could handle at its own facilities, according to the Yates memo.

    But cracks in the plan emerged, with incidents of assault and other problems in private facilities piling up. By 2013, with both the federal prison population and the proportion of federal prisoners in contracted facilities reaching their peak, the bureau was housing about 15 percent of prisoners, or almost 30,000 inmates, in privately operated facilities. That same year, the Justice Department began to identify reforms, leading to actions including a decision three weeks ago to end a contract for about 1,200 beds and today’s call to phase out contracts with private operators in future.

    “These steps will reduce the private prison population by more than half from its peak in 2013,” Yates said.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...e-facility-use
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  7. #57
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Delayed opening: Is Pa.'s $400M prison '1st class' or 'struggling?'

    Pennsylvanians wondering when the $400 million, concrete State Correctional Institution Phoenix will finally open can wonder a lot more, after reviewing the denunciatory letters exchanged by the prison's builder and the state's private agent monitoring the work.

    The largest prison ever built in a state whose incarcerated population has lately declined, Phoenix will house nearly 4,000 Philadelphia-area inmates, including its women's and death-row units, next to what Corrections Commissioner John Wetzel says is the badly outdated stone Graterford prison, in pleasant Skippack Township north of the city.

    After the state rebid the job and early construction was delayed by weather, Phoenix was scheduled to open in November 2015. Contractor Walsh Heery Joint Venture, the Pittsburgh-based alliance of Chicago and Atlanta builders that has been overseeing construction since Tom Corbett was governor, has run up more than $14 million in "liquidated damages" it will have to pay, after blowing past that deadline, the state says.

    On Nov. 3, Ed Kerber, one of Walsh Heery's senior project managers, wrote to the state's construction managers at Hill International in Philadelphia that his group was at last "ready and willing to turn over a first-class facility" to Pennsylvania and was just waiting for "a timely and efficient final and closeout inspection."

    But Walsh Heery's claim that the prison was ready "is grossly inaccurate and misleading," wrote back Mark D. Dickinson, vice president at Hill, which represents the state Department of General Services in managing construction of Phoenix so it can be run, when it's ready, by Wetzel's Department of Corrections.

    Walsh Heery officials have not responded to my calls and messages (some subcontractors have said they have that problem, too), and Hill spokesman John Paolin said his firm declined to comment.

    So I asked for the written record. General Services sent me copies of scores of reports and letters, a partial account that helps one appreciate the complexity and conflicts of building a safe, secure modern facility to multiple and sometimes changing and conflicting guidelines, on budget, through an array of private contractors.

    The documents are heavily edited, for what state officials call security reasons.

    How bad are the problems? Old inspection reports from 2014 and 2015 list trouble with insulation, door closings, pipe corrosion, fire-alarm installation, concrete cracking and staining, and other issues requiring sometimes-costly do-overs or work-arounds.

    I wish I could say most of these have been resolved. But that is not clear. For example, a report on lighting problems is almost completely blacked out.

    The Inspector General's Office sent me a separate seven-page refusal, stating among other things that revealing anything about a 2015 investigation it conducted at the site "would chill government self-evaluation," "make future investigations more difficult," "harm [the Inspector General's] internal deliberation and investigative process," and even "reveal the mental impressions, conclusions or opinions" of taxpayer-paid lawyers. Which, they wrote, would be bad for the commonwealth. We like the dark.

    So, back to the recent letters.

    Before declaring that his firm was ready to turn over the site for opening, Walsh Heery's Kerber complained that Pennsylvania "has repeatedly failed" to document any quality concerns at the site.

    Instead, he wrote, the state's agents at Hill have been putting out "general and conclusory" critical statements not backed by detailed evidence.

    To be sure, the contractor acknowledged, "there are 43 items" still under discussion in weekly quality-control meetings. But "this is a very small list, considering the size and complexity of this project," Kerber added.

    A further 204 questions raised by the contractor itself remain open, but 20,000 more "have been closed," and Walsh Heery has been "very diligent" solving more, he concluded. He also objects to the state trying to get his firm to pay for field inspections in advance of the final walk-through: "The state has no right to attempt to back-charge."

    Hill, in its Dec. 12 reply, calls Kerber's claims "incorrect." Hill and state corrections officials have spent "extensive time" helping Walsh Heery "execute your contract," Dickinson insists.

    Besides the 43 "open" items the contractor cites, Hill has a list of 428 additional "site-wide issues" and other problems Dickinson says the contractor isn't counting. Plus 10,000 more potentially "unresolved" issues from Walsh Heery's own list (besides the 20,000 the contractor says it has solved.)

    The state Department of Labor and Industry has found additional "unresolved" issues, Dickinson writes. And about 50 of 121 required reports from specialized professionals haven't yet arrived.

    In short, while acknowledging that most of the work is done, Hill says it can't be sure it's been done well, and concludes that Walsh Heery is still "struggling to deliver this project within the quality and performance requirements of the contract."

    The big thing missing from these records, and still unaddressed by the state agencies overseeing this job: a plan and schedule for how they're going to get past the paperwork, accusations and penalties, and get Phoenix open.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/i...truggling.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  8. #58
    Catsratz
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    I used to be first a clerk-typist then database clerk for County Probation in New York. Those people were so corrupt I was glad to leave the best job I ever had. It was embarrassing: The payment clerk stole money, one probation officer stole money...they had big masks on the shelves for doing urine tests, you would have thought all the probationers had the AIDS, they all began wearing guns...what a stinking mess. On entering the files into the system, I ran across at least two persons who begged to be put in jail; anything to get off probation. The stories I could tell - and some time, I hope to do just that.

  9. #59
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Two attacks in two days at Central Prison attributed to same group of inmates

    Raleigh, N.C. — The two attacks in two days on staff members at Raleigh’s Central Prison are attributed to the same group of inmates, according to prison officials.

    The latest attack came Wednesday morning when correctional officers were assaulted in a dining area.

    Officials said several inmates refused orders from staff, and two of the correctional officers who responded were punched by an inmate. The situation, which began around 8 a.m., was brought under control by other staff.

    The injured correctional officers were taken outside the prison for medical treatment and were released.

    On Tuesday, in a separate attack, inmates Jaquan Lane and Andrew Ellis assaulted Unit Manager Brent Soucier with a homemade weapon in a housing area of the maximum-security prison, authorities said.

    Soucier, 44, a 19-year veteran at the prison, was taken to a local hospital for treatment of a serious injury, and both inmates were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.

    Both incidents are under investigation and the Prison Emergency Response Team has been brought in to assist.

    Officials said 2017 was the deadliest year in the history of the state’s prison system.

    Last fall, four employees were killed during an escape attempt at Pasquotank Correctional Institution in Elizabeth City.

    It was later discovered by the National Institute of Corrections that the prison had a staffing vacancy of about 25 percent and was deemed unsafe to fully operate on the day of the attack. The team also found that most officers were minimally trained.

    In the 2016-17 fiscal year, 790 assaults by inmates were reported in state prisons, according to the Department of Public Safety. That was down from 845 the previous year and 850 in 2014-15.

    More recently, a corrections officer was assaulted at Pasquotank Correctional on March 8 and was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

    Prosecutors say they want the death penalty for an inmate accused of beating to death an officer at Bertie Correctional Institution last year.

    An officer at Foothills Correctional Institution in Morganton was attacked earlier this month by an inmate with a shank. The inmate was charged with assault.

    A prison officer at Maury Correctional Institution in Greene County received a non-life-threatening injury after an inmate attack in March.

    A second attack occurred about two hours later when an inmate walked up behind a case manager and hit them on the head with his fist. A supervisor trying to break up the scuffle was also hurt.

    http://www.infosurhoy.com/cocoon/sai...up-of-inmates/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  10. #60
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Shakedown at La. prison after inmates die from possible drug overdose

    The deaths raised concerns in the DOC about COs smuggling drugs inside prison walls, officials saidToday at 4:00 AM

    By Lea Skene
    The Advocate

    BATON ROUGE, La. — Two inmates at Angola died Wednesday night of apparent drug overdoses, raising concerns in the Department of Corrections about correctional officers smuggling drugs — in particular synthetic marijuana or "mojo" — inside prison walls, officials said.

    The two deaths appear to be the first fatal overdoses in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola within recent decades, according to Advocate reports.

    Department spokeswoman Natalie Laborde said the fatalities are still under investigation but authorities believe the inmates overdosed on mojo.

    John Hatfield, 31, was found dead around 6:45 p.m. Wednesday and Kenneth LaCoste, 42, was found dead about two hours later. Both inmates were living on the same tier of a maximum security unit inside the prison, Laborde said in a news release. They died inside their cells.

    Contraband found in that area included small amounts of mojo and other drugs as well as a cellphone and pocket knife, authorities said.

    Hatfield was serving a life sentence for murder after being convicted in Beauregard Parish in 2016, and LaCoste was serving 10 years for habitual attempted distribution of cocaine. He was convicted in Orleans Parish in 2013 and was set for release in 2022.

    Prisoners were subjected to a shakedown search Thursday morning in response to the deaths, authorities said. More than 100 correctional officers and K9 teams searched the prison and found no other drugs, but did recover two icepick weapons, seven cellphones and four cellphone chargers.

    Angola warden Darryl Vannoy said during an April interview that his two main challenges were cellphones and mojo. He said officials work to ensure contraband doesn't enter prison walls, but low pay and high turnover among staff makes it harder to solve the problems.

    Laborde also said officials have noticed an uptick in drugs being smuggled into state prisons in recent months. But she said investigations have not indicated whether prison staff was involved in distributing the drugs involved in this case.

    "Mojo has been a very big issue because it's very dangerous," she said. "That's the main problem, but we have confiscated other types of drugs."

    Officials have recently taken steps to address the problem, including tighter security and pay raises for corrections officers.

    Laborde said the department is in the process of installing new scanners at prisons across the state, which do a better job of detecting things like drugs hidden on a person's body, rather than just metal objects. She said the current security system at Angola has all visitors passing through those more advanced scanners while staff often don't have to. But soon everyone who enters the prison will be subject the new machines.

    Laborde also pointed to recent approval of plans to raise wages for COs across the state. Louisiana lawmakers have long discussed the problems associated with an extremely high turnover rate resulting in part from insufficient pay.

    Corrections officials hope the increases will attract "better quality and more committed employees," Laborde said.

    At least 16 Angola inmates have died from unnatural causes — most killed or committed suicide — over the past few decades, according to Advocate reports. None of those deaths resulted from drug overdoses.

    Before Wednesday's overdoses, the most recent death occurred in February when a man died after a fight with his cellmate. Last year a CO shot and killed an inmate who was charging toward the officer.

    Of the 16 unnatural deaths since 1985, records show that about half were murders and half were suicides.

    https://www.correctionsone.com/contr...drug-overdose/
    In the Shadow of Your Wings
    1 A Prayer of David. Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry! Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit!

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