Texas prison officials punished for violence
BOISE – A private prison in Texas has fired a supervisor, demoted an officer from lieutenant to sergeant, suspended a prison guard and started new staff training after an April incident in which six Idaho inmates there were roughed up and sprayed with pepper spray.
The state Department of Correction released that information this week only after The Spokesman-Review filed a request under the Idaho Public Records Law seeking documents about the violence. But state correction officials said they weren’t trying to hide anything.
“Nobody’s trying to sweep anything under the carpet,” said Jim Tibbs, chairman of the Idaho Board of Correction.
Pam Sonnen, administrator of operations for Idaho’s prison system, said, “We have no desire to hide any of this information.”
The incident points out one of the key disadvantages of housing state prison inmates out of state – a loss of control over the inmates by the state, corrections officials said. But with Idaho’s prisons overflowing and new prisoners arriving every day, officials expect to send another 1,400 Idaho inmates out of state in the next four years.
Counties are having to do the same. Just last week, Kootenai County transferred 22 of its inmates to Ferry County, Wash., to relieve crowding in the county jail. The Sheriff’s Department said the transport was “the first of many to come.”
The six Idaho inmates in Texas – among 420 Idaho prisoners now at the Newton County Correctional Center – were angry over conditions at the facility, Sonnen said. On April 7, they began raising a ruckus, throwing their food trays out through slots in their cells, swearing at guards and “being disruptive.”
Staffers first sprayed the inmates with pepper spray and gave orders that were ignored, Sonnen said.
“I think it kind of got out of hand a little bit,” she said. “I don’t think the staff there were ready for a group disruption.”
The guards then decided correctly to move the disruptive inmates elsewhere to prevent the problem from spreading, Sonnen said. But the guards bungled their “use of force” in trying to subdue and move inmates, she said.
“They were taking them to the ground, there was struggling going on. … I don’t believe that staff was properly trained,” Sonnen said.
No injuries requiring medical attention were reported, she said. The inmates involved in the violence, none of whom were from North Idaho, remain in the Texas lockup.
The April 7 incident raised no eyebrows in the standard incident reports that arrived in Idaho from the GEO Group Inc., formerly Wackenhut Corp., which operates the Texas prison. But Sonnen said once she heard complaints from inmates’ relatives, who received letters about it, she began looking into it. The GEO group sent Idaho Correction Director Tom Beauclair a report Friday detailing the results of its own investigation of the incident.
“This review revealed use of force policy violations that stemmed from the supervisor on duty’s failure to adequately supervise/direct the use of force,” said the report, which was signed by Don Houston, senior vice president for GEO’s central region.
Gov. Jim Risch said all he knew was that it was under review.
“It shouldn’t be kept secret,” he said. “No. 1, the governor should know about it. Once I know about it, I can make some decisions about what to do. Obviously, the people of Idaho have every right to know about it.”
Although the Department of Correction released the GEO Group’s report pursuant to the Idaho Public Records Law, the department’s legal department asked for a 10-day delay before releasing letters or e-mails from inmates or their families complaining about the incident, saying those still were being compiled.