Prison Reform Front and Center
In the wake of the Vaughn Correctional uprising that ended in the death of Steven Floyd, prison reform is on the minds of many. It’s too bad that it took the death of a guard to put prison reform on anyone’s agenda. But this is the way things work in the States, we wait till something spirals out of control before we do something about it.
But some state leaders, prison experts and advocates say the writing was on the concrete wall long ago. Chronic staffing shortages, an over-reliance on overtime shifts, overcrowded facilities and funding shortfalls were all contributing factors in this week’s siege. Such criticisms have been documented in multiple taxpayer-funded reports compiled over more than a decade.
Now, in the wake of Floyd’s death, a cash-strapped state government is under even more pressure to change the way it runs its prisons and treats their caretakers.
The General Assembly helped create this situation by passing minimum mandatories and ‘three-strikes’ legislation.
Continued whittling away at unnecessarily imprisoning non-violent offenders can help alleviate the staffing issues.
Understaffing issues and overcrowding issues are two sides of the same coin.
This concern was raised when Jane Brady, Tom Sharp, Jim Vaughn and Wayne Smith went full monty on throwing every small-time non-white user in jail. The money expended on this warehousing would inevitably be drawn from, say, schools. The demagogues triumphed. Which is why we have this issue in the first place.
In Delaware, prison reform means hiring more guards and perhaps paying them more, and doing so at the expense of other state-funded services.
It does not mean improving programs inside of prisons. It does not mean doing more than the minimum to prepare inmates for life in the real world. As with the state’s mental health system, it means nothing of substance will occur until the feds say they will not provide one penny more to the ill-named “Department of Correction” unless it starts living up to its name.
Don’t hold your breath, folks. The legislative response will be to lock ’em up a little tighter.
I see the prison uprising as the result of the famed Austerity mind set, spend as little as possible, refuse to hire the needed staff and try to get more for less out of the employees. This time it resulted in death, as stated I doubt Delaware’s politicians will do the right thing and evaluate the whole “justice system” in this state. If they really wanted to save money they’d abandon the failed mass incarceration game and stop locking up non violent offenders, maybe even remove the revenge factor from sentencing. Sadly this will not happen.
Prison guards don’t make enough to survive and they are severely understaffed
So the excuse of the murder of a prison guard is he didn’t make enough money? That would be laughable if not so sad and deplorable.
It’s a cause, not an excuse.
In what universe is it a cause? Was the inmate putting him out of his misery caused by being under paid?
Don’t expect the legislators to do a damned thing. They refused to sponsor the Del. Crime Prevention and Rehab Act which would have fixed all these problems. We cannot call in the FEDS again. They came in and left stating Delaware Prisons are the model for the nation? Overcrowding, food as punishment, running out of meds in the middle of the month. Connections as mental health provider is a horror. Brutality by guards is off the charts. Blame Jack Markel who knew what was going on and refused to hire 99 new guards while taxpayers paying out millions in overtime.
@RubberBaron: “So the excuse of the murder of a prison guard is he didn’t make enough money? That would be laughable if not so sad and deplorable.”
No, that’s not the excuse. It’s the cause. You would be laughable if you weren’t so sad and deplorable.
What’s sad and deplorable is the long, slow drift of the corrections system under Markell. Officers are indeed underpaid by quite a bit in comparison to surrounding states, leading to lots of turnover. As in any such situation, the better the officer, the easier it is to get a few years of experience and then get hired in New Jersey, where they can make double what they make in Delaware.
The staff shortages lead to lots of overtime and short-shifting. The more that occurs, the greater the chances of mistakes, therefore increasing the likelihood of tragedies like this one.
It’s an underlying cause, not the reason or excuse the officer was killed. A system with more officers — or fewer inmates, which is the more logical solution — would be less likely to see such incidents, or more accurately would see them less often.
Or were you more interested in expressing your primitive emotional response than learning something?
All I’ve learned from you is the murderer is not to blame. It is the system.
No, you ignore that a severely understaffed prison with low pay guards forced to work long over time to survive economically created the conditions for the situation to occur. Typical conservative trying to create an alternative reality
The Pavlovian talk radio response..
@RobberBaron…Former CO here (10 years)
The system is to blame because if the jail were properly staffed, it is possible that this situation would not have come up
‘C’ building is a closed custody building (one step down from max security one step up from medium security), so as a result, should have had AT LEAST 4 officers (and on a busy day shift should have had 5)
Because it is a closed custody building, if there was a shortage of staff, the counselor should not have been seeing inmates (meaning inmates not freely moving around the building). When I was there (1999 was my last year) if the building was short staffed we WOULD NOT have run certain programs etc in the building. What has happened over time, is that you are short-staffed in EVERY BLD EVERY DAY!! So you do things that aren’t secure and stuff like this happens.
@RB: That’s all you’ve learned because you’re stupid. It’s possible for something to have underlying causes. Doesn’t mean the killer didn’t kill him or shouldn’t be punished. But in determining liability — and liability will ultimately be determined — the state bears some responsibility for short-staffing.
Seriously, do conservatives like you have to remind yourself to breath? Do you stumble through your entire life this fog of stupidity while telling yourself your ignorance is “common sense”? Do you find your knuckles calloused from dragging them on the ground? Do you have to remind yourself not to eat the mints in the men’s room urinals when you take a leak?