Still, state officials will take what they can get, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture doled out four grants of $250,000 each to fund a biomass boiler heating system at a prison in Florence; wood pellet production for wood heating stoves at a mill in Kremmling; biomass co-firing of a coal-fired power plant in Colorado Springs; and a biomass collection center and biomass heating system at the Boulder County Parks Department.

All four facilities will use or process trees cut down during wildfire mitigation projects dealing with the state’s massive mountain pine bark beetle epidemic that has left millions of acres of Colorado forests rust-red and on the way to becoming gray and lifeless.

Several Colorado towns, including Vail and Avon, are considering pursuing centralized biopower plants that would gasify chipped wood to produce hot water and electricity, and a Littleton-based firm is among the world leaders in producing portable biopower machines, although it’s sold none of the systems in-state. The Governor’s Energy Office is currently considering state grants for such projects.

While the guards are up to the task and are confident in their abilities to get the job done, there also needs to be additional funding to the facility in order the guarantee the safety of not only the workers, but also the inmates that would be transferred there.

As Rosa reported in her Newspaper Guild of America-CWA David S. Barr Award-winning investigative series, Inside Supermax, continued budget cuts and poor administrative decisions have lead to dangerous conditions for correctional officers and inmates in the Florence, Colo., complex.

Following those reports, Rosa broke the story of an April 2008 prison yard riot involving 200 armed and hooched-up inmates in the nearby Florence Federal Penitentiary that resulted in the race-related deaths of two inmates and an estimated 500 M-16, pepper ball and tear gas rounds fired by tower guards.

Following the lifting of the post-riot prison-wide lock down, a deadly inmate-on-inmate assault in August occurred spurring demands by then-U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar that the Bureau of Prisons make its investigation of the yard riot available to the public.

Increasing reports of violence against staff and inmates across the nation lends further credence to federal correctional workers’ claims that the entire system is an understaffed tinderbox.

Keep in mind that the federal pens and Supermax facilities are completely separate institutions and their security measures shouldn’t be conflated. But they are both subject to the vagaries of federal budgets and a “mission critical” staffing plan that ordered all agency institutions to come up with staffing rosters that listed the bare-minimum needed to run each prison safely. Workers contend that the bureau isn’t even fulfilling obligations for the bare-minimum and is vacating units for hours at a time.

The Guantánamo detention camp is a travesty of justice and humanity and should be closed. But politicians looking for easy solutions — and cover for their own complicity — should always be viewed with a heavy dose of skepticism.

(Photo/Todd Ehlers, Flickr)

Deadly assaults in federal penitentiaries are on the rise and they aren’t exclusive to Colorado. Following reports that an inmate was stabbed to death in August at the U.S. Penitentiary in the southern city of Florence, there is news from another federal lockup that a guard was assaulted and stabbed multiple times this month, lending credence to correctional workers’ claims that the entire system is an understaffed tinderbox.

The Bureau of Prisons, the agency overseeing the lockups, has confirmed that a correctional guard was stabbed by an inmate multiple times in the head and lower back at the U.S. Penitentiary Big Sandy in Kentucky, sustaining injuries that required medical attention. Workers at the facility claim that the guard was stabbed with a makeshift “shank” weapon, but the bureau has not yet confirmed that detail.

Bureau officials state that the guard was released from hospital care on Oct. 21, the same day the assault happened. The prison has been on lockdown status since the incident, which means that inmates are generally confined to their cells and not allowed to visit with family members.

Bureau employees familiar with the situation, who commented on an anonymous basis, stated that the guard was “stabbed five times with the weapon” and sustained “3-inch stab wounds to the head area and three stab wounds to the lung and back area,” by an “inmate refusing to be restrained, due to being intoxicated” and that the “officer had blood streaming from the head wounds.”

So far, the bureau has not confirmed the workers’ claims.

The fact that the inmate was able to hide a weapon in the first place, coupled with the bellicose assault on a staff member, are indications that understaffing has created a dangerous environment for both guards and inmates in the federal prison.

In Colorado, at the high-security penitentiary in Florence, three inmates have died in less than four months. Two prisoners were killed by guard gunfire when a massive 200-person riot broke out on the recreation yard of the prison in April after inmates were again allegedly intoxicated on self-brewed alcohol. Another inmate was killed in August in what workers say was a stabbing by another inmate. The prison has been on lockdown since the most recent killing.

Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, a Democrat, sent a letter to bureau head Harley Lappin in September demanding that the agency publicly disclose the results of an investigation into the riot. However, the bureau has not yet responded to the lawmaker.

It’s not the first letter that has been sent to the bureau, either.

In February Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., sent a brief memo to Lappin, commenting on increasing violence against correctional workers in the nation’s prisons:

I am concerned about reports of increasing violence in the Federal Prison System, including recent assaults and homicides at [U.S. Penitentiary] Hazelton, [U.S. Penitentiary] Beaumont and [Federal Correctional Institution ] Allenwood. Incidents such as these are particularly troubling given the funding limitations in the Bureau of Prisons in fiscal year 2008, and the impact such constraints may have on the Bureau’s ability to respond to violent threats and attacks.

The violence reached a pinnacle in June when José Rivera, a 22-year-old correctional worker, was stabbed to death by an inmate at the U.S. Penitentiary Atwater in California.

Inmate-on-inmate assaults are also on the rise. According to federal data and media reports, 12 inmates in federal prisons lost their lives due to inmate-on-inmate violence in 2007, and the number has already reached at least 11 in 2008.

Correctional workers have been blowing whistles for years over what they claim are dangerously low staffing levels at government lockups. Employees claim that the low number of guards has made it increasingly difficult to spot contraband like alcohol and weapons.

In March 2005, the bureau implemented a directive called “mission critical,” that ordered all agency institutions to come up with staffing rosters that listed the bare-minimum needed to run each prison safely. Workers contend that the bureau isn’t even fulfilling obligations for the bare-minimum and is vacating units for hours at a time.

Clarification: Story edited to further distinguish claims made from the bureau and workers at the Big Sandy USP relating to statements about a makeshift “shank” weapon.

Glover voiced concern over a rise in inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-staff assaults in federal prisons, where he said there have been 13 inmate-on-inmate homicides in 2008. In 2007, there were 12 such homicides according to Glover, who blamed the occurrences on a lack of staffing and resources in the bureau.

During the hearing Glover also referred to a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall at the bureau for the current fiscal year, saying, “as it stands now, [the bureau] may still have to look at either furloughs or layoffs of line employees to meet the funding requirements of 2008.”

According to Glover’s testimony, the bureau has filled approximately 87 percent of the 39,383 staff positions that have been authorized by the government, whereas staffing numbers for bureau facilities in the 1990s were around 95 percent.

The union’s legislative coordinator then said that staffing-level percentages at bureau prisons may decrease to as low as 76 percent, or with three-fourths of all authorized positions being filled.

Colorado Confidential reported on similar staffing figures and potential layoffs at the bureau in March, when an internal agency memo stated that the bureau was facing a projected budget shortfall of $289 million in funding and could be forced to cut correctional staff positions to the point “where safety and security of staff and inmates could be in jeopardy.”

The bureau continues to contend that all of its facilities are staffed at safe operating levels.

Sources who spoke on Colorado Confidential on condition of anonymity due to an ongoing investigation of the incident had said that an additional inmate had died from wounds inflicted by other inmates during the disturbance and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating the riot. The federal Bureau of Prisons claims that no one else has died, but says it is typical for the FBI be involved during such incidents.

Correctional workers have been blowing whistles for years over what they claim are dangerously low staffing levels at government lockups in Florence. The recent violence and subsequent quelling of the riot were long-awaited results of a prison guard shortage, according to staff.

Sources now claim that inadequate staffing was one reason why an estimated 500 rounds were fired from towers surrounding the area, and why makeshift weapons and alcohol were on the yard.

“We’re not running the stuff over [at the penitentiary] anymore,” said a Florence correctional officer who wished to remain anonymous. “Why the hell are we firing hundreds of rounds at the inmates? It shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”

Correctional workers claim that the low number of guards has made it increasingly difficult to spot contraband like alcohol and weapons, along with gathering information about possible gang activities from inside the prison. Now staff members also fear more violence in the lockup and in other federal facilities.

“What’s the retaliation [for the guards' shootings]?,” says a source close to the prison. “Are they going to try pick off some of the staff now?”

While the bureau has not confirmed all details about what happened, sources said that the riot broke out in the facility’s recreation yard after white supremacist inmates started saying racial slurs at black inmates while “celebrating” Adolf Hitlers birthday on Apr. 20.

The bureau later acknowledged the scenario, which involved around 200 inmates, in a statement yesterday that said the person melee appeared to have been racially motivated.

Correctional workers who spoke with Colorado Confidential also said the inmates were intoxicated on home brewed alcohol and that approximately 500 rounds of ammunition were fired from towers surrounding the yard during the disturbance, while staff in at least two towers emptied all of their rounds.

The bureau has yet to comment on how many or what type of rounds were fired, or if alcohol was being consumed in the yard, but did confirm that inmates were armed with makeshift weapons including rocks, sharpened metal and wood.

The penitentiary is part of the Florence Federal Correctional Complex, which also includes a “Supermax” facility that holds inmates deemed to be the nation’s most dangerous by the bureau, along with the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution.

In March 2005, the bureau implemented a directive called “mission critical,” where all agency institutions were ordered to come up with staffing roasters that listed the bare-minimum needed to run each prison safely.

The report was produced for all of the Florence facilities but correctional officers say that it led to no changes.

In August 2006 — 18 months after the “mission critical” report was released — workers complained that the short staffing lead to increased tension and an unsafe environment, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents correctional workers at the Supermax facility, underwent arbitration with the BOP over the issue. The union claimed that the BOP had violated conditions in their master agreement contract by not consulting the union about the staffing cutbacks, and the arbitrator ruled in their favor, although it was also found impossible to force the bureau to fix the situation.

In a September news story on Colorado Confidential, former Florence penitentiary employee Cory Hodge talked about understaffing and how he was stabbed six times by an inmate in 2003:

“It was me and a female correctional officer, who ran after I was assaulted and pretty much left me for dead,” says Hodge. “I fought as hard as I could and I managed to get out into the inmate common area where a hundred other inmates surrounded me and were encouraging this other inmate to kill me.”

Various correctional workers and union officials who work at the complex have also claimed it’s only a matter of time before more deadly outbursts due to guard shortages.

Further, another Colorado Confidential report cited a veteran correctional worker at the Florence Supermax facility on the staffing levels:

“Either a CO’s going to have to get hurt or an inmate’s going to die before it gets corrected,” the officer says.

Colorado Confidential also obtained a internal memo in March showing the bureau was facing a projected budget shortfall of $289 million in funding and could be force to terminate thousands of correctional staff positions to the point “where safety and security of staff and inmates could be in jeopardy” according to the document.

UPDATE 2: Sources now say that a third inmate has died from wounds inflicted by other inmates during the riot. The Bureau of Prisons has not returned a request for comment at this time regarding the information. 4:52 p.m. MST

UPDATE: The federal Bureau of Prisons has released another press statement regarding the incident, saying that preliminary results indicate the cause of death for both inmates was due to gunshot wounds. Full release below the fold. 2:25pm MST

A Sunday riot in the recreation yard at the high-security U.S. Penitentiary in Florence was racially motivated, according to correctional sources close to the prison who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Sources also said that two inmates were killed by prison staff during the fighting, with approximately 500 rounds of ammo fired.Staff in at least two security towers were said to have emptied all of their rounds. Correctional staff declined to say how many rounds were in place or what weapons were being used, due to security considerations. According to the federal Bureau of Prisons, no staff were injured.

The bureau is expected to release a statement later today with more information but could not confirm whether the two inmates were shot by prison staff.

The incident occurred around 12:30 p.m., according to the bureau, which operates the facility.

Correctional staff close to the prison say white supremacist inmates were “celebrating” Adolf Hitler’s April 20 birthday when a fight broke out between black and white inmates. It is also a possibility that inmates were consuming home-brewed alcoholic beverages, according to sources.

“Everybody out there has a weapon. It’s just the nature of prison,” said one Florence correctional worker who declined to be identified fearing repercussions from the bureau.

Five inmates were taken to area hospitals for treatment, according to the bureau, but sources have said that up to seven may have been seriously injured.

“It’s probably the first of what’s going to happen now,” says a source close to the prison who fears more violence.

The penitentiary is part of the Florence Federal Correctional Complex, which also includes a “Supermax” facility that holds inmates deemed to be the nation’s most dangerous by the bureau, along with the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution.

Sources say the staff from the the entire complex were called in to assist operations during the riot, while other correctional workers were called back to work after leaving.

The nation’s only nonprofit founded to address mental health issues involving correctional workers will hold a two-day conference in Colorado over the summer to discuss how workplace stress affects the lives of prison guards in state and federal lockups.Desert Waters, an organization based in Florence, Colo., and founded in 2003, is planning to host the gathering, called “Reaching Behind The Walls,” in Colorado Springs during the first week of May.

“It is the first ever gathering of corrections staff and mental health professionals that I am aware of on the subject of the impact of the corrections workplace on staff’s personal and family well-being,” says Dr. Caterina Spinaris Tudor in an e-mail regarding the event. “It is long, long overdue.”

Tudor, a licensed psychologist, founded Desert Waters after being exposed to correctional worker issues when she moved her private practice to Fremont County (home to the majority of the state’s prisons and three federal facilities) in 2000.

Since its inception, Desert Waters has implemented a variety of treatment programs focused on correctional workers, including a free and anonymous 24-hour hotline where prison guards from anywhere in the country can call in to talk with a trained responder.

Common problems faced by corrections staff include anxiety and depression, as Corry Hodge, a former guard who used to work for the federal government in Florence, explained to Colorado Confidential in an earlier report:

“You’re dealing with a depressed environment, a place where it just oozes negativity, and you’re just walking into a dungeon every day,” says former correctional worker Cory Hodge.

“People are being kept against their will, people’s attitudes are constantly bad, and it has a way of affecting people who work there.”

Hodge started working at the Florence [United States Penitentiary] in 2000, and in 2003 transferred to [the federal supermax facility] after being stabbed six times by an inmate.

“It was me and a female correctional officer, who ran after I was assaulted and pretty much left me for dead,” says Hodge. “I fought as hard as I could and I managed to get out into the inmate common area where a hundred other inmates surrounded me and were encouraging this other inmate to kill me.”

But while Hodge survived and moved on to [supermax], he was still plagued by nightmares of a place he couldn’t leave.

“I would go home and just try to get over my day’s work, and then I would close my eyes to go to sleep at night and then I would be right back at work in my dreams,” he says. “I would be dealing with inmates while I was sleeping, and then I would get up and go to work and I’d deal with inmates in real life.”

Finally, Hodge quit [supermax] in 2006, citing low staffing levels, a desire to spend more time with his family, and the fact that “it never got better, it always got worse.”

The documents also reveal that not only has the BOP balked at cleaning up the mess, but it also failed to provide employees with information about the contamination in a timely manner. It is unknown whether inmates in the facility are even aware of the environmental problem.

The federal United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, also known as Supermax, houses a variety of inmates who have been deemed dangerous by the federal government under maximum security conditions.

In October 2003, the crawl space beneath the prison was contaminated by a clogged water line. It is estimated that the leak went unnoticed for approximately three weeks, filling the space with fecal matter and other drainage. The contamination spread under the food services area, to Units B, C and D. At the time, a urine smell was reported coming from under Unit B, according to a report by private contractor IHI Environmental, which was hired by the BOP to assess the situation.

A BOP briefing obtained by Colorado Confidential shows that IHI Environmental, which specializes in hygiene and environmental remediation, inspected the crawlspace in December 2003 and released a report on Jan. 28, 2004, stating:

The bacterial samples were collected from the dirt floors in the crawlspace areas that were flooded during the October 2003 water intrusion. Any E. coli or Enterococcus group bacteria in the soil samples indicates the presence of fecal or sewage contamination. Both soil samples obtained from the Unit B crawl space and one sample form the Unit D crawl space indicated fecal or sewage contamination.

[...]

Bacterial sampling showed definite sewage contamination in three bacterial samples from the dirt floor in the crawlspaces under B Unit and D Unit. All of the dirt floors in the crawl spaces that were impacted by the October 2003 water intrusion should be assumed to be contaminated with sewage. Direct contact with the soil and other surfaces in these crawl spaces should be avoided until the areas can be remediated.

Environmental “remediation” refers to the process of removing the contaminated soil and cleaning it. IHI Environmental also noted in the briefing that “no exposure to bodily fluids or sewage is acceptable.”

An OSHA report that was also obtained by Colorado Confidential, published May 25, 2006, by regional director John Healty, shows that an inspection of the crawl space recommended that the BOP use remediation to clean up the contaminated soil found by IHI Environmental:

The best way to avoid the spread of any fecal contamination is to remove the fecal contamination…I would recommend the remediation of areas where [contamination] is present.

OSHA did not take action against the prison because the agency does “not have specific standards that apply to these hazards,” according to the OSHA inspection findings. However, OSHA did chastise the BOP in the report for denying information to employees regarding the soil contamination:

Information regarding the sampling that was conducted in the tunnels was not provided to employees in a timely manner. Employees were told to use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process to obtain information regarding their potential exposure. Employers must provide exposure records to employees.

In response to the documents and inquiries as to why the BOP has not funded the clean up, a BOP representative released the following statement on Friday: “OSHA has completely tested and reviewed the area in question and found no violations. They made some recommendations which were optional for us to comply with and we did, in fact, comply with those recommendations.”

However, according to the BOP’s own documents, it appears that the bureau did not comply with all of OSHA’s recommendations.

On at least two occasions, Supermax warden Ron Wiley has asked that the BOP fund the remediation clean up, only to be denied, according to formal request papers obtained by Colorado Confidential.

In September 27, 2005, Wiley sent a first request for funds to pay for the cleanup, which was estimated to cost $418,000, according to the BOP request documents. Wiley tried again on June 16, 2006, only to have BOP regional director Michael K. Nelly deny his request (which had the same price tag) a second time.

Meanwhile correctional workers at the prison have alleged that the air in the facility, which is circulated through the crawl space tunnels, is making them sick, as was reported in Colorado Confidential’s Inside Supermax series:

A veteran correctional worker at ADX who wished to remain anonymous also claims that the spill continues to be a problem years later.

“There’s quite a few areas that are contaminated below the facility. They don’t wanna fix it flat out,” says the worker. “It gets in through the ventilation system. They’ve had guys sitting inside the control centers getting sick because of breathing that stuff in. Every so often we’re supposed to go down there and make sure there aren’t any holes in the ceiling…we’ve been banned from going down there to do checks.”

The American Federation of Government Employees, Local 1302, a labor union that represents correctional officers at the Supermax, will be entering arbitration with the BOP in late February to decide whether the government must pay for the cleanup.

“It’s a clear-cut case,” says Charles Royal, an AFGE union representative, about the documents. Royal claims that the BOP has violated the union’s contract by failing to uphold an agreement to provide workers with a “safe industrial working environment.”

Read Colorado Confidential’s continuing coverage of staffing and security problems at Supermax.

In the Congressional budget, funding for the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is set to be cut by at least $100 million in 2008. Instead, the union wants an increased appropriation of $400 million because of safety concerns and a growing federal prison population.

The AFGE local chapters will also be supporting a House resolution that would eliminate the placing of federal inmates in privately-run correctional facilities.

Workers at the BOP correctional complex in Florence, Colo., are members of the union and have repeatably brought up concerns about low staffing levels at the Supermax prison there.