(Photo/Todd Ehlers, Flickr)

The Bureau of Prisons, the federal agency in charge of the high-security United States Penitentiary — a violent lockup in southern Colorado that has recently seen three inmates killed in less than four months — has confirmed that during a social visit on Sunday an inmate assaulted two of his visitors, sending them to the hospital.

Here is a statement from the bureau:

On Sunday, an inmate became aggressive during a social visit at the USP and assaulted his visitors. Staff quickly subdued the inmate. The inmate visitors were evaluated at a local hospital where they were treated and released. There are no staff injuries reported at this time and an investigation into the incident continues.

While the prison has remained on lockdown status since an inmate killed another inmate in August, social visits were reinstated on Nov. 1. Generally a lockdown restricts inmates from leaving their cells and visiting family members.

“It was some type of paper, folded or rolled real tight with a blade in the end of it,” said one correctional officer knowledgeable about the situation. The officer claimed that inmate had tried to stab his wife and mother-in-law. “He managed to cut his wife’s neck and then tried to cut up the mother a little bit.”

The bureau has not confirmed such details but claims a investigation is pending.

“The inmates, they’re younger and more aggressive,” said the guard. “More violence-prone inmates, that’s what we’re seeing.”

In April, two inmates were killed by guard gun fire after a massive 200-person riot broke out on the prison’s recreation yard. The yard is now being segregated into smaller areas.

For more information on the surge in violent attacks in the federal prison system, see The Colorado Independent’s More reports of violence point to ailing federal prison system.

(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.

(Photo/Todd Ehlers, Flickr)

A high-security penitentiary in southern Colorado is separating its outside recreational yard into smaller segments following a violent riot in April that left two inmates dead.

Along with the new construction, the penitentiary has been on a continuing lockdown status for almost half a year due in part to an inmate-on-inmate stabbing death in August, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons and sources who work at the facility.

The outdoor yard at the U.S. penitentiary in Florence, in southwest Colorado, will be segregated into an unknown number of units, making it easier for guards to monitor inmate activity, workers at the prison say.

“The bureau said they were going to separate the yard up a little bit so that we don’t have to have as many inmates out at one time and they don’t have as big an area to wander around in,” said one veteran correctional worker who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I don’t know how many sections they’re going to divide it into. I know they’re out there putting fencing up right now.”

In April a massive riot in the yard that involved approximately 200 inmates ended with two prisoners killed by guard gunfire.

During the riot, guards used a heavy arsenal of weaponry, including more than 200 M-16 rifle rounds, more than 300 pepper balls and nearly 12 long-range CS gas canisters, according to documentation obtained from sources inside the prison.

After the yard riot the prison was put into lockdown status, in which inmates are generally confined to their housing units or cells and are not allowed to see visitors.

On Aug. 10, following only a few days of non-lockdown status, the penitentiary was put on lockdown again following what the bureau stated was an inmate-on-inmate assault at the time, and what has now been confirmed to have ended in the death of a another prisoner.

“Yes, the institution was locked down after the inmate homicide in August and social visiting has been suspended,” said bureau spokesperson Traci Billingsley. “We couldn’t speculate as to when the institution can return to normal operations.”

Although the new yard construction seems timely after the deadly riot, workers and the bureau say it’s a national move by the bureau following the murder of California correctional officer Jose Rivera by an inmate in June.

“It’s part of what came out of the Rivera murder in California,” says another guard familiar with the situation. “It’s been like this across the bureau.”

Billingsley stated that “the construction on the recreation yard is a result of modifications that all Bureau of Prisons penitentiaries are undergoing. It is unrelated to the lockdown.”

The appeal (PDF), dated Sept. 21, follows a June ruling in the Southern District of Iowa that the prison program, which segregates Christian prisoners and provides them with perks that are unavailable to other prisoners, is unconstitutional and allows tax dollars to be used for religious purposes.

The lawsuit, and details of such prison programs, which are increasingly common across the country, including Colorado, is detailed in the New York Times this weekend. As noted in the newspaper’s account, Robert W. Pratt, chief judge of the federal courts in the Southern District of Iowa, ruled that “the state has literally established an Evangelical Christian congregation within the walls of one of its penal institutions, giving the leaders of that congregation… authority to control the spiritual, emotional and physical lives of hundreds of Iowa inmates.”

Among the arguments subsequently presented in the 27-page Suthers-endorsed amicus brief is that states have not adequately provided rehabilitation programs.

“Confronted with this failure of their correctional systems, the States are in desperate need of prisoner rehabilitation programs that actually reduce recidivism and are cost effective. Faith-based programs-such as the Prison Fellowship program at issue in this appeal-offer an alternative to failed conventional rehabilitation programs.”

In addition to Suthers, the amicus brief was also signed by attorney generals in Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, Missouri, South Carolina and Texas.

Suthers, a former 4th Judicial District Attorney, headed Colorado’s Department of Corrections from 1999 to 2001. That year he was appointed Colorado’s U.S. Attorney, a position he held until January, 2005 when Gov. Bill Owens appointed him to fill out Ken Salazar’s term as Attorney General after Salazar won a U.S. Senate seat. Suthers was elected to a four-year term this November.

As Colorado Confidential’s Erin Rosa has noted, Suthers has also filed amicus briefs supporting other conservative social movements in other states, including supporting the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman in Nebraska, and another supporting the voluntary recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in Virginia.

At the same time, he recently asked for an increase in funding for his office, to the tune of about 10 full-time staffers, which has brought criticism from the Denver Post‘s editorial board, which opined that “Suthers should quit dallying in out-of-state social issues.”

Cara DeGette is a longtime editor and columnist at the Colorado Springs Independent.

On Saturday, the Colorado Springs Gazette, and the Associated Press, reported that the Department of Corrections plans to ship 1,000 inmates out of state, probably to Oklahoma.Allison Morgan, the head of the Department of Corrections’ private-prison monitoring unit was quoted saying that judges are sending more inmates to prison than expected. The state, she said, doesn’t have enough money to hire more guards even though new private prisons with 3,776 beds have been approved.

Some lawmakers, including state Sen. Paul Weissmann, have been hammering on the need to address Colorado’s prison emergency for months, including, at least in Weissmann’s case, threats of refusal to vote for anything with fiscal implications until a Colorado prison plan is in place.

“In light of recent news regarding the move of 1,000 inmates out of state, three recent escapees from Arrowhead, and the DOC’s own admission that they don’t set goals and objectives, the people of Colorado need to insist on knowing how the DOC plans to keep Coloradoans safe in the future,” said McFadyen, a Democrat from Pueblo West, in a statement.

Jail overcrowding and exploding inmate populations are ongoing problems not just in the southern Colorado county but across the state. According to the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition’s 2006 report on Colorado’s perpetual prison crisis, this year the Colorado Department of Corrections indicated that it will also run out of prison bed space for men and women this year.

According to the report, Colorado’s total prison population is projected to grow from 21,000 to over 29,000 by 2011, a 41% increase. The women’s prison population is projected to grow 71% during that same time. Similarly, the DOC parole population is also projected to increase dramatically to over 8,000 by 2011.

Even if all of these prison expansion projects were completed, in 2011, the State will be in the same position as it is today because the construction expansion plans will only pace prison population growth, not exceed it. Between 1992-2004, Colorado’s average annual prison population growth rate of 7% far exceeds the national average of 4.3%. Between this time period, Colorado also has the highest annual growth rate in our immediate region, including Kansas (3.4%), Oklahoma (3.8%), Wyoming (5.3%), New Mexico (5.7%), Arizona (5.8%), and Utah (6.9%).

El Paso County’s current jail population is 1,508, near capacity. Over the past decade, the number of people incacerated has steadily increased. In 2004, the number of inmates in the Southern Colorado jail averaged 1,204 a day – far more than what its Criminal Justice System was designed to handle at the time. As a result, some inmates were housed in dayrooms, and forced to sleep side-by-side in plastic “sledbeds.” Just a year and a half ago, the jail was expanded by 864 beds.