BY SANDY THEIS and JANICE MORSE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COLUMBUS -- An inmate was the first person to notify authorities of last weekend's escapes from Ohio's only private prison, despite the presence of guards inside and outside the penitentiary and alarm systems designed to warn of possible escapes in process, according to records and interviews.
In addition, inmates who witnessed the escapes told law enforcement officials that all 210 men inside the prison's recreation yard could have escaped because guards were not properly supervising them.
The revelations are the latest to raise questions about security and public safety at the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown -- a depressed industrial town that once welcomed the prison for the jobs it created.
Youngstown Mayor George McKelvey stopped short Tuesday of joining the governor and others who are calling for the prison to be closed down. Instead, he said the city is asking a federal judge in Akron to order the prison to upgrade its security.
Mr. McKelvey said he finds it difficult to understand how inmates navigated around interior guards, two fences, cameras, motion detectors and exterior perimeter guards.
"That's six layers of security that were completely penetrated -- and nobody saw anything?" he said in an interview.
Police have said six inmates escaped Saturday by using wire cutters to slice through two 12-foot fences. Five escapees have been recaptured and a search for the sixth continued Tuesday.
Meanwhile, national corrections experts said the trouble in Youngstown highlights problems plaguing the private prison industry nationwide.
"Private prison companies have taken advantage of an entirely unregulated, unlicensed market where there is huge demand for their services and where the constituents -- the prisoners -- have very little voice at all," said Nancy Mahon, director of the New York City-based Center on Crime, Communities and Culture. She described the group's mission as "promoting more effective and humane responses to crime."
Thus far, 19 states and the District of Columbia have private prisons, and she cited one study showing their annual growth rate is exceeding 35 percent.
The Youngstown facility is owned by the Nashville-based Corrections Corp. of America (CCA). In 1997, CCA's net income grew by 75 percent, according to the company's web site. During the same year, the company opened 15,000 new beds and boasted that "no corrections system, public or private, has achieved such an operational milestone within a 12-month period."
Trouble has accompanied the growth.
Since its opening 14 months ago, there have been at least 20 stabbings and two murders at the Youngstown facility. Some lawmakers and local elected officials have lobbied for more stringent regulations -- efforts rejected by Gov. George Voinovich and his fellow Republicans who control the Ohio General Assembly.
Until now a supporter of private prisons, the governor called Monday for the state to find ways to shut this one down.
In a written statement, CCA officials called the governor's request "premature" and attempted to blame the escapes on one employee.
"We have come to believe that a single female employee may have collaborated with the escapees to provide the means for their escape," the firm said in a one-page statement. "We have asked federal authorities to conduct a full investigation to determine if there is sufficient evidence to warrant filing criminal charges."
CCA spokeswoman Susan Hart said the employee, whom she declined to name, has been placed on administrative leave, pending results of the investigation.
The U.S. Marshal's Office in Youngstown is investigating whether a security breach aided the inmates' escape, David Hunchuck, deputy in charge, said Tuesday.
Little has been determined, he said, because the main focus is on finding the remaining escapee.
Mr. Hunchuck was unable to say exactly when the escape occurred, but an "incident report" prepared by the prison states that guards learned of the escape about 2:40 p.m. Saturday from an "informant." Mr. McKelvey confirmed that the "informant" was an inmate.
Law enforcement officials have interviewed inmates who were in the recreation yard when the escapes took place, and some alleged that guards were not properly supervising the recreation area. As a result, some inmates said that all 210 men in the yard could have escaped, the mayor said.
Reginald Wilkinson, who directs the state prison department, said it is clear from preliminary reports that security procedures were violated, but he said it is unrealistic for CCA to attempt to lay blame on one individual.
If a CCA employee did assist the inmates by providing a tool to cut the fences, Mr. Wilkinson said security probably was breached in several ways.
"How did the wire cutters get into the prison yard?" he asked. "Was it an institutional tool or brought in from outside? If they brought it in from outside, how did it get past the metal detectors? Tool control is one of the major parts of institutional security." Amid concerns over safety and security, legislators recently passed a law requiring private prison guards to meet the same training standards as guards in Ohio's 30 state-run institutions.
The Voinovich administration and Ohio General Assembly scrapped a provision that would have given the state prison system monitoring power.
Cincinnati attorney Alphonse Gerhardstein, who is representing the CCA inmates in longstanding a civil rights complaint against the company, called the reforms "weak and ineffective," and he noted that the state still imposes less regulation on private prisons than public ones.
"What an odd way to regulate such an important and dangerous business," he said.
