The Associated Press
CLEVELAND -- Guards and other employees are deserting the state's only private prison, complaining of race discrimination, penny-pinching by the prison's owner and poor management that has made the prison unsafe.
"I stopped counting at 70," former employee Victoria Wheeler, 31, said of the number of people who have left the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center since it opened 15 months ago in Youngstown.
No control
"There was no control there. They are very lucky that a staff member didn't get murdered," she told the Plain Dealer.
Ms. Wheeler, who left the prison several weeks ago for a job at the Ohio Penitentiary, is one of the more than 500 people hired for the $12-an-hour jobs in a city still suffering from the 1980s downsizing of the steel industry.
The prison, operated by private-prison industry leader Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), has come under attack by employees and public officials and in the courts.
There have been at least 13 stabbings -- including two deaths -- and a six-man escape since it opened in May 1997.
No comment
CCA refused comment and said earlier this month that it would decline all interview requests indefinitely. There was no answer Sunday at the company headquarters in Nashville, Tenn.
Current and former CCA employees criticized the prison for its training programs, saying only a handful of the guards were trained and certified in how to use firearms.
Former corrections officer Linda Carnahan did not know what to do when she was handed a shotgun and told to patrol the perimeter fence. "I told my captain that if we had an escape, I didn't know how to pick up a gun and shoot it," she said. "He said go out there anyway." CCA guards said the company did not train its employees to use firearms because state certification can cost up to $3,000 a person. Mahoning County Sheriff Philip Chance said CCA allowed untrained guards to carry weapons 13 times while escorting injured inmates to the hospital.
CCA was too concerned about the bottom line, said Daniel Eshenbaugh, 42, who left the prison to work for the state.
"They don't care about the corrections officers, and they don't care about the inmates," he said. "Everything there is about money."
Mr. Eshenbaugh said teachers at the prison became so frustrated about a shortage of pencils and paper that they brought in their own supplies.
Added Robert Oliver, 31, who left the prison in July and now also works at the Ohio Penitentiary: "They gave us a rundown saying two slices of bread per inmate costs this much. If you can cut corners here, it would mean a possible raise for us."
Mr. Oliver and other guards said toilet paper was rationed and that inmates were forced to go without it, using their bedsheets instead.
Discrimination alleged
The prison also has come under fire from employees who filed eight discrimination complaints with the city of Youngstown.
"I think CCA figured that Youngstown would put up with anything because they needed the jobs," said Loch P. Beachum, a retired high school principal who helped set up the prison's education program and later quit.
Mr. Beachum is appealing the city's decision to dismiss his race-discrimination complaint. Seven other complaints are pending.
