Prison shooting, escape attempt raise safety concerns

e-mail this story

"We're just trying to remind people that we have a serious problem and sticking your head in the sand isn't going to cause the problem to get better," Republican Sen. Mike Fair, chairman of the Senate Corrections and Penology Committee, said Friday.

Investigators are still searching for the gun in the shooting last weekend at the medium-security Allendale Correctional Institution, Fair said.

The weekend before that, an inmate at a high-security facility in Columbia managed to make it to the roof of the prison before officers noticed he was missing and captured him.

Jon Ozmint, director of the prison system, told The Greenville News then that while he wasn't blaming budget cuts for the escape attempt, the cuts had left inmate-to-guard ratios so high that no one should be surprised at security breaches.

He said Friday that while there has been no increase in serious assaults, Fair's concerns "are well founded."

"Budget cuts have resulted in loss of security staff and woefully inadequate equipment," he said. "Furthermore, correctional officer pay levels, which are below southeastern and national averages, must be improved in order for us to maintain secure staffing levels. When coupled with an ever-growing inmate population, all of this results in fewer staff managing more inmates."

Fair said he wants the agency, which has operated in deficits the last two years, not to suffer any more cuts. Over the past three years, he said, the agency has had its expenses trimmed by $50 million, or 9 percent of its budget, while the inmate population has grown by 10 percent.

There are now fewer staff and less programs for inmates, he said.

"The combination of the two well may spell disaster," he said. "If staffing levels are inadequate to ensure the security of the prisons and the safety of the people, the General Assembly must act now to reprioritize resources and provide targeted appropriations to address this critical concern."

Ozmint told The News earlier this month the inmate to correction officer ratio system-wide is now more than 9 to 1, a dramatic increase from three years ago.

"I only know of one state that has fewer staff to inmate ratio," he said. "We're not making excuses. (But) we're not where we need to be as far as staffing our prisons."