Congressman seeks prison-crowding probe
An official acknowledged inmate overcrowding.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
ELKTON -- U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. has written a letter asking Thurman Davis Sr., acting administrator of the federal General Accounting Office, to investigate immediately allegations of overcrowding and poor conditions in the Federal Correctional Institution here.
"I have received numerous complaints of conditions becoming tenuous and dangerous," Traficant wrote. A GAO spokesman was unavailable to comment.
Inmates and their families have contacted the congressman, said Charles Straub, spokesman for Traficant of Poland, D-17th.
More details aren't being provided. The congressman will share those specifics with the GAO, Straub said.
Response: A federal bureau of prisons spokeswoman declined to comment on Traficant's request, but she acknowledged that many federal low-security prisons, including FCI, are overcrowded.
"It's something we want to alleviate," said Traci Billingsley.
The overcrowding is caused primarily by an increase in the federal prison system's low-security inmate population, Billingsley added.
She denied that overcrowding poses a danger to inmates and staff. "We're able to easily accommodate these additional inmates," she said without elaborating.
FCI Elkton includes a fenced low-security institution that has a capacity of 1,536 inmates. But 1,894 prisoners are housed there, Billingsley said.
An adjacent satellite low-security facility holds 591 inmates. Billingsley wasn't immediately sure of its capacity, but it has been previously reported at 600 inmates.
Staff: Total staff at the prison numbers 356, including 135 employees assigned to corrections officer duty, Billingsley said.
She was unable to immediately say how many corrections officers are assigned to each shift at the two facilities that make up FCI Elkton.
The smaller satellite facility was established last summer as part of a bureau of prisons' pilot effort to ease overcrowding at facilities throughout the federal prison system.
Before becoming a low-security lockup, the facility was a minimum-security, unfenced camp.