State toughens work program for inmates

May 22, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Inmates working at the governor’s residence will have to sign a log whenever they use tools and will be limited in where they go on the property in suburban Columbus under new rules announced Friday in the wake of a contraband scandal.

Inmates also will be logged in by highway patrol officers when they arrive at the residence in Bexley and logged out again when they leave, according to the rules.

The new rules also require troopers to account for inmates’ whereabouts every 30 minutes in writing. Inmates also will not be allowed to work outside the fence surrounding the property.

The inmate work program, begun more than 40 years ago under Gov. C. William O’Neill, has been a positive vocational experience for inmates over the years, according to the agreement between the state patrol, prison system and state administrative services department.

“While there will, inevitably, be individuals who will violate program rules, the successes flowing from these efforts have continually exceeded these disappointments,” the agreement said.

But some improvements are necessary because of widespread tobacco smuggling that followed the 2008 ban on all tobacco products in Ohio prisons, the agreement said.

A state watchdog report last month said inmates were using the governor’s residence to smuggle tobacco into the prisons.

“These unacceptable incidents demonstrated the need to further improve the management and operation of the program,” Friday’s agreement said.

Other changes include an updating of the manual outlining procedures for the program and training of troopers assigned to the residence about the updates and any future changes.

The report has become a political headache for Gov. Ted Strickland, a former prison psychologist who is a strong backer of the inmate work program.

The report said high-ranking public-safety officials called off a valid contraband sting at the residence in January to avoid embarrassing the governor, who was hosting former astronaut and Sen. John Glenn and his wife at a dinner that night.

The operation reportedly involved someone dropping contraband, tobacco or drugs at the residence to be picked up later by an inmate and delivered to Pickaway Correctional Institution south of Columbus.

Strickland, a Democrat, has said that he believed officials acted in good faith but that anything meant to spare him embarrassment was unnecessary.

On Thursday, a Senate committee voted against confirming Strickland’s choice for state public-safety director in the latest development to emerge from the inspector general’s report.

The Republican-controlled Senate Criminal Justice Committee voted 5-4 against recommending the appointment of Cathy Collins-Taylor.

The watchdog report accused Collins-Taylor of mischaracterizing dangers associated with the weekend sting operation and said it was called off to save Strickland political embarrassment.

Collins-Taylor says she did not make the decision, but left it to Highway Patrol Supt. David Dicken, who said politics had nothing to do with the cancellation.

Terry Collins, state prisons director at the time, said during hearings this week that the inmate program at the residence was safe. He said inmates routinely are given access to axes, chainsaws, garden implements and other tools to do their work, whether there, inside institutions or on work detail.

Collins said senators had unnecessarily demonized inmates who work at the residence as a result of the contraband controversy.

Five of the nine inmates involved in the program in January have since reached the end of their prison terms and have been released, prisons department spokeswoman Julie Walburn said.