Exit death row in Youngstown; Enter more efficiency in prisons

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction wisely decided this week to relocate the bulk of death row from the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown to the Chillicothe Correctional Institution in southern Ohio.

ODRC’s plan cuts department costs, better uses limited penal resources and guarantees no adverse impact on the Supermax prison on Youngstown’s East Side and the economic impact the penitentiary has on the Mahoning Valley.

Specifically, the plan calls for transferring 117 death-row inmates housed at the penitentiary and 29 imprisoned at the Mansfield Correctional Institution to the Chillicothe Correctional Institution by January 2012. Six of the most violent death-row inmates will remain in Youngstown.

At a time when state government must explore every possible means to pinch pennies, this transfer of prisoners makes sound dollar-and-cents sense. Because Chillicothe is much closer to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville, where executions are carried out, the costs of transporting inmates and ODRC staff drop dramatically. According to prisons spokesman Carlo LoParo, each 254-mile trip from Youngstown to Lucasville costs $1,200. The new cost will be negligible because the trip is so short — about 30 miles — and ODRC staff won’t incur lodging and other expenses tied to overnight stays.

SHUFFLE SHOULD IMPROVE SECURITY

Transfer of death-row prisoners also fits prominently in a larger plan to use available staff more efficiently to enhance overall prison security.

“We are going to reduce violence in our prisons, and we are going to do it by better allocating our resources,” said state prisons chief Gary C. Mohr.

Mohr said the consolidation will free up about 300 maximum-security cells at Youngstown and Mansfield, which will be used to separate violent offenders from other inmates.

Such segregation could help reverse a recent surge in violence inside Ohio’s network of three dozen prisons. In 2009 and 2010, ODRC reports 5,070 incidents of violence by inmates, but surprisingly only five of those episodes involved death-row inmates.

The state’s prison reorganization also makes sense because these cost and security benefits accrue without endangering the jobs and economic dividends the 614-inmate prison brings to the Mahoning Valley.

The move will allow 80 corrections officers on death row at Youngstown and Mansfield to be reassigned to other duties within the same institutions, officials said. It also will not affect the minimum-security camp at the Supermax.

While this fall’s relocation represents a positive move, it does not, however, begin to resolve the larger dilemma rocking the Ohio prison system: overcrowding.

According to the 2011 Report on Prison Crowding by the Ohio Criminal Sentencing Commission, led by Ohio Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, state prisons now hold 50,500 inmates, 6.5 times more than they did in 1974. That number also represents 12,500 more prisoners than the institutions were built to hold.

Let’s hope then that this small-scale prisoner shuffle catalyzes larger-scale anti-crowding initiatives to minimize risks of violence inside prison walls and to maximize security for inmates, prison staff and all Ohioans.