Ohio prisons require changes

The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer: The brief but frightening prison escape of T.J. Lane, who was serving three consecutive life sentences for killing three fellow Chardon high school students and injuring three others in 2012, dominated the news in September. Lane escaped with two older inmates, one of whom also was serving time for murder.

Their escapes from Allen Oakwood Correctional Institution in Lima were abetted by a prison system so incompetent that Lane and the two others were able to build a ladder to climb a roof and then leap to freedom, according to the summary of two investigative reports recently released by Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Director Gary Mohr.

Why wasn’t this prison, which housed a dangerous school shooter and other violent felons, better maintained and guarded? Few are likely to trust the Mohr administration until that question is sufficiently answered and critical changes are made.