Posted by JAMAL NEWS SERVICE on April 23, 1998 at 11:21:50:
GUARDS APPLAUD PRISON OFFICIAL'S SWIFT DEMOTION
Tuesday, April 21, 1998
By Robert Dvorchak and Mike Bucsko, Post-Gazette Staff Writers
The boss at the maximum-security prison in Greene County may be gone, but some guards say the captains and lieutenants who remain in charge are the source of much tensions behind its walls
Ben Varner had been superintendent for slightly more than a year at the State Correctional Institution-Greene when he was told Friday that he was being transferred across Pennsylvania to a medium-security prison in Luzerne County
Corrections Commissioner Martin Horn ordered the transfer Thursday at the end of the first day of testimony before a Corrections Department panel in Camp Hill, across the Susquehanna from Harrisburg. The panel is looking into inmate complaints of abuse by SCI-Greene guards
After the published report of Varner's transfer, current and former employees at the prison in Waynesburg sought to alert the Post-Gazette to what they say is really going on inside
Guards have most of the daily contact with inmates. The seven captains and 21 lieutenants in middle management fill out duty rosters and give orders to them about the handling of prisoners, including disciplinary actions. The guards follow those orders or risk losing jobs that can pay as much as $40,000 a year
Also at the root of the problem is the racial makeup at the prison, located in a rural corner of southwestern Pennsylvania, just eight miles north of the West Virginia line. Of Greene County's 40,000 residents, more than 98 percent are white. Guards and prison employees are also overwhelmingly white, while nearly 70 percent of the inmates are black -- many of them from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. About 6 percent of the inmates are Hispanic
Now that their prison is the focus of a state investigation, current and former guards were reluctant to speak out publicly. But some agreed to discuss prison conditions if their names weren't used
These employees say inmates are routinely called racial epithets. SCI-Greene is so notorious that officers at other institutions in the state prison system routinely refer to it as the "Good Ol' Boy Jail."
The investigation concerns the restricted housing unit -- commonly called "the hole" -- where three dozen instances of pushing and shoving of inmates were documented on videotape. Inmates are placed in the restricted housing unit for security reasons or as discipline because of behavioral problems
"The system starts at the top and middle, and lower management falls right in," said one former employee, who said he feared reprisals if his identity were known
"Let's say I'm working in the restricted housing unit. I'd get a phone call from an officer saying that an inmate was causing a problem and he'd tell me, 'How about putting it to him a little bit,' or 'I want you to work him over.'
"We'd get those directions from a supervisor. If they wanted something done, even if you know it's wrong, it was their way or else. If you did it a different way, you caught hell for it. Not only would you face harm and fear from inmates, but from management, too. ..
"We have guys working there who never dealt with blacks before. I heard officers call them (racial epithets) all the time."
He called Varner's removal "long overdue."
Varner, 49, began his Corrections Department career in 1973, as a guard at the state prison in Huntingdon. He rose through the ranks to captain, and then was promoted to deputy superintendent and sent to SCI-Greene in 1992 to help prepare for its opening in 1994
Ironically, Varner got the Waynesburg superintendent's job a year ago because of problems at the state prison in Pittsburgh, where six inmates escaped through a tunnel. One of Varner's Waynesburg assistants was Gregory White, Pittsburgh's former superintendent, who was demoted and transferred after the escape. James Price, Varner's former boss at Greene and longtime co-worker at Huntingdon, replaced White in Pittsburgh
Varner began his new job yesterday as superintendent at the State Correctional Institution-Retreat, at an old state hospital in Hunlock Creek in Luzerne. He was demoted one level and will be paid $72,098 a year, about $6,700 less than at Waynesburg. Through a spokesman, he declined comment
A current employee who declined to be identified said yesterday that SCI-Greene's problems run deeper than top management
"Varner's going to be the scapegoat in all this. But a superintendent has the whole jail to run; he can't be every place at once," he said. "It's the captains and lieutenants who run the place. They're the ones who fill out the duty rosters. And those guards are going to do what they're told because they want to protect their jobs
"Our job is to protect the public by keeping these inmates in jail; our job isn't to beat the daylights out of these guys. Some of these officers think they are judge, jury and jailer
"If you have racists and rednecks for guards, you have a powderkeg. If you hit someone, sooner or later he's going to retaliate. If you get the right mixture of people, there's going to be a riot."
SCI-Greene has 1,485 inmates, 112 of them on death row -- the most in any state prison.
Horn announced April 9 that the department's Office of Professional Responsibility was investigating inmate complaints about abuse in the restricted housing unit. All transfers there are recorded on videotape, although several current or former employees said some videos have been destroyed or erased
Bill Herbert, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees local that represents SCI-Greene guards, said the guards being investigated were "following procedures established by the (prison) administration," and that the problems are being "exaggerated" by Horn
"If there was a problem with the procedures, then they should have been changed before it reached a point where 40-some officers now face possible disciplinary action," Herbert said
A three-member panel, comprised of superintendents and administrators from other prisons, heard testimony last week from Corrections investigators and four guards, department spokesman Michael Lukens said. This week, there will be three separate panels hearing testimony. A total of 41 guards are to testify during the inquiry, which will last another three to four weeks, he said
Others outside the prison said they thought Varner's removal was needed but urged Horn to monitor hiring and make sure that middle management is also overhauled
"We're hoping the change in leadership will result in the alleviating of tensions down there. That tension does seem to be pretty strong," said Witold "Vic" Walczak of the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union
He said the number of inmate complaints "just shot up" under Varner's regime. He said inmates were especially upset by restrictions on what religious and legal materials they could have
The Prison Society, a watchdog group, has called for an independent inquiry into brutality charges at SCI-Greene. The society's Randy Gauger noted: "The buck has to stop somewhere. There are some good people working at Greene. You can't just promote the guards who are the most heavy-handed."
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