Posted on: Thursday, March 24, 2005
Colorado prison firings renew Hawai'i concerns
By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau
The firings of six employees of a Colorado prison with criminal records has prompted a renewed call for officials here to launch an investigation into the facility, which houses Hawai'i inmates.
The employees at Brush Correctional Facility had convictions for charges such as domestic violence, child abuse and harassment, according CBS 4 News in Denver.
It was not clear when the firings took place at the prison northeast of Denver, but they apparently are not related to an investigation of prison sexual misconduct. In that investigation, two former guards have been charged with having sexual contact with two Hawai'i inmates, and the former prison warden was charged as an accomplice.
Kat Brady, coordinator of the Community Alliance on Prisons in Hawai'i, yesterday urged state prison officials to immediately conduct a thorough investigation of the facility.
In a letter sent yesterday to Rick Bissen, interim director of the state Department of Public Safety, Brady noted the latest revelations about the prison staff, and said her organization "is deeply concerned about the safety of our female inmates in the Brush prison."
Bissen said he has not yet seen Brady's letter, but the department does not plan to launch a new investigation into problems at Brush. The sexual misconduct allegations have been investigated and are being prosecuted by Colorado authorities, Bissen said.
"We are satisfied with the investigation that has occurred thus far and the actions that are being taken," he said.
About 70 women inmates from Hawai'i are serving their sentences at the Colorado prison. Brush is a 250-bed medium-security prison. Hawai'i first placed inmates there last year.
Gil Walker, president of GRW Corp., the Tennessee-based company that operates the prison, said criminal background checks were never completed on the employees and they never should have been hired, according to the television station.
Bissen said it was "regrettable" that the prison failed to complete the employee background checks, but noted the prison employees with the criminal histories are not the same workers who were fired for alleged sexual misconduct.
Hawai'i is paying $30 million annually to house more than 1,600 men and women in privately run prisons in Oklahoma, Mississippi, Colorado and Arizona because of the state's crowded prison system.
Colorado authorities say prison staff engaged in sexual misconduct with two Hawai'i inmates, two from Colorado and four from Wyoming.
Brush Warden Rick Soares resigned from the prison in February, and later was charged as an accomplice in one of the sexual misconduct cases. Two corrections officers also were charged.
It is a felony in Colorado for prison staff to have sexual contact with inmates regardless of whether the sex is consensual or not.
Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 935-3916.
