Gilligan's Handling Attacked

Ohio Prison Massacres Predicted

By Richard C. Widman

Staff Writer

COLUMBUS Mrs. Ysabel Rennie, a member of Gov. John J. Gilligan's Citizens Task Force on Correction, sees "massacres" ahead in Ohio prisons because reforms are not being pushed fast enough.

Mrs. Rennie, a suburban Upper Arlington housewife, testified in Washington before a congressional com mittee about conditions in Ohio prisons.

PEN PAL and confidante of scores of convicts who maintain a steady flow of

One of a Series

correspondence about incidents and how reforms are working out, she has an insider's knowledge of the prisons.

"I think prisons in Ohio and across the country are ungovernable, and I don't think conditions will continue as they are without massacres occurring," Mrs. Rennie said in an interview.

"A new generation of inmates is coming along that won't put up with some of these things."

MRS. RENNIE said rising expectations of convicts who have seen liberalization of some policies, but want more, may be a partial cause of the series of strikes and demonstrations Ohio prisons have experienced in the last year.

But the most critical factor is the convicts have lost confidence in the Gilligan administration's pledge, she

said.

The brutality and injustice continue, Mrs. Rennie said, and some publicized reforms are tokenism and others are not working out.

"I've given up on Gilligan because I think it's a waste of time," she said. “Gilligan received our task force report, had a big TV show and sent us home. He leaves everything to Cooper."

Bennett J. Cooper is director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

"COOPER WAS à good warden when he was at Mansfield," Mrs. Rennie said. "But now he's too cautious. He doesn't want to stick his neck out."

At the congressional committee, Mrs. Rennie displayed a chart of reports of brutal treatment of convicts in the Ohio Penitentiary.

The chart indicated that the same group of guards figured in the incidents year after year, she said.

Mrs. Rennie said she gave Harold J. Cardwell the penitentiary warden, a list of the guards. He promised they would not be transferred to the new Southern Ohio Correctional Facility at Lucasville, successor to the Ohio Penitentiary, she said.

“BUT WHEN I read in the newspaper a list of those guards who were being transferred to Lucasville, and saw that it included some of the same ones I told him about, I complained to Cardwell about it." Mrs. Rennie said.

"He told me that I must have misunderstood him," Mrs. Rennie continued. "Then he said, "They've taken human relations training. You should never assume that guards can't change, too.""

An active recruiting program to hire more blacks as guards and members of

Mrs. Ysabel Rennie

the professional staffs was recommended by the task

force.

"They still don't have any blacks to speak of," Mrs. Rennie said.

RAZE THE Ohio Refor matory at Mansfield and transfer the inmates to other institutions. the task force said.

The Plain Dealer later published a series of articles about homosexual rape and beatings of young and vulnerable inmates by other inmates at the reformatory. The governor now has ordered youths sentenced as juvenile delinquents to be transferred next spring to the new Indian River School in Stark County, and the establishment of five correctional community centers for first offenders.

"The articles in The Plain Dealer about conditions at the Mansfield reformatory were true." Mrs. Rennie said. "They were, word for word. what the task force also found at the reformatory."

A cost effectiveness study of the Ohio Penal Industries. the state-operated business enterprise which uses convict labor to manufacture license plates as well as furniture and other times used in state prisons and mental hospitals was recommended.

“THE OHIO Penal Industries are a mess, a disaster, they're not rehabilitating inmates, Mrs. Rennie said.

"When. the task force visited the Chillicothe prison, only two inmates were working. They were using paper cups to put tobacco into small bags, then pulling the strings tight with their teeth. The tobacco is given to inmates of hospitals who do not have money to buy their own tobacco.

"Last March, convicts at all institutions except the Lebanon facility struck for a pay raise. They were getting a nickel an hour and won a raise to 10 cents.

say

“INMATES ALSO that conmissary prices are higher than on the outside, and they wonder what hap pens to the profits which are supposed to go into the welfare fund for recreation equipment.

"Where the profits go has always been a joke in the penal system.'

"

The task force also said convicts should be allowed to have a credit union where they could deposit

their earnings and obtain small loans.

“This would stop the usury and a lot of trouble," Mrs. Rennie said. "If they borrow two packs of cigarettes from another inmate, they have to pay back three packs. And if they can't pay, they have to pay off in

sex.

""

AN END to the courts' practice of handing out indeterminate sentences was another recommendation. This would require legislative action and cooperation from the courts.

"The more times the inmates are turned down by the parole board, the more hostile and embittered they become and the more trouble they cause," Mrs. Rennie said. "Fit the punishment to the crime and stop playing God.”

Upgrading penal system schools was suggested by the task force.

"THE PENAL system has no budget for education," Mrs. Rennie said. "The money for the schools comes from the maintenance program. That means that if wardens want schools, they have to let repairs go.

"Teachers' salaries come from the pool for guards' salaries, which means the warden has a choice between hiring guards or teachers."

Abolish a 11 restrictions regarding who may visit inmates, the task force said.

"This has not been done," Mrs. Rennie declared. "And of course the press should have totally free access to prisoners."

Home and educational furloughs for convicts are now being granted but "it is off to a slow start," she said.

NEW RULES and a disciplinary system for all institutions were adopted but it's not being used, she said.

Abolition of strip cells was recommended by the task force.

"These cells usually had nothing in them but a hole in the floor. The prisons still have modified strip cells," she said.

"They have no lights or toilets. They may have a bed with a mattress, and bedpans that are not emptied for several days. That's all.

"WORST OF ALL, we recommended protection for vulnerable sexually inmates. They're not doing anything about it."

An ombudsman, with no connection with the correction department administraion in his background, for each prison was recommended.

em-

"They have appointed one ombudsman, a career correction department ploye, for the entire system," she said." "His loyalty is to Cooper."

According to a correction department announcement, the system's ombudsman is to have two assistants, both ex-convicts.

"The prisoners have elected liaison councils but when they make demands, Cooper fires them," Mrs. Rennie declared.