Prison Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Regional Jails Undergo Investment Reform, Recruitment Efforts

Regional jails in West Virginia have long struggled with staffing and safety issues. Investment reforms and recruiting efforts from state leadership aim to solve these issues.

As West Virginia’s strained jail system faces ongoing safety concerns, reinvestment and recruitment efforts aim to amend facility issues on a state level.

The Legislative Oversight Committee on Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority convened for a public meeting Monday at the State Capitol. Their meeting centered around changes to staffing and oversight in the state’s jail facilities.

West Virginia’s jail system has come under national scrutiny for the alleged mistreatment of people who are incarcerated, including neglect, water deprivation and the deaths of tens of individuals in less than five years.

Last year, eight correctional officers at Southern Regional Jail in Beaver were charged over an assault that led to the death of a man who was incarcerated in the facility.

Carl Reynolds, senior legal and policy advisor at the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center, spoke to lawmakers about “justice reinvestment” — the reallocation of funds from jails to other areas of the criminal justice system.

By providing investments “further upstream,” like in law enforcement, victim services and parole supervision, Reynolds said the state’s jail system can reduce expenses associated with incarceration.

The CSG Justice Center uses federal funds to work with officials on the state level and analyze data pertaining to state criminal justice systems. They then advise state leadership on potential changes to make.

Justice reinvestment refers to the reallocation of funding for jails toward other areas of the criminal justice system.

*Photo Credit: Will Price/WV Legislative Photography*

Reynolds said representatives from his organization have met with leaders from all three branches of government in West Virginia and have received approval to pursue this work in the Mountain State.

Justice reinvestment is an idea that West Virginia has recently begun to embrace.

Gov. Jim Justice awarded more than $2.6 million in grant funds to treatment supervision programs across the state in 2023, followed by an additional $2.4 million in 2024. These programs offer substance abuse interventions to some individuals convicted of felony drug offenses.

Reynolds said that his organization is currently collecting information and ideas from state officials on how to approach reinvestment efforts in West Virginia.

“This is an open-minded, open-ended process where we want to find out what’s important to you all and to the other stakeholders in the system,” he said.

In the meantime, recruitment efforts in West Virginia jails could also address issues in the West Virginia corrections system, according to Pat Mirandy, chief of staff for the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR).

Mirandy said Monday that recruitment efforts have been “nothing more than miraculous over the past few months.”

Since Jan. 1, Mirandy said the DCR has hired 291 correctional officers and 49 additional, non-officer personnel members. Also since Jan. 1, 162 individuals have completed DCR corrections training, he said.

Pat Mirandy, chief of staff for the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, updates lawmakers on recruitment efforts in West Virginia’s jail system.

*Photo Credit: Will Price/WV Legislative Photography*

Union representatives have long said that understaffing in the state’s jail system has created additional safety risks for workers, which also extend to individuals who are incarcerated.

In 2022, Justice issued a state of emergency proclamation over the staffing issues, which allowed members of the West Virginia National Guard to fill in vacancies in the jail system.

But the ongoing recruiting efforts could mean National Guard members will no longer be needed in the state’s jail system, Mirandy said.

At the beginning of the year, Mirandy said 413 National Guard members were working for the DCR. Now, that number has fallen to approximately 80.

During the meeting, Del. Bryan Ward, R-Hardy, said these staffing improvements marked “a lot to be proud of” for the agency.

Mirandy said that by May the DCR anticipates only five guard members will remain with the agency, staying on to complete “paperwork that needed to be done to close out the soldiers that we had in our facilities.”

“Because of the success of our recruiting efforts, we’ve been able to draw down the National Guard’s footprint in our agency,” he said. “Our plan to eventually achieve no guardsmen in our facilities will be a reality soon.”

Preston County Prison Workers Get Pay Bump To Boost Retention

Employees at Federal Correctional Complex Hazelton who are in good standing will receive a 25 percent pay increase — part of an effort to boost staff retention and promote facility safety.

Personnel at a Preston County prison will soon receive a 25 percent pay increase, following union protests over understaffing last year.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons and the United States Office of Personnel Management approved the pay increase Thursday as part of an effort to increase staff retention at the Federal Correctional Complex Hazelton.

Staffing issues at the federal prison gained attention in 2018 following the deaths of three inmates in a seven-month span, including the murder of an inmate serving a life sentence.

Leadership changes following the incident improved staffing levels at the facility, according to corrections officer Justin Tarovisky, who also serves as union president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 420 chapter.

Tarovisky’s union represents more than 600 workers at the facility, from West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, he said.

But the departure of some members of the facility’s leadership, coupled with the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbated prior staffing issues to a new degree, Tarovisky said.

“Since that, we’ve drastically declined,” he said. In September, union representatives reported that more than 80 corrections officer positions were vacant.

Tarovisky said that understaffing in correctional facilities poses safety risks for current personnel.

“I mean, we’re a 24-hour operation. It’s not a job where you just leave at the end of the day, you go home, and you don’t have nobody there,” he said. “We have to have correctional officers at the facility to run a safe mission.”

To raise awareness about challenges to the facility, union workers lined a Monongalia County roadside last September, picketing with bright-colored signs demanding new hiring initiatives.

“We need hiring incentives to bring in new recruits,” Tarovisky said. “You have a lot of other law enforcement agencies within this country — whether it’s state police, whether it’s corrections in Pennsylvania — that … were offering higher incentives. So why would you want to come to Hazelton?”

Tarovisky said state officials were receptive to the union’s requests.

In November, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., sent a letter to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) urging the organization’s approval of a 25 percent retention incentive for staff at the facility.

“FCC Hazelton faces a dangerous staffing shortage that, while challenging, could be improved by providing current employees with a much-deserved pay increase,” he wrote in the letter.

After the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) published a report in February that the BOP failed to prevent the deaths of 14 inmates at the West Virginia facility in just eight years — the second-highest number in the nation — Manchin renewed his calls for federal intervention.

Other allegations disclosed in a 2023 DOJ report included the falsification of documents from supervisory staff at the facility; the usage of racial slurs and punitive housing restrictions from workers; and even the assault of inmates by facility staff.

Manchin said that understaffing exacerbated dangerous conditions like these in the facility. Likewise, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said that the 2023 DOJ findings suggested the facility was unable to provide a safe environment for inmates and workers.

Tarovisky credits calls from West Virginia’s senators, plus additional support from U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney, with pushing the pay increase forward.

“Unbelievable job, what they’ve done for the staff at Hazelton. This is what we’ve been asking for, and this is what they’ve been pressing on,” he said. “They put all politics aside to represent the people at FCC Hazelton.”

The pay raise will apply to all of the facility’s corrections officers who are currently in good standing. But it will also bump starting salaries at the facility up by 25 percent, which Tarovisky said will help make the facility more enticing in a competitive job market.

“That’s what’s so great about this,” he said. “Now, we can compete even higher with other agencies.”

Manchin applauded the new funding in a Thursday press release, adding that he hopes it will reduce safety risks in the prison.

“The facility has long suffered from severe staffing shortages, especially of correctional officers, that have resulted in a hostile environment for both employees and inmates,” he said. “This pay incentive is much-deserved for current employees and will help recruit new qualified officers and staff, which will promote safer conditions for employees and inmates.”

**Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that allegations of falsified documents and staff abuse came from a February 2024 Department of Justice report. They came from a September 2023 report. The story has been updated with the correction.

Probe Of Illegal Drugs Delivered By Drone At W.Va. Prison Nets 11 Arrests

Eleven suspects have been arrested in an investigation into illegal drugs allegedly delivered by drones into a federal prison in southern West Virginia. Another man under investigation who fled officers was later found dead, authorities said.

McDowell County Sheriff James Muncy said his office was contacted in November by officials at the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution, McDowell in Welch to help with increased drone use in the area. In December, the sheriff’s office started receiving multiple tips about drone deliveries.

Muncy said in a statement Friday that the arrests were made from mid-December through early February. The charges included introduction or attempts to introduce contraband into a correctional facility, possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, unlawfully operating a drone, terroristic acts and felony conspiracy.

Muncy didn’t say what drugs were allegedly flown into the facility or whether any of those arrested are inmates there.

A Louisville, Kentucky, man wanted on an outstanding warrant in the investigation fled officers on foot Feb. 9. Members of the sheriff’s office found him dead on Feb. 15. The statement didn’t indicate where he was found, and his body was sent to the state medical examiner for an autopsy.

One of the arrested suspects is a juvenile, Muncy said. In addition, two suspects were charged with assault and battery on an officer and fleeing on foot. Another suspect in the case was charged with being a fugitive from Pennsylvania.

Most of the suspects remained held Monday at the Southwestern Regional Jail in Holden. Jail records didn’t indicate whether they have attorneys who could comment on the charges.

Advocates Call For Sweeping Reform In W.Va.’s Jail System

Advocates and families of incarcerated people in West Virginia will gather inside the capitol building in the lower rotunda on Saturday morning.

Following the indictment of six former correctional officers in the beating death of Quantez Burks and the death of an additional inmate at Southern Regional Jail, families will join the West Virginia Poor People’s Campaign (WVPPC) to challenge the state legislature, governor and West Virginia’s U.S. Senators at a press conference Saturday morning.

At 11 a.m. Repairers of the Breach President Bishop William J. Barber II, Forward Justice, clergy and community supporters will gather in the lower rotunda of the Capitol to call for a full federal investigation into local prisons by the Department of Justice.

Pam Garrison, one of the Chairs of the WVPPC said recent legislative measures aren’t even a Band-Aid to the problems within the system.

“They always get the little guys, the little guys are the ones who always pay the price,” Garrison said. “But the ones who are, who have instigated, who have put these policies in that has the lack of policy, the lack of oversight, the lack of accountability, that lies down Charleston.”

Advocates claim that in the past five years, at least 25 people have died at the Southern Regional Jail alone, with inmates reporting chronic understaffing, overcrowding and neglect. This claim is backed up by reporting from Mountain State Spotlight.

There were 13 reported deaths at the Southern Regional Jail in 2022, and more than 100 deaths in the state’s regional jail system in the past decade.

“They put them in jail or they charge them with something like they’re trash, like they don’t matter, like they can just do anything to them,” Garrison said. “Well, I got news for them. They’ve got families and they got rights.”

Prison Overcrowding, WVU Cuts And COVID-19 Back In The News, This West Virginia Week

On this West Virginia Week, employees at a federal prison had an informational picket to protest unsafe working conditions, WVU announced more cuts, groups from Kanawha County are suing the EPA about cancer causing chemicals, and much more.

On this West Virginia Week, employees at a federal prison had an informational picket to protest unsafe working conditions, WVU announced more cuts — this time to library services, groups from Kanawha County are suing the EPA about cancer causing chemicals, we learned what we all suspected — historically Black colleges and universities have been underfunded, and a small town classified ad publication is closing its doors after 50 years.

We’ll also hear feature stories on the proposed silica dust rule as more and younger miners get black lung, a rebuttal story to our workforce series from a small business owner and a story about the rise of COVID-19 once again.

News Director Eric Douglas is our host this week.

West Virginia Week is a web-only podcast that explores the week’s biggest news in the Mountain State. It’s produced with help from Bill Lynch, Briana Heaney, Caroline MacGregor, Chris Schultz, Curtis Tate, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Liz McCormick, and Randy Yohe.

Learn more about West Virginia Week.

Report Critical of W.Va.’s Prison Food System

A report published by the West Virginia Center on Budget Policy said inmates receive highly processed, low nutrient foods that negatively impact their health and cost taxpayers more.

The report indicates inmates used to grow fresh produce outside and in greenhouses to cook healthy fresh meals under a state run prison food service program. However, as prison populations grew, the state looked to save money by signing a contract with Aramark food service.

Aramark is a national food service provider. The company received fines due to maggot infested food and food that had been tainted by rats. The food provider has also been cited for serving expired or unrefrigerated food products, the report said.

The authors of the report filed a Freedom of information act to find out how much the state pays Aramark, and to answer questions about conflict of interest. So far, they have not been able to receive any information.

In 2019 West Virginia lawmakers passed The Fresh Food Act that required 5 percent of the purchases made by Aramark to be fresh produce or meat from West Virginia producers. However, the Agriculture Commissioner complained in 2022 that the company has failed to comply with the law, and that the Department of Agriculture has no tools to enforce the law.

The West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitations issued a statement that said the organization is committed to the safety, quality of life, and wellbeing of those in the care of the legal system in the state and continually work to provide nutritional meals and quality of health care to those placed in their care.