ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, May 23, 1996 TAG: 9605230073
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: LAURA LAFAY STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Above
HE WAS BROUGHT IN to make changes, he says - and there's no denying he's done just that.
Since he took over the Department of Corrections two years ago, Ron Angelone has presided over the end of parole, cleared local jails of inmates waiting for spots in state lockups and banned the media from prisons.
He initiated a program to charge inmates for medical care and another program to confiscate their money to pay court costs. He sent plane loads of prisoners to Texas, restricted family visiting hours, limited the kinds of property inmates can have and doubled them up in cells.
He introduced ``Angeloaf,'' a form of foul-smelling, high-nutrient bread given to inmates who have caused trouble. He redefined the word ``lockdown.''
Most memorably, he survived a political firestorm after the post-execution discovery of a gun in the typewriter of a death-row inmate. Not to mention widespread criticism from inmate advocates and accusations of general meanness.
He's proud of all of it. At least he makes no apologies.
``What? So I was hired to come in and not change anything and just run it exactly as it was?'' he thunders in a recent interview.
``You bring in a new director, you bring in change. You bring in a new director, you bring in that philosophy,'' he adds. ``I was brought in to change. I'm not doing anything unconstitutional.''
Chain-smoking, bejeweled, dapper and mustachioed, Angelone can fill a room with his personality. He is a shoot-from-the-mouth tough guy. A swaggerer. A trail boss. By turns sarcastic, funny, accusing and contrite, he can turn a two-hour interview into a harrowing trip through the mood jungle of his mind.
He yells. Admonishes. Exults. Explodes. He feels victimized. He is reasonable. Sincere. He has nothing against the media. He just wants to do his job. Can't we all just get along?
``I don't want to be looked at as a goon or as a Rambo, as some newspaper person in Norfolk has said,'' he says reproachfully.
``I'd rather be looked at as an individual that is just trying to provide that balanced environment in which people work every day and people are incarcerated every day. ... Some are to put in 40 hours a week correctly. Some are to be incarcerated for 40 years correctly. That's all I'm asking for. I don't owe them an excuse; they don't owe me one. But we can live together as long as we function as adults throughout the whole process.''
Angelone brought his tough-guy reputation with him when he was recruited to Virginia in 1994 by Gov. George Allen. Angelone had spent the previous five years running the Nevada prison system, presiding over the state's notorious Ely State Prison, dubbed ``The Toughest Prison in America'' while under his jurisdiction.
``We don't have a problem with inmates in Nevada,'' he once told USA Today. ``If they try to escape, we shoot them.''
Allen wanted a tough prison administrator and he got one, says Angelone's boss, Public Safety Director Jerry Kilgore.
``We wanted to send a message. ... that we had changed administrations and that we were going to abolish parole,'' Kilgore says.
According to Kilgore, Angelone's chief accomplishments include increasing prison security statewide, personally designing two maximum-security institutions now under construction, and negotiating for the state's first private prison.
As for his approach, ``I would describe him as a no-holds-barred, boisterous personality,'' Kilgore says. ``And that's meant in a good way.''
Some would beg to differ.
``Has it only been two years?'' asks Kent Willis, head of the Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which monitors conditions in the state's 42 prisons and work camps.
According to Willis, Angelone's approach is ``essentially a kind of philosophy of harm. ... The message is that prisoners are not human beings and do not need to be treated as such. Our letters from inmates have almost doubled in the last two years.''
Since the fall of 1995, Angelone has refused almost all media requests for face-to-face interviews with inmates and opportunities to photograph them. This policy does not exclude the press, he says, because reporters are still able to have telephone conversations with inmates who call them collect. As for photographs, the Department of Corrections will supply a mug shot if asked.
The policy was implemented a few months after a lawyer and two reporters found a loaded gun in the typewriter of death row inmate Willie Lloyd Turner shortly after Turner's May 25 execution. Angelone dismissed the incident as a probable ``elaborate hoax'' by the lawyer. But state police, assigned to investigate the case after a political uproar, found ``clear evidence'' that the gun belonged to Turner.
The new media restrictions have nothing to do with Turner, according to Angelone. At the heart of the policy, he says, were security concerns, too many interview requests and issues of fairness.
Reporters are distracting to inmates and staff, and correctional officers are too busy to escort them, says Angelone.
Reporters rank with inmates on the list of Angelone's least-favorite life forms. The Virginia media have never given his administration a fair shake, he says. Journalists have overlooked his accomplishments, slanted their reports to exaggerate the impact of new policies, and waited ``with bated breath hoping for a major problem. ... Any time we do something, I mean everybody's ready to jump on the bandwagon and say we're doing wrong,'' he says.
``[For example,] questioning my reasoning for [the new] personal property [policy]. I mean, it's not like we chained people up on the walls and whipped them. We changed the personal property [policy].''
During the interview, Angelone enumerated his achievements: He has signed a contract with six companies to establish miniature factories in some prisons; he has increased the use of home electronic monitoring and opened six ``day reporting centers'' as an alternative to prison time for people with certain types of convictions; he has reduced assaults on staff and inmates; 80 percent of the department's employable inmates are working; stability has been maintained.
``I have not stopped or limited ... the inmates' lifestyle in prison,'' Angelone says. ``I've controlled it. I've made it a little easier, made it a little safer. ... We're not inflicting pain. I don't get any joy out of saying, `Hey, what can we do tomorrow to grind our heel in somebody's face?' No. I don't do that. I don't do it with staff. I don't do it with inmates. I don't do it with anybody.''
LENGTH: Long : 120 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Landmark New Service. Ron Angelone came from Nevada,by CNBhome of Ely State Prison, dubbed ``The Toughest Prison in America.''
color. KEYWORDS: PROFILE