THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 21, 1994 TAG: 9411210048
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
State corrections director Ronald Angelone plans to issue guns to guards throughout some high-security prisons.
In Virginia and at most state and federal prisons in the United States, armed guards are found only in towers and along the perimeters, where they help prevent escapes.
But Nevada - where Angelone was director of the corrections system from 1989 until this year - places guards armed with shotguns, handguns or assault rifles on catwalks, gun ports, towers and control rooms. The guns are loaded with blanks and bird-shot rounds.
``The idea is not to inflict pain on inmates,'' Angelone said. ``The idea is to let them know the prison is being run by the staff and not the predators who tend to live in most of our maximum-security prisons.''
When serious trouble threatens, first there is a warning shot. Then, as one Nevada prison officer put it, ``ultimate control.''
The presence and use of firearms will make Virginia prisons safer for both inmates and guards, he said.
``When I first got here, in the first two weeks, there were more assaults on staff than I had in five years in Nevada,'' he said.
Armed guards inside ``provide the weaker inmate, the inmate who's just doing his time, with the understanding that he's being protected,'' Angelone said.
Critics argue it can make the prison atmosphere more dangerous. The Nevada corrections policy is under attack in court, but it has withstood legal challenges.
A handful of states use weapons routinely in residential areas inside prison walls, but apparently only California - where 27 inmates have been shot to death since 1989 - and Nevada use them extensively.
Angelone said Thursday that ``one institution in Virginia is gearing up to be loaded (with weapons) inside.'' He declined to identify the prison or say when the change will occur.
He said he also plans to arm key officers inside three new maximum-security prisons - Red Onion, Sussex, and Eastern Shore - to be built in Virginia by 1998. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
A guard at a Carson City, Nev., prison carries a shotgun loaded with
birdshot. Virginia's corrections director came from Nevada, and
plans to bring that state's policy here. More prison guards in a
wider range of prison locations will be armed, with shotguns loaded
with blacks or with birdshot.
KEYWORDS: PRISON GUN ARMED GUARD VIRGINIA by CNB