THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 4, 1995 TAG: 9506040030
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LAURA LAFAY AND JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines
In January 1994, in the visiting room of the Mecklenburg Correctional Center, convicted murderer John Colclasure's girlfriend passed him a gun. Colclasure, in turn, slipped the weapon to inmate Carlton Harris, who smuggled it out of the visiting room.
Then Colclasure, who is serving life plus 156 years, had a fight with the girlfriend.
A few hours later, she tipped off police. Prison officials found Harris walking around the prison yard with the gun - a derringer in two parts - and two bullets, all hidden in his rectum.
Colclasure was convicted last July of unlawful delivery of gun parts and ammunition to a prisoner. Harris was convicted of unlawfully possessing the same items.
Although guns are rare in prisons, say experts, they do get in. A gun found inside the electric typewriter of executed Virginia death row inmate Willie Lloyd Turner made national headlines late last month. Gov. George Allen, who at first speculated that the incident was a ``stunt'' by Turner's defense attorney, has since ordered a thorough state police investigation.
It wasn't so much that Turner had a gun, said Toni Bair, a corrections consultant and expert witness who served as warden at Mecklenburg in the mid-1980s. It was that he had it in the Virginia death house - the highest security area in the system.
``I've never heard of anything like that,'' said Bair.
Guns are usually smuggled into prisons by correctional officers or other prison employees, or by vendors who deliver truckloads of supplies to the facilities, Bair said.
``Basically, there's just two ways,'' he said. ``Either staff, or it has to come in with some type of commodity - food or toilet paper or any of the other products you need to keep the institution running. You've got hundreds and thousands of trucks coming in every year. That's why we find drugs in food a lot. Because the inmates get a contact with a vendor.''
In New York City, five corrections officers and one counselor have been arrested for smuggling loaded guns into the city's jails since 1988, said Department of Investigations Inspector General Michael L. Caruso, who oversees the city's corrections department. In all of those cases, said Caruso, the employees were motivated by bribes ranging from $1,100 to $7,500.
No statistics are kept in Virginia on gun incidents behind bars.
Occasionally, as in the unpublicized incident with Colclasure, guns are smuggled in by outsiders. Authorities in New York have been unable to ascertain the origins of five to 10 guns found in their prisons since 1988, Caruso said.
The Turner case is also not the first time officials have tried to dismiss as a hoax the appearance of a gun inside a prison.
In March, a package bearing the postmark of an Ohio prison arrived at the home of Ohio State Rep. Frank Sawyer. Inside were a .25-caliber revolver, six bullets, an ammunition magazine and suspected drugs.
The inmate who sent it, James David Crow, had bragged to Sawyer that he could get anything he wanted inside the Mansfield Correctional Center, a high-security prison in northern Ohio.
At first, Ohio prison officials denied it could have happened. They have since placed the facility's former warden, chief of security, and a correctional officer on paid administrative leave. Crow has been moved to solitary confinement at another prison. And the FBI and State Highway Patrol have been called in to help with the case.
Sawyer, who once led a drive to get clemency for Crow, remains uneasy about the whole thing.
It bothers him that prison officials declared the incident a hoax before even beginning to investigate it, he said in an interview this week. And he wasn't surprised when Virginia officials recently said the same thing about the gun found in Turner's typewriter.
``It seems to be a recurring theme,'' said the lawmaker.
``What do they say if there's a loaded gun? That's egg on their face. That's hard to explain away.''
In New York, said Caruso, most of the inmates who have managed to get guns have done so for three reasons:
To inflict minor gunshot wounds on themselves for the purpose of suing the city for negligence or getting better jail accommodations. Authorities believe at least 10 inmates did this between 1980 and 1983. Currently, there are roughly four such lawsuits pending.
To reduce or lower their bail. ``Once they get shot, they say their bails should be lowered because they're not safe in our system,'' he said.
To turn the weapon in to authorities in exchange for reduced charges or some other benefit.
But for the most part, say experts, prisoners don't bother to smuggle in guns because they know they can't escape with one.
``Guns are impractical and the inmates know that,'' said Bair.
``We tell them, `We don't play fair. If there's five of you, there's 50 of us. If you've got knives, we've got guns. If you've got guns, we've got tanks.' There's no way they can win. Even if they blow away a hostage, then they've lost the hostage and we'll kill them.''
Some inmates might smuggle guns into prisons to see if they can, said Bair.
``Or they might do it to get a staff member on their payroll. Or possibly to embarrass us. And it is embarrassing. I feel sorry for the (Virginia) Department of Corrections. It's humiliating.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
LAURA LAFAY
An Emporia police officer removes a gun from a typewriter that
belonged to death row inmate Willie Lloyd Turner. It was found by
Turner's lawyer May 26 an hour after Turner was executed.
KEYWORDS: HANDGUNS PRISONS DEATH ROW CAPITAL
PUNISHMENT VIRGINIA by CNB