THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 20, 1996 TAG: 9605200040
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LAURA LAFAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long : 192 lines
Since he took over the Department of Corrections two years ago, Ron Angelone has presided over the end of parole, cleared local jails of state-responsible inmates and banned the media from the state's prisons.
He initiated a program to charge inmates for medical care and another program to confiscate their money to pay court costs. He sent planeloads 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 following the 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 thundered 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. 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 then-newly elected Gov. George F. Allen. He 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.
``We had to have someone come in and be committed to making it work and to do it in a way where we wouldn't have inmate unrest and problems.''
According to Kilgore, Angelone's chief accomplishments include increasing prison security statewide, personally designing two maxiumum-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,'' says Kilgore. ``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 ACLU, 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.
``One indication that conditions are worsening is the new policy of excluding the media. Even our seemingly callous public might rebel against these policies if they were exposed to them close up.''
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 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. Besides, ``You're dealing with convicted felons, and I'm not giving them a platform to cry that the world is against them.''
Reporters rank with inmates on the list of Angelone's least-favorite life forms. The Virginia media has 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.''
``. . . Anytime 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 private companies for the establishment of 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,'' says Angelone. ``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.'' MEMO: ANGELONE ON:
Requiring prisoners to pay for medical care
The program began July 1, 1995, and the treatment by nurses has been
reduced by 24 percent. The treatment by physicians has been reduced by
27 percent. The treatment by specialists has been reduced 29 percent. .
. . And the requests for eyeglasses have been reduced by 60 percent.
``Now that sounds like, `Oh how barbaric.' (But) the staff in every
medical department has said, `We are now able to spend more time with
sick people - the ones that really need our time and care are here and
it's better and it works. And it does a tremendous job.
``Sick people are being dealt with when the other inmates that were
just trying to get off work, be in a nice place - might be
air-conditioned, might have more women around if they're men, might have
more men around if they're women - I don't know. But you know it's an
environment that's a lot better than sitting in your cell or being with
a bunch of inmates. For no other reason than to be there. Well, that
costs too much money now for them to go. When you're sick, you go.''
Criticism of prison health care
When's the last time your newspaper did a story on the national
medical coverage for homeless? It's not a big story cause there is no
national medical care for homeless. Inmates have better medical care
than . . . the homeless, and . . . the majority of people in the United
States.
``Nobody works in prison every day to say, `What can I do to kill an
inmate today? What can I do to neglect my call as a nurse or a doctor
and screw up something? I want him to die, so I'll just neglect him.'
``You know, the picture (is) painted of everyone in Corrections as
we're goons. That all we want to do is hurt people. That we come to work
every day wanting to hurt people.
``We don't want to hurt people. We don't want them hurting
themselves, others, staff or the public. . . . We don't want to hurt
them. We want to stop them from hurting others.
On moving all inmate telephones at the Greensville Correctional
Center into the facility's recreation yards
Again, I'm sorry. These people are in prison for committing felonies.
I'm sorry. . . . Let me just add one thing. When I was a prisoner in the
United States Army - drafted - I was only allowed to make phone calls
outside during rec time. I don't think I committed a crime to get in the
Army, I'm not sure. I did get a letter of invitation: `Greetings.' I was
invited.
``Take anything out of context, it makes things look bad. Put it back
in reality and things are fine.''
On his decision to restrict inmate property
You got to remember. You got two people in a cell. It's 8 by 10.
There's a toilet in there. They've got all of their personal hygiene
items that they have to have. They've got one sink in there. They have a
small TV. They have a radio. They have books that they can have, they
got their clothing that they have to have. I mean, . . . the more stuff
you got in there, the more odor . . . We have to clean up the places a
little. These are where people live, 365 days a year, two people in a
room, sharing the same toilet and sink. You know, you walk into a cell
and you just see junk in there, it needs to be evaluated and changed. It
was a priority.''
On media access
``We have to go through a lot of work, a lot of energy, moving you in
and moving you out of that prison that we feel is not a necessity of the
taxpayers' dollars being spent, especially when we're not even funded to
do that. So we give the phone system, you pay for the call, and (an
inmate) gets to talk to you. That, to me, is freedom of speech. I am not
wasting or jeopardizing the security of those institutions by moving
people in and out on an everyday basis.''
ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
MOTOYA NAKAMURA
The Virginian-Pilot
State Prisons Director
Ron Angelone
KEYWORDS: PROFILE INTERVIEW by CNB