Prison riot injures 9 in New Castle

NEW CASTLE, Ind. – Inmates rioted for two hours at a medium-security men’s prison Tuesday, injuring two staff members, and investigators were trying to determine whether tensions between inmates from Arizona and Indiana were at the root of the conflict.\nThick black smoke billowed from two fires in the courtyard and some inmates armed themselves with clubs before the prison was secured.\nDepartment of Correction Commissioner J. David Donahue said the situation was under control by 4:15 p.m. and that prison and DOC staff responded appropriately.\n“You don’t run into a burning building unless you understand what the parameters are,” Donahue said during a news conference outside the facility.\nThe incident occurred a month after Arizona and Indiana contracted to house up to 1,260 Arizona inmates at the privately managed prison about 45 miles east of Indianapolis. About 630 prisoners had been transferred within the past two months, adding to the 1,000 Indiana inmates housed there as of mid-March.\nState police Sgt. Rod Russell said the disturbance involved a problem between inmates from the two states but did not elaborate. Donahue said there was no clash between the two groups, who are separated by a fence.\n“It was not a conflict between Arizona and Indiana prisoners,” he said. “It didn’t have any direct correlation to that issue.”\nDonahue said the incident began when a group of Arizona inmates took off their shirts in the prison’s recreation area to show staff they wouldn’t comply with orders.\nAuthorities did not release the condition of the two injured staff members. One man was knocked down by inmates in the courtyard, Donahue said. Neither suffered serious injuries and all other prison workers were accounted for, he said.\nNo inmates escaped and seven had minor injuries, including five from tear gas that authorities used to quell the disturbance, said Trina Randall, a spokeswoman for GEO Group Inc., a Florida company that contracted last year with the state to manage the prison.\nTwo other inmates had minor cuts. All seven were treated at the prison, Randall said.\nRandall said the incident started on the Arizona offenders’ side as the newly arrived inmates complained about a lack of recreation and other programs.\nThe DOC mobilized emergency squads, county police and Indiana State Police to the prison, DOC spokeswoman Java Ahmed said. Police in riot gear stood outside the prison fence for a time.\nArizona Department of Corrections spokeswoman Katie Decker said at least some of the transferred inmates had complained about being moved, a step she said Arizona authorities regretted but felt was necessary because of the state’s shortage of prison space.\n“They’re obviously resentful because they had to leave the state,” she said. “It’s too early to say whether that played any role in the incident or not.”\nHowever, with Indiana prisoners also involved, she said, “it looks like this is a bigger issue.”\nShe said there had not been any trouble with the transferred Arizona inmates before Tuesday.\nThose sent to the New Castle prison were medium-security inmates, the second lowest security classification in Arizona prisons.\n“They were carefully picked before we would even put them in Indiana,” Decker said. “They must have had no predisposition to violence.”\nThe agreement with Arizona came nearly three months after a plan fell through under which California was to send 1,260 of its inmates to the prison.\nThat plan was scrapped because of a lawsuit against California over the possible transfer, and a lack of inmates willing to volunteer to make the cross-country move.\nGEO Group, based in Boca Raton, Fla., contracted with the DOC to assume management of the prison for an initial term of four years with three two-year extensions.\nCelia Sweet, executive director of the Indiana chapter of the prisoner advocacy group CURE, or Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants, said New Castle has several situations that stress the prisoner population. That includes adding Arizona inmates and the privately run nature of the prison, which prisoner advocates say can result in reduced services.\n“We’re kind of thinking that it was the Arizona inmates being moved to Indiana,” Sweet said. “That’s the big stress right there: They’re separated from their families.”