Utah State Prison officials have put a $37,000 price tag on a Monday riot at the Central Utah Correction Facility in Gunnison - the highest anyone can remember for an inmate revolt in Utah.
But money aside, officials are singing the praises of the uniquely designed prison that allowed officers to quell the disturbance without injury to either prison staff or inmates."It was designed to prevent inmates from getting from one section of the prison to another, to prevent the inmates from getting to any security officers and to prevent them from escaping," said Department of Corrections spokes-man Jack Ford. "While we noted some weaknesses in the design, it worked very, very well."
The riot erupted about 1 p.m. Monday following a routine shakedown of one section of the prison housing 34 inmates. Officers found a crude knife fashioned from a razor attached to a melted toothbrush handle. The weapon was found in the cell of an inmate scheduled for parole Tuesday.
His cellmate claimed all responsibility for the contraband and maintained the other man's parole shouldn't be affected by the incident.
The fear that the recovered weapons would jeopardize the man's parole date, combined with unexpected equipment failures in the section, fueled discontent among the inmates that resulted in a violent outburst several hours later.
Ford said damage to the maximum security section included broken light fixtures, ceiling tiles, a television set and an electric door that was rammed with another door that had been ripped from its hinges. They also set fire to bedding, setting off the sprinkler system and causing some water damage.
"You cannot burn cinderblock and steel," Ford said, "so there was a limit to how much damage they could really do."
Among the weaknesses in the current design Ford noted was the fact that inmates could get through the electric door, even though there was no place for them to go once they did.
The inmates also broke narrow tempered-glass windows that allow light into the facility. While the windows are too narrow for any inmate to crawl through, the broken glass could be used as weapons.
"The way we look at it, we are happy that it was only property damage," Ford said. "There were never any hostages, the guards were never in danger and there was no way they could escape. If we could have done one thing different, we might have moved in quicker and maybe saved some of the property."
The Department of Corrections is talking to the state Office of Risk Management, which self-insures state properties, about repairing the facility. Reports the inmates themselves would be required to pay the $37,000 are premature, Ford said.
"How do you squeeze blood from a turnip?" he said. "If we can, we will, but we are not expecting to get anything from them. Realistically, they don't have anything to pay it with."
Parole for four inmates involved in the incident has been temporarily revoked pending a special hearing before the Board of Pardons. Two of the four complied with officers' commands to return to their cells when the incident broke out. "The other two were a little slower going back," Ford said.
The Board of Pardons could order restitution as a condition for parole for the 21 inmates believed involved in the riot. The Department of Corrections is also conducting a criminal investigation that could result in more prison time for those involved.