Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 12

MICHIGAN PRISONS: FROM BAD TO WORSE 1 2 A DETROIT FREE PRESSSUNDAY. NOVEMBER 9. 1986 Space needs can compromise safety Prisoner profiles Walter Williams 30, Flint John Michael Borrie 27, Troy i i I oacKgrouna: Dome NS robbed and raped a 22-year-old Orion Township woman aurmg a pre-dawn residential break-in in August 1984, a month after he walked away from a Jackson prison farm. Police said Borrie and his friends broke into the house twice that night. The wom Background: Wllliam9 raped, robbed and murdered Emma Bernlce White, 74, In her Flint apartment in January 1985, two days after walking away from an unfenced prison camp near Traverse City.

Police found her the next day In the bedroom of her ransacked home, dead of multiple stab wounds to the neck and chest. Before the killing, Williams told friends he had just broken out of "the joint," needed money and was ready to do an and her husband slept through I the first break-in. The burglars drove to Ferndale to drop off the loot and returned. This time, they Security categories The Michigan Department of Corrections defines "minimum security" as "a classification of prisoners who can live in facilities which have no walls or fences and a minimal amount of security." There are four types of minimum-security facilities: Farms: Located on state-owned property at Jackson and Marquette. There are five farms in the Trusty Division at the State Prison of Southern Michigan at Jackson.

The division also includes three cellblocks surrounded by a chain-link fence designed more to keep outsiders from entering the complex. The Legislature has refused to fund the Jackson farms beyond Dec. 31 because of a high number of escapes and the highly publicized robbery-murder of a Jackson farm couple in 1985. The department hasn't decided what to do with the farms. The barracks at the farm near Marquette also is fenced, but it's not considered a security barrier.

Dormitories: Located at Marquette Branch Prison and the Michigan Reformatory at lonla. The reformatory dorm isn't fenced. The one In Marquette is, but the fence is not a security barrier. Camps: Scattered at 14 locations around the state. The Legislature, over objections from the department, appropriated $2.2 million to install 12-foot-high fences topped with concertina wire at all of the camps to reduce escapes.

The work is under way. Most camp inmates live in barracks. Halfway houses: At approximately 65 locations. They are single-family homes, motels, and YMCAs around the state. Some are run by nonprofit agencies on contract with the department.

The rest are run by the state. There are three higher levels of security In the Michigan prison system. But overcrowding has blurred the distinctions among them. The levels are: Maximum: Walled and fenced prisons for inmates who are hard to control, likely to escape or need protection from other prisoners. Close: Walled and fenced prisons for inmates serving five years or more who can live with the general prison population and who have not shown a tendency to escape.

Medium: Fenced prisons for inmates who require supervision but are easier to manage and are not likely to escape. Inmates in the wrong places A Free Press computer study found that more than one-third ot the state's 17,444 male prison Inmates were living in the wrong type of prison facilities on March 10, the day the newspaper obtained computer tapes from the department. The study compared how the department had classified the prisoners with where it actually put them. The following chart shows how many inmates were living in facilities that offered too much or too little security. tied up the couple, took the woman to another room and raped her.

Borrie was arrested a week later. Comment: Borrie originally went to prison for one to five years for burglary in 1977. He was paroled, committed another break-in and was sent back to prison In 1978 for two to 15 years. A short time later, Borrie escaped, committed two robberies in Detroit and was sent back to prison in 1979 to serve 11 to 24 years, in June 1984, 5Vi years Into the term, he was moved to the Jackson prison farm, despite his medi-. um-securlty status.

He walked away four weeks later. Outcome: In March 1985, after Borrie pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct, armed robbery and breaking and entering, he was sentenced to 1 00 to 300 years In prison. The other rapist got a 1 25-to-300-year term. The driver got 10 to 30 years. Borrie Is In the maximum-security Marquette Branch Prison.

Michael Bailey Williams 29, Detroit something scandalous. They recalled him saying that he was going to see White, who had cared for him as a child. Police found him a short time later, hiding at a relative's home. When they booked him, Williams remarked: "How can you arrest me for murder when there weren't any witnesses?" Comment: Williams was put In Camp Pugsley in October 1984. two years after starting a 6-to-1 0-year sentence for breaking and entering in Genesee County.

Records show that he should have been kept in a medium-security prison. Williams had served an earlier prison sentence for armed robbery. Outcome: A Genesee County jury found Williams guilty of first-degree murder and in October 1985. he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Williams Is at the maximum-security Marquette Branch Prison.

Robert Lee Blue 44, Detroit Background: Williams robbed a Detroit Burger King restaurant In August 1985, four I GL Background: Blue robbed a Kalamazoo coin store and a bread shop at gunpoint In October 1985, four months after walking out of a minimum-security cellblock at the State Prison of Southern Michigan at Jackson. Police said Blue entered J's Coins Stamps, pulled a sawed-off shotgun from a briefcase and announced a holdup. He tied up the owners and fled with $5,000 in cash and jewelry. Then he crossed the street to the Bread months after escaping from a Jackson prison camp. Police said he entered the store just before it closed, waited for customers to leave and forced the manager at gunpoint to remove $400 from a safe.

A month later, he robbed a west side health food store of $750. Williams ordered the cashier and a customer to lay on the floor. When the cashier moved, Itnntmp, Williams started shooting at him. The cashier, an off-duty police officer, pulled a revolver from a leg holster and returned fire. The cashier chased Williams to a nearby residence.

Williams was wounded, but survived. Comment: Williams, classified for medium custody, was put in the minimum-security camp In April 1 985, 2Vfe years into a 7-to-17-year sentence for armed robbery and weapons possession. Records show he had violated several prison rules, but not in the seven months preceding the transfer. He walked away from the camp three days after he got there. Outcome: In November 1985, after Williams pleaded guilty to armed robbery, attempted murder and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, he was sentenced to life Imprisonment plus two years for possession of the gun.

He is at the medium-security Muskegon Correctional Facility. Box, robbed a cashier of $133 and took her car. Sheriffs deputies pulled him over about 30 minutes later. Police said Blue had lived in a motel near the stores for several days. Before that, he had lived with his girlfriend in Grand Rapids, where he reportedly robbed a motel.

Comment; Blue, rated for medium security, was moved to the minimum-security Jackson Trusty Division In May 1985, 11 months after starting his seventh prison term, six to 15 years for armed robbery in Kent County. He served earlier terms for burglary, robbery, assault and two prison escapes. He walked away from the trusty division three weeks later. Outcome. In March 1986, Blue pleaded guilty to two counts of armed robbery and was sentenced to life In prison.

He is In Kalamazoo for court proceedings. By DAVID ASHENFELTER and MICHAEL G. WAGNER Free Press Staff Writers In 1976, Jerry Eugene Gonyea was sentenced to life in prison for dragging an 18-year-old Alpena woman out of her car, driving her to a secluded area north of the city and shooting her in the face with a revolver. Gonyea won two appeals and, in October 1985, was resentenced to 35 to 52 lA years for second-degree murder. Two months later after spending less than nine years in prison Gonyea was moved to an unfenced camp near Jackson.

He escaped within two weeks. In August, Arizona state police found Gonyea working as a bouncer in a Tucson biker bar. He's being extradited to Michigan. Judges, prosecutors and police say the Gonyea case, and hundreds like it, show how the Michigan Department of Corrections, through its policies of classifying prisoners, compromises public safety in trying to solve overcrowding. They say the department puts inmates into unfeyiced camps, farms, dormitories and halfway houses so soon after criminals get to prison that many escape and commit new crimes.

In 1 984 alone, the latest year for which national statistics are available, Michigan recorded 1,188 prison escapes, more than any other state. All but seven were from unfenced prisons. Department studies have shown that 14 percent of those who escape from camps, farms and dormitories commit new crimes, as do 50 percent of the inmates who escape from halfway houses. "I understand the frustrations that those people have," Alpena County Prosecutor David Funk said of the department's crowding problem. "It's got to be a nightmare to work there.

But you have to draw the line somewhere and you don't put murderers in parole camps. That's first-grade arithmetic. "Jerry Gonyea is a cold-blooded murderer. And if you can understand why they put him out there, then you're as crazy as they are." As of March 10, when the Free Press obtained department computer tapes under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act, more than one-third of the state's 17,444 male inmates were living in the wrong place. Like Gonyea, 32 percent of them, 5,567, were living in prisons that weren't secure enough to hold them, according to the department's classification procedures.

Six percent, 1,108, were living in prisons that were more secure than they needed. Nearly four percent, 605 inmates, hadn't been classified or their scores hadn't been entered on the computer. And the rest, 58 percent, 10,164, were properly placed. The study also showed higher concentrations of men serving time for assaultive crimes in some camps, farms, dormitories and Detroit halfway houses than several prisons. The lowest concentration of such inmates was at the Flint YMCA, where officials demanded veto power over who is allowed into the program.

The study showed that 1 24 inmates in unfenced facilities also may face charges in other jurisdictions. Corrections officials said the computer data overstates their classification problem because some information affecting placement isn't recorded electronically. For example, they said, minimum-security inmates with medical ailments often are kept at prisons because treatment is more readily available. Though they say they've never deliberately jeopardized public safety, they admit that crowding has sent dangerous convicts to minimum-security facilities, enabling them to walk away and remain free until they surrender or have another brush with police. "If you bring me 50 prisoners today and 50 next Friday, somebody's got to move for me to make room for the 50 I'm receiving," said Deputy Director Dan Bolden.

"So prisoners keep getting knocked down into less secure facilities and we keep trying to make the best judgment on who to put down there. "I have some nights where I don't sleep very well because of the cases that we keep having to push down. But we don't have a lot of solutions. We can't build places fast enough to handle this intake." Short of solutions, officials have weakened policies, according to department memos. In September 1985, one of Bolden's assistants, Donald Houseworth, allowed wardens to put inmates in unfenced facilities even if they had escaped from there three or more times in 10 years.

By policy, they should be in medium-security prisons. The plan also let wardens put medium-security inmates in unfenced facilities 1 years earlier than policy allows. And it let wardens put close-custody inmates in unfenced facilities a reduction of two custody levels if they hadn't violated a major rule for three to six months. A year earlier, in a memo to Corrections Director Robert Brown Houseworth discussed exploiting the high number of camp escapes to encourage public support for new prisons. "Given present prison overcrowding and given data that show most minimum custody escapers represent low risks for assaultiveness and commission of new crimes, we could take the position that the present escape rate is an inevitable but acceptable byproduct of Inadequate system bedspace," Houseworth wrote.

"It also could be argued that public concern about the escape rate may add impetus to our arguments for prison construction. There is a risk in such a position, however, of engendering a lack of public confidence in the capability of the Department of Corrections to perform its mission of public protection." Houseworth said recently that he didn't mean the department should jeopardize public safety: "In no way was I suggesting that. I would not be stupid enough to put it in writing if I felt that way." But Prosecutor Funk said he wouldn't be surprised if it were true, considering Gonyea and similar cases. For example: Convicted rapist Darrell Scott Gray, 22, of Grand Rapids, put a knife to the throat of a 32-year-old office worker and raped her in May 1986, a day after disappearing from a work detail outside the Michigan Training Unit at Ionia. Police caught him several days later.

On Thursday, Gray was sentenced to an additional 20 to 50 years in prison. Gray, classified for medium security, began the work detail in October 1984, four years into a 10-to-20-year sentence for rape and burglary. Officials think he fled because the warden was considering excluding sex offenders from such details before a new law barred them from minimum-security facilities. Convicted burglar Carey Preston Moore, 20, of Niles, escaped from an unfenced dormitory at the Michigan Reformatory at Ionia in October 1985 14 months into a 2-to-1 0-year sentence. Moore had spent some time in a Benton Harbor halfway house, but was moved to back to prison for bad behavior.

He vowed to escape if moved to the dorm, apparently! because the transfer meant giving up a private room at the! Michigan Training Unit, according to prison records. But' officials thought he was bluffing and moved him anyway. He escaped six days later. In July, Moore was sentenced to an additional three to 10 years for escape. Convicted rapist George Wilton Peffer, 35, of Taylor, committed several robberies and burglaries in Kalamazoo in October 1984 two months after escaping from a Jackson How much security Count Percent Just right 10,164 58.3 Too little security 5,567 31.9 Too much security 1,108 6.3 Unknown 605 3.5 Total 17,444 100.0 Here's where the 5,567 inmates with too little security were being kept: Facility Count Percent Prisons 3,580 64.3 Camps 838 15.1 Farms 574 10.3 Dormitories 138 2J5 Halfway houses 437 78 Total 5,567 100.0 Facilities without security fences.

Prison facilities ranked by violent crime inmates Michigan prison facilities ranked by the percentage of inmates serving time for violent crimes on March 10, 1986: Violent Custody crime Prisonlocation level Inmates 1. Huron Valley Men's Maximum 87.2 Facility, Ypsilanti 2. Marquette Branch Prison Maximum 86.1 3. Jackson prison (Inside) Close 85.2 4. Mich.

Intensive Program Maximum 84.5 Center, Marquette 5. Michigan Reformatory Minimum 80.5 Dorm, Ionia 6. Jackson prison (Northside) Medium 796 7. riverside Correctional Close 78.3 Facility, lonla 8. Marquette Dorm Minimum 76.3 9.

Marquette Farm Minimum 75.2 10. Michigan Reformatory, Ionia Close 75.1 11. Kinross Correctional Medium 72.8 Facility, Kincheloe 12. Jackson Trusty Division Minimum 71.1 13. Muskegon Correctional Medium 70.4 Facility 14.

Camp Waterloo, Minimum 66.1 Grass Lake 15. Michigan Training Unit, Ionia Medium 63.3 16. Dunes Correctional Medium 59.2 Facility, Saugatuck 17. Camp Tuscola, Minimum 59.1 Tuscola County lampB'Wr'iqMm Minimum 5a5 19. Cassidy Lake Technical Minimum 54.6 School, Chelsea 20.

Jackson Temporary Facility Medium 51.7 21. Jackson Reception Center All levels 51.6 22. Camp Lehman, Grayling Minimum 51.4 23. Camp Pellston, Pellston Minimum 512 24. Riverside Reception All levels 47.3 Center, Ionia 25.

Riverside Temporary Medium 46.1 Facility, Ionia 26. Camp Pontiac, Clarkston Minimum 45.9 27. Camp Pugsley, Kingsley Minimum 45.2 28. Camp Sauble, Freesoil Minimum 40.5 29. Detroit Western Minimum 40.5 halfway house 30.

Parole Camp, Jackson Minimum 38.4 31. Camp Baraga, L'Anse Minimum 37.7 32. Detroit halfway house Minimum 35.7 intake center 33. W. Wayne Correctional Medium 35.0 Facility, Plymouth 34.

Camp Cusino, Shingleton Minimum 34.5 35. Camp Ojibway, Marenisco Minimum 333 36. Phoenix Correctional Medium 30.6 Facility, Plymouth 37. Lakeland Correctional Medium 30.6 Facility, Coldwater Camp Pontiac Is now a women's facility. 1 1 consulting firm that has designed or evaluated classification systems in at least 12 states.

Buchanan, a former Illinois prison warden, said Michigan's system is the most complicated in the country and gives inmates, not the public, the benefit of the doubt when a prisoner's criminal history is incomplete. "That's extremely provocative and the opposite of what you'd find in policies of most corrections systems," Buchanan said. "In most systems, if they're willing to err, they're going to err on side of protecting the public and the staff and the other inmates. It's not standard practice to err on the side of the inmate." He said Michigan's procedures are complicated because classification officers must perform several calculations, increasing the likelihood of error. "It's a good system if people can understand it," Buchanan said.

But Buchanan said the biggest problem in Michigan is overcrowding: "They're doing the same thing Maryland did. The only available beds are in minimum custody and there aren't enough inmates qualified to fill them. The only way to get them there is by overriding the system. That makes their classification system a non-system. "No matter how good an approach you have, if you're not following it, it's not going to work.

The public will only tolerate a certain amount of escape and violence by people in minimum security. And when that tolerance point is broken and they feel it by the number of escapes and a few heinous incidents the public outcry sometimes is so substantial it can change the whole philosophy of the corrections system." The creator of Michigan's classification system, Deputy Director William Kime, agrees it's complicated. He said he has tried to reduce errors with more training. "The instrument isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than what we had," Kime said. Lynwood Noah, deputy chief assistant Washtenaw County prosecutor, said it doesn't take an expert to realize the system is flawed.

He cited the case of Arthur Simpson, a man so dangerous the county chartered a private jet in 1 978 to return him from England because no commercial airline would carry him. Simpson, 53, murdered a Washtenaw County sheriff's deputy, wounded a fellow prisoner and escaped in 1970. Simpson, who was serving 20 to 40 years for armed robbery, turned up eight years later in England's Wormwood Scrubs Prison. He was returned to Michigan, convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. In December 1985, officials moved him from a close- custody Jackson prison to an Upper Peninsula prison and later to the medium-security Muskegon Correctional Facili-, ty.

Although Simpson's 1970 escape made him a maximum- i security risk, the department quit counting it because it was more than five years old. "How can a man who killed one deputy and caused the death of another (the deputy's partner died later of a heart attack) be considered a medium risk?" Noah protested. "The man is dangerous. If he's given a chance, he'll escape." Noah was equally surprised to learn that one of Michigan's most notorious inmates a former Washtenaw County resident also is deemed a medium-security risk. He is John Norman Collins, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1970 for murdering a University of Michigan student, one of seven women he was suspected of killing in the Ann Arbor area.

In 1979, Collins tried to escape. Like Simpson's, his escape apparently was not counted. But the department isn't taking any chances with Collins. It found room for him at Marquette. Free Press computer consultant Ijirry Kostecke con- I prison camp according to police.

They said his targets included two motels, a party store and a church rectory, where a priest was assaulted. Peffer pleaded guilty to two robberies and was sentenced to an additional 25 to 40 years. He had been moved to the camp in June 1984, iy2 years into a 23'6-to-35-year term for raping two Taylor women. He slashed the throat of one victim, who survived. Convicted burglar Michael Dunn, 27, of Detroit, broke into a Farmington jewelry store in December 1985 four months after escaping from a minimum-security cellblock at Jackson.

He was caught the same night and later sentenced to an additional one to 15 years for the break-in. Dunn was put into minimum-security six months into a 4-to-1 0-year sentence for robbing the same jewelry store in November 1984. Prison officials left him in the cellblock after telling him that Ohio authorities wanted him on similar charges. He escaped one week later. Bumping unruly inmates into lower custody increases the exposure of other inmates to rape, robbery, beatings and sometimes murder, according to employes and inmates.

They blame the bumping for a rise in assaults on inmates and staff, which increased 44 and 54 percent, respectively, from 1984 to 1985. They say it has made prisons so dangerous that there aren't enough segregation cells for inmates who want to be locked up for protection. But critics see the results when convicts rushed through the system leave and commit new crimes. "It bothers me," said Oakland County Circuit Judge Robert Anderson, past president of the American Judges Association. "We put them away and it doesn't mean much.

And the judiciary gets blamed for it. You could give these guys a million years and it wouldn't mean anything." Overcrowding, Deputy Director Bolden said, also prevents the department from "teaching inmates how to do time." When the department had enough cells, the worst inmates stayed at Marquette and Jackson until they learned that good behavior was the only way to get into prisons with more privileges and freedom. "Some of these people come off the streets in high gear and they need a period of settling down with someone 'teaching them how they're going to have to conduct themselves if they want more privileges," Bolden said. "But if you don't have that period of time with people who have never had any of that responsibility and who have been able to run roughshod over everybody on the streets they continue that same practice when they get into these lesser-security institutions." The result, according to a July 1985 memo by Camps Superintendent William Grant, is that unfenced facilities contain more inmates serving sentences for assaultive crime. More of them are farther from parole, have considerable histories of misconduct and have failed in halfway house programs through misconduct or new felonies, Grant said.

Even if there were enough cells, risky inmates could still get back to the streets early because the department overlooks some of their bad behavior in deciding where to put them, the Free Press found. The Michigan system, patterned after those used by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, California and Florida, was created to give administrators a uniform way of categorizing such things as sentence length, escape history and rule 'violations. The Free Press found that the department's policies count prior escapes, but only the most recent. They also count misconducts, but ignore two-thirds of those in halfway houses. They don't count "out-of-place," a lesser charge that halfway house employes sometimes use instead of "prison escape." There are other problems, according to Robert Buchanan, president of Correctional Services Group, a Kansas City A tnoutea to, this report.

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