Kansas prisons chief thinks protests on the streets are responsible for the riots that keep happening inside his prisons

You may have heard that there was a terrifying uprising inside a state prison in Norton, Kansas, earlier this week. Corrections officers at the prison — Norton Correctional Facility — described a full-blown riot involving 400 inmates who smashed windows, destroyed computers, knocked over a medical-response vehicle and brandished homemade weapons, before officers from several other prisons arrived and restored order. 

The Kansas Department of Corrections meekly described the incident as an “inmate disturbance.” 

“They just demolished that place,” a corrections officer told the Star. “That place looked like a Third World country. They’re (Department of Corrections) candy-coating that stuff.”

The Norton riot follows recent trends in Kansas prisons. In July, an uprising occurred inside El Dorado Correctional Facility, which houses far more dangerous criminals than Norton does. When news of the July incident broke, it was revealed that inmates had taken over the yard of the prison for hours on two other recent occasions, in May and June, and that those incidents had gone unreported. In August, a staffing emergency was declared at the El Dorado facility. 

Why do these things keep happening in Kansas prisons? Kansas state legislators have suggested that inmate transfers and double-bunking at prisons like El Dorado and Norton could be to blame. Could also be because nobody wants to work at these prisons, due to the fact that the pay is terrible and employees have been required to work 16-hour shifts. From the Wichita Eagle: 

The annual turnover rate among uniformed officers statewide is 33 percent and 46 percent at El Dorado. As of last week, the department said, 87 of 360 uniformed-officer positions at El Dorado were open, or 24 percent.

Joe Norwood, the state’s secretary of prisons, takes a different view of the problem. He thinks all this protesting going on in the streets of America is to blame for the fact that he can’t get a handle on his prisons. In a jaw-dropping interview with the AP on Saturday, Norwood said the following: 

“We see, even in the communities, there’s more of a propensity for citizens to object to things more in a group-style setting and air grievances through protesting. I think we’re seeing some of that bleed over into the inmate population.”

Norwood also said this: 

“They [inmates] see the incidents in the community, the protesting in the community, and perceive that as a potential means to address their grievances or concerns.”

Jesus.

(Also: protesting is a means — one of the top means — for “citizens to address their grievances and concerns.”)

The AP quoted Sen. Laura Kelly, a Democrat from Topeka, saying that Norton’s weak-ass comments show that “the department is not taking any responsibility for the problems at hand.”

Sen. Carolyn McGinn, a Republican, said: “Sometimes you may have to make a decision that we need to change our management.”

An audit of El Dorado is being prepared, and two legislative committees are due to discuss the Kansas prison problem this fall. One would expect that Norwood — who was appointed by Brownback last year — would be out of a job by the time that’s all through.