3 ways to improve Clinton prison right now

On April 9, 1971, Attica Correctional Facility Warden Vincent Mancusi received the kind of notification dreaded by prison officials everywhere. The count was not correct.

As reality sank in, Mancusi was incredulous. Impossible, he thought, Attica is impregnable. He ordered interior manholes inspected and cinders from the powerhouse raked through for human remains.

Eventually, the impossible became reality: Mafia hit man Joseph "Mad Dog" Sullivan had escaped.

Eerily similar, on June 6, 2015, Clinton Correctional Facility Superintendent Steven Racette was likewise notified. Two murderers, Richard Matt and David Sweat, had escaped. Thought to be impregnable, Clinton had not had an escape in more than 150 years.

Although 44 years separate the events, the common denominator in both escapes was staff complacency. Prisons revolve around routine, but routines can become monotonous. Days pass without incident. An officer can easily let his guard down, and inmates exploit that.

In Sullivan's case, a distracted truck driver enabled the prisoner to hide himself in the back of a truck that delivered laundry to a neighboring facility. That error was compounded by shoddy inspection when the truck left Attica.

The officer who escorted Sullivan and his fellow inmates to their work assignment never realized he was one short that day.

It's doubtful that Matt or Sweat met the criteria to live in Clinton's honor block, which until recently gave inmates some special privileges. Regardless of good behavior, Matt had escaped from custody before (an automatic disqualification), and Sweat was doing life without parole (he had nothing to lose by escaping). It was later learned that Matt bartered with staff to gain special favors.

Suspicions that Sweat was involved in an inappropriate relationship with Clinton prison employee Joyce Mitchell, his supervisor in the tailor shop, were apparently investigated but not substantiated before the escape.

If there had been a hint of impropriety, the inmate should have been removed from that assignment. In addition, Sweat had spent more than 12 years at Clinton, and likely become familiar with staff and operations.

In addition to the tools allegedly provided by the compromised staff, the inmates had other access to power tools. The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision has a policy on the control and supervision of tools in the facility, particularly those that can cut metal.

The investigation is ongoing, but the prisoners did not cut into the steam pipe with hacksaw blades and a drill bit. So how did they get the power tools?

In 1971, Sullivan needed only staff complacency and a little luck. Matt and Sweat took advantage of a combination of failures. The absence of any one of the elements might have prevented the escapes, or at least revealed their planning.

Corrections officials must:

Create a task force to recommend best practices. The newly installed executive team can focus on running the prison.

Change the culture at Clinton. The change has begun; the corrections department will conduct a security staff audit to ensure critical posts are manned, staff vacancies are limited and prison resources are sufficient.

Prison administrators must be able to move staff. Current labor agreements prevent administrators from removing ineffective staff from their assignments. Officer assignments are selected by seniority and the ability to perform the task is never considered. This will be a huge fight with labor but the prison cannot maintain the status quo.

Matt is dead, and Sweat and Sullivan were captured, but at what cost?

James T. Conway served as superintendent of Attica Correctional Facility from 2002 to 2010.