Behind Bars

Yelling, "Run for your lives!" isn't the right way to begin an emergency evacuation in any situation, whether it's at church, at school or in a corporate building. And in prisons and jails, it's just unthinkable. After all, how would you feel if, at the first tremors of an earthquake or the first whiff of smoke, the gates of the nearby maximum-security facility swung open, letting inmates freely pour out?

At the same time, most of those working in the correctional system will tell you this: The incarcerated -- regardless of their crimes -- all deserve a fair chance at staying alive during a disaster.

Whether compassionate or not, prison officials must face the ethical and logistical dilemma of protecting those society members tucked away -- either momentarily or permanently -- to preserve order.

Bad Odds
Jails and prisons have unique emergency needs, and Jeffrey Schwartz can vouch for that. As CEO and founder of LETRA, a Campbell, Calif.-based consulting and training firm specializing in corrections-related issues, including emergency preparedness, Schwartz has traveled the country for the last 35 years, documenting correctional facilities incidents and gathering lessons learned. "Elements of government and private sector have their own issues," he said. "In general, jails and prisons have all of those issues -- plus some that no one else has."

In addition to protecting inmates from the actual disaster, correctional facilities must ensure the safety of the surrounding community by preventing the incarcerated from escaping, a risk that Schwartz said increases a hundredfold depending on the emergency. Also there's the possibility that inmates may settle scores against one another or against guards during the chaos.

Schwartz said many facilities, particularly county jails, are woefully unprepared for these situations. "In many cases, the actual problem is that while people recognize the risks are out there, and they recognize the seriousness of the matter, there are a couple of other barriers," he said. "One of them is that there is a tremendous tendency to adopt an, 'It can't happen here,' syndrome. The second issue is that reasonably good to excellent emergency preparedness is not quick, it's not cheap and it's not easy."

According to Schwartz, more than one-third of the country's state corrections departments currently use LETRA's emergency preparedness system, which is compatible with the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Incident Management System.

Luck vs. Preparedness
The New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD) chose the preparedness route.

Before implementing the LETRA system, the NMCD was plagued with a checkered past. In 1980, one of the worst riots in history took place at the state's Santa Fe penitentiary seven guards were taken hostage and abused, 33 inmates were killed and more than 100 inmates were injured.

But in 2003, the NMCD implemented the LETRA system, and according to George Martinez, emergency preparedness manager for the department, the training has already paid off. "Everybody knows their role, their responsibilities," he said. "And just by knowing something like that, you're that much more assured of what you can do. The pressures are off, and it's very comforting."

Now, Martinez said, the department conducts weekly drills on various emergencies likely to occur at any of its five correctional complexes. The NMCD is also ready for what Schwartz calls the heart of the preparedness issue: evacuation.

The contingency plans for each NMCD institution include predetermined locations where inmates would be taken upon evacuation. "If we needed to evacuate our super-max inmates, who are very high-custody, we know exactly which facility those inmates would go to," he said. "We've come up with memorandums of understanding with our outside law enforcement agencies, where they not only assist us in the evacuations or in any of our