HOCKESSIN, Del. (AP) — Patricia May had a feeling of dread when she reported to work at Delaware’s maximum-security prison last year. For months, she’d worried about her safety after being assigned to C Building at James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna.
As she walked to her office Feb. 1, 2017, the veteran Department of Correction counselor voiced her concerns to a colleague.
“I thought I was going to get killed in there,” May told the Associated Press in her first interview since last year’s deadly prison riot.
“It was common knowledge that the riot was going to come about,” she added. “We just didn’t know when.”
A few minutes later, inmates staged an uprising in which officer Sgt. Steven Floyd was killed, two others were beaten and tormented, and May was held hostage for almost 20 hours before tactical teams burst through a wall with a backhoe.
May, who retired in March, blames prison leadership: “They knew it was going to happen. They did nothing. When they put me in that building, they knew they were putting me in a dangerous situation.”
Prison officials have not responded to the details of May’s interview. However, they released a report Tuesday touting progress in prison reform efforts and gave members of the news media a tour of the Vaughn facility.
The report updates work on 41 recommendations in an independent review ordered by Democratic Gov. John Carney after the uprising. The Department of Correction has implemented and “measurably addressed” 40 recommendations, according to the report by Claire DeMatteis, a lawyer hired by Carney to oversee reform efforts.
The remaining recommendation involves the biggest challenge: reducing mandatory overtime among correctional officers to keep prisons adequately staffed. The state spent nearly $31 million on prison overtime in the fiscal year that ended June 30.
Part of the reason: Delaware’s prisons have 227 correctional-officer vacancies, including 98 at Vaughn. A staffing analysis recommends an additional 137 positions at the Smyrna prison. However, enhanced recruiting efforts could take another 18-24 months to yield results, the report states.
Meanwhile, the lack of adequate staff to oversee inmates means they still don’t have access to programs they need for rehabilitation.
“The biggest concern is the idle time, and just trying to find things to do,” 38-year-old inmate Andre Peters, who is serving a 23-year sentence on a robbery conviction, told reporters Tuesday. “Got a lot of people just sitting around.”
May, who holds a degree in criminology and previously worked as a probation and parole officer before becoming a counselor, is adamant in calling for better programs for inmates, saying officials “are antiquated in our thinking about treatment.”
“They have to take these reforms seriously,” she said. “If you take all their hope away, what do they have left?”
May, who began working as a counselor at Vaughn in 2006, was included in a $7.55 million settlement of a lawsuit filed on behalf of Floyd’s relatives and six correctional staffers. In settling, state officials didn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing.
However, the review found prison administrators dismissed warnings of trouble, including Floyd’s plea to move some inmates to another building for security. That was indicative of an overcrowded, understaffed facility plagued by mismanagement, poor communication, a culture of negativity, and adversarial relationships among staff, administrators and inmates, investigators found.
“I’m just ticked off that nobody talked to me,” said May, who did arrange a meeting with Carney’s chief legal counsel before Carney announced the hiring of DeMatteis. In an email Tuesday, DeMatteis said: “I greatly respect Ms. May’s service and the trauma she experienced.”