Seven Years: To Little Time to Fit the Crime

Former DOCCS employee Joyce Mitchell weeps
before Judge Kevin K Ryan sentences her to prison

On monday Sept. 28th one chapter in the Great “Shawshank” Escape case was closed when Clinton County Judge Kevin K Ryan sentenced former
New York State corrections employee Joyce Mitchell to a prison term not to exceed seven years for her role in the escape of convicted murders Richard Matt and David Sweat from the maximum security prison in Dannemora, NY in June of this year.  That led to a three week manhunt for the fugitives by a task force of well over one thousand federal, state, and local law enforcement officers.  It ended when Matt was shot and killed by a member of a Department of Homeland Security SWAT team as he pointed a shotgun at the pursuing officers.  Two days later Sweat was shot and wounded by a courageous New York State Police Sergeant, Jay Cook, as he attempted to flee in a wooded area one mile from the Canadian border.
The plan to escape had begun six months before the actual breakout.   Mitchell’s participation  included smuggling  hacksaw blades and tools necessary for the plan to succeed,and also to provide a car for the getaway.  The conspiracy included plans to murder her husband.

Now she is remorseful and told NBC’s Matt Lauer, “I got in over my head” .  

However the investigation revealed that was not the only part of her body utilized in the plot. What started as an amorous relationship with both inmates proceeded to her regularly meeting the inmates in a broom closet in the prison’s Tailor Shop for sex.  

This “Shawshank” plot went on for months undetected even though allegations of this 

inappropriate relationship between the employee and the inmates was forwarded to Department officials in Albany and an investigation initiated by the Department’s Office of Special Investigations.  The investigation floundered when no action was taken by the Department’s Chief of Investigations to either remove the inmates from Honor Block or transfer them to other prisons.

According to Mitchell, she was going through a period of depression and didn’t think her husband loved her anymore.  She feared to tell  prison authorities what was going on because of threats made by both Matt and Sweat if she backed out of the plan.  Mitchell also now claims that inmate Matt forced her to perform the sex acts against her will.  

None of her tears or claims at the sentencing are to be believed according to her sworn statement to New York State Police investigators on June 8th, two days after Matt and Sweat flew the coop.  In her own words she was a willing participant stating she “agreed” to the plan,  which was: “After I picked them up, the plan was to drive to my home and inmate Matt was going to kill  the glitch (her husband Lyle Mitchell, also a prison employee at Clinton)  …Then after it quieted down, inmate Matt would go off by himself, and inmate Sweat and I would be together.

She now states the reason why she didn't show up with the get away car and instead checked into a local hospital with claims of a “panic” attack, was because she loved her husband Lyle.  Investigators eventually drove to the hospital to speak with her.

  By then the fugitives had crawled out the back of their cells, through a tunnel, and up to a manhole cover in the streets of Dannemora.

By the time authorities had discovered the inmates missing, Matt and Sweat were already some distance away in the thick wooded mountains of the Adirondacks.  The pursuit required specialized law enforcement teams and equipment to traverse the bogs, lakes, and brush both day and night for 22 days.

Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie was not fooled by Mitchell’s crocodile tears in the courtroom.  He told told the Court “She is once again making excuses…Each and every time she was interviewed the truth did not come out.”

In her interview before sentencing Joyce said she felt that the punishment she faced did not fit the crime she committed. The price she would be paying would be to high she said.

 In response to that Judge Ryan told her emphatically “…you have nothing to complain about”

Was the sentence to much?  Not when you consider the cost to taxpayers for the escape which has been estimated at almost twenty five million dollars .

That averages out to about $3.5 million a year for Ms. Mitchell’s incarceration, if she serves her entire sentence.  That is highly unlikely.  She will be eligible to go before the Parole Board in October 2017.  If she earns good time and has an exemplary prison record she may even be eligible for Merit or Presumptive Release much earlier than that. 

 After all she is a non-violent first time offender.   

Somehow in this case, the time doesn’t fit the crime.  More responsibility must be accounted for.  We are still awaiting the findings of Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott’s investigation into what caused the breakdown in security policy and procedures that allowed this escape to occur.  Policy that was put in place by department officials in Albany.

Hopefully others, much higher than Ms. Mitchell will be called to account for their misdeeds.  Until they are,  serious problems continue at the Clinton prison.  The sound of shots fired could be heard last month as facility security staff sought to quell a riot in the yard caused by ongoing fights among inmates over the drug trade and gang activity.  

These and other incidents continue to occur even though a new administration was put in place at the facility after the escape.  Perhaps this time a change in the leadership in Albany is required .

New York Prison Problems Continue

Clinton State Prison - Dannemora, NY
(photo Gannett)

New York Post - Aug 2015

Less than two months after a task force of federal, state and local law-enforcement officers searched through the Adirondack Mountains for two escaped murderers from a maximum-security prison in Dannemora, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, or DOCCS, again finds itself with egg on its face — and new revelations suggesting Albany deserves more of the blame for the security breach.

The first piece of bad news for the Clinton Correctional Facility came when Prisoners Legal Services, an inmate advocacy group, filed a complaint on behalf of more than 60 inmates at the prison alleging physical abuse and harsh treatment immediately following the discovery by security staff that two inmates were missing from their cells in the early morning of June 6.

That was when two killers, Richard Matt and David Sweat, dug their way out of the back of their cells, climbed down a catwalk, crawled through a steampipe tunnel and under the wall, coming up through a manhole cover on the streets of Dannemora. The breakout led to a massive three-week manhunt involving over 1,200 law-enforcement personnel.

The inmates filing the complaints of abuse claim that immediately after the escape was discovered they were interrogated, beaten, threatened with waterboarding, unfairly removed from Honor Block and arbitrarily transferred to other prisons throughout the state. During that time, state officials instituted new security policy and procedures to operate a “tighter ship” in the wake of the escape.

The procedures were instituted to “gain control” of a prison run amok. Other actions included the suspension of numerous facility employees, including the facility’s Executive Team, and the arrest of two employees for helping Matt and Sweat carry out their escape plans.

Yet the great escape might have been thwarted if state officials had heeded the warning signs coming from the facility in the months preceding the incident.

In the first half of the year, the prison saw a significant increase in assaults and contraband, including drugs. It culminated in a riot in the yard on May 31 when security staff had to use chemical agents to quell the disturbance. Many of the incidents were believed to be related to the drug trade in the facility and control for turf and money.

The majority of the narcotics were being smuggled in through visitors and packages, but a small percentage was from employees and volunteers.

One week before the escape, prison Superintendent Steve Racette contacted officials in Albany and requested that the facility be put on “lockdown” and searched. Crucially, he also wanted a search of the tunnels and catwalks throughout the facility by the department’s elite Corrections Emergency Response Teams. This request was based on the prior reports that had been forwarded to officials in Albany on the unusual increase in trouble brewing at the facility.

It’s DOCCS policy that no superintendent has the authority to shut down prison operations to conduct security searches. He must request permission from the deputy commissioner for facility operations.

The answer from the deputy commissioner’s office was emphatic: No.

One week later, Matt and Sweat broke out.

The decision to avoid the facility search was a misjudgment based in part to avoid the cost of overtime to conduct the searches. That decision has now cost almost $25 million in overtime for the law-enforcement officers deployed to capture the killers. Additional costs for equipment and repairs to the facility have yet to be calculated.

To this date, the focus on pinning blame for the prison break has centered on Dannemora, not Albany. Yet we know that several department heads had oversight and responsibility for the security procedures that were in place at the time of the escape as well as the placement of Matt and Sweat in the facility’s Honor Block.

To add to the department’s woes, we’re now being told that the FBI is opening an investigation into allegations of corruption and drug trafficking at the Clinton prison. It suggested the feds’ had little confidence in the department’s Narcotics Unit or Internal Affairs investigators to conduct a thorough investigation on their own.

Those units also operate out of Albany as part of the Office of Special Investigations.

The previous director of operations for that office was arrested in January for sexual harassment. The office has been in disarray since and the new department head had only been there a short time when the escape occurred. His previous background was in white collar crimes, not prison operations.

The state’s corrections-related budget — which had saved money when the state reduced the inmate population and closed several facilities, acts that were the direct results of a reduction in crime and modified sentencing laws — will be heavily impacted by the mistakes made by state officials.

The current DOCCS commissioner has never been confirmed by the state Legislature. His title is “acting Commissioner.” He’s been acting for more than two years, since May 2013.

Perhaps it’s time for that act to close and new leadership to be brought in.

New York Prison Officials Shift the Blame, Avoid Responsibility

Governor Cuomo, Commissioner Annucci (left) and Superintendent Racette  tour Clinton  State Prison
following the escape of two murderers

Now that New York’s great escape is over, Albany’s engaged in an epic bout of passing the buck.

One week after the capture of prison escapee David Sweat by the heroic effort (and crack shot) of New York State Police Sgt. Jay Cook, the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision announced sweeping changes in the security procedures at Clinton Correctional Facility from which inmates Sweat and Richard Matt escaped on June 6.
Now we’re told by Albany officials that they’re instituting new polices such as more random cell searches, the closing of the Honor Block — from which Matt and Sweat escaped, and in which the two never should have been placed from the beginning — increased supervision of staff and more frequent inspections of tunnels and electrical panels.
Plus, they’ve suspended the majority of the facility’s executive team, as well as nine officers, including a lieutenant and a sergeant who were in charge of the facility during the midnight security tour of the prison on the night of the escape.

Matt and Sweat were housed in the Honor Block, in which prisoners are rewarded for good behavior with more freedom of movement, for an extended period of time.
Both were able to break out of the back of their cells and sneak through a series of catwalks and tunnels before surfacing on the streets of Dannemora undetected by the officer on duty in the guard tower overlooking the prison yard.
The escape plot had been in the works for months uninhibited by security staff.
Crucially, prison officials made no mention of how Matt and Sweat came to be in that block or how they both managed to remain in this particular prison facility after the Office of Special Investigations discovered an inappropriate relationship each prisoner had with civilian employee Joyce Mitchell. It was that office that had the authority to transfer one or both of the inmates prior to the escape.
Here’s the key: Allowing them to remain there was not the facility superintendent’s decision.
That decision was made in Albany.
In instituting the new security procedures, the Department of Corrections is attempting to deflect the blame onto the facility administrators when, in fact, the procedures that were in effect when Matt and Sweat escaped were written by the deputy commissioner for facility operations in Albany.

Facility superintendents don’t issue policy; they implement directives issued by headquarters.
Security policy and procedures for the state’s correctional facilities are set by Albany and codified in the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision Rules and Regulations.
They cover everything from health care to safety. Security falls under the authority of the deputy commissioner of facility operations.
We’re not told by the Department of Corrections whether the new security procedures will be instituted in the department’s 16 other maximum-security prisons, or just at Clinton. (One of the other such prisons is Five Point Correctional Facility in Romulus, NY, where Sweat was transferred early Sunday morning after his discharge from the Albany Medical Center.)
One would hope that the new measures extend to all the facilities. Otherwise, we’ll probably have to go through another incident like this which has cost the taxpayers of New York millions, put people needlessly at risk and left the entire Department of Corrections with egg on its face.
It may be that certain facility staff were lackadaisical in the performance of their duties and as such should face disciplinary charges.
But if they’re the only ones held accountable, then state officials were successful in shifting the blame to lesser shoulders.
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The daring escape of two murderers serving life sentences from a maximum security prison in New York proves the old adage, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”   In this case it was the human factor, a lovelorn female civilian and a seasoned correction officer.
But the responsibility for the escape goes beyond the two low-level employees who were “conned” by the convicts.
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Plus, the prisoners should never have been placed in the cells they were, nor should they have been given freedom of movement they were.



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