Inmate Abuse Is Said Worse Than Reported
From Times Wire Services

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.Missouri officials agreed Wednesday
to investigate prisoners' claims that they suffered
beatings worse than those shown in a videotape that led to
their being removed from a Texas jail.
     Corrections Director Dora Schriro said she had not heard
those allegations before they were reported Wednesday by the
Kansas City Star.
     Inmates told the newspaper that guards at the Brazoria
County Detention Center used cattle prods and other forms of
intimidation to win respect and force prisoners to say, "I
love Texas."
     "What you saw on tape wasn't a fraction of what happened
that day," said inmate Lewis Watkins, referring to the
videotaped cellblock raid of Sept. 18, 1996.
     The tape shows guards dragging inmates, forcing some to
crawl naked on the floor and letting a dog bite an inmate's
leg.
     A private company, Capital Correctional Resources Inc.,
handled overflow Missouri inmates at the jail near Houston.
     Dennis Walker, CCRI's vice president for security,
denied that guards routinely abused prisoners and suggested
that inmates were embellishing their stories.
     After Schriro viewed the videotape two weeks ago, she
canceled the contract with Brazoria County and brought all
415 inmates back to already overcrowded Missouri prisons.
About 400 others are being brought back from two other Texas
counties where CCRI handled Missouri inmates.
     Missouri sued the Brazoria County jail Monday, accusing
it of breaking its contract by hiding the abuse of prisoners.

     Meanwhile, another published report said four Texas prisons are
employing wardens with records of inmate abuse.      The Dallas
Morning News said it found that the four wardens had been punished
for their role in abusing prisoners in the 1980s.      Two are
wardens at state facilities and two at private prisons run by
Corrections Corp. of America, which is based in Nashville, the
newspaper reported. CCA company officials were not available for
comment Wednesday.

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