Sunday, August 11, 1996

Texas politicians, law enforcement fuming over 240 Oregon inmates here

By TERRI LANGFORD
Associated Press

HOUSTON - Prison escapes are barely news in Texas where 130,000 state inmates live behind bars, and occasionally, break out.

But Texas officials were fuming Friday over the startling revelation that 240 Oregon sex offenders are being housed at a Houston private facility thought to house illegal immigrants on hold for deportation.

Since April, Corrections Corporation of America has been housing The Beaver State's overflow at its facility near Houston Intercontinental Airport.

But it wasn't until Wednesday night when two of the Oregon convicts jumped the private prison's fence and escaped that anyone thought to let local police or Texas agencies know that the out-of-state inmates were here.

"Quite frankly, we're all outraged that they would sneak this upon us," said State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, who met Friday with CCA officials at the facility. "If it had not been for the two escapees, we probably wouldn't know about it today."

Late Wednesday night two inmates - Walter Hazelwood, 19, and Richard Wilson, 18, were discovered missing by CCA staff. By late Friday they were still at large.

"Infuriated," is how Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas described his reaction upon learning that the airport-area facility even had sex offenders, let alone sex offenders from another state.

"We're going to get with our legislators and with the jail commission and lobby for some type of law that will alleviate this type of problem in the future," Thomas said.

However, by law, Nashville-based CCA is required only to notify its other customers about the Oregon prisoners.

So, according to CCA warden Pam Fugazzi, the only other entity that knew about the Oregon offenders was the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service which by contract is guaranteed 160 of the 400 facility beds for illegal immigrants.

"I believe that we don't have to," said Ms. Fugazzi, explaining why local authorities were not informed of the Oregon prisoners' presence. "Hindsight is always 20-20. I think that we would do it differently if we had it to do over again."

According to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, the agency that oversees overflow out-of-state prisoners, there are about 4,000 inmates from other states in Texas jails.

But when an out-of-state prisoner is placed in a Texas jail, local authorities are notified, said Jack Crump, executive director.

Because the Oregon prisoners were placed in a private facility, there was no requirement that Crump's office be notified.

Currently, nearly 1,000 Oregon prisoners are in rented cells in Texas and Arizona, amounting to about 12 percent of the Oregon inmate population.

And what does Oregon have to say?

"In all of our out-of-state rental bed contracts, notification is left up to the contractor because they best know community standards, policies and laws," said Perrin Damon, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Corrections. "In this case, Oregon Department of Corrections officials did notify the Texas corrections agency. They notified Jack Crump."

"They did not notify me that prisoners were on the way," Crump said.

Whitmire, who is chairman of the Texas Senate's criminal justice committee, says he will see to it that the loophole is closed in housing any more prisoners in Texas without the knowledge of state officials.

"We know about it, we're addressing it and I'm here to tell you today that they are in the process of removing them from Harris County and I and other officials will pass legislation to see that we're never caught by surprise again," Whitmire said.

Some of the 240 inmates will come back to Oregon prisons, while others will be sent to prisons in other states, Ms. Damon said.

By late Friday, 20 of the Oregon inmates in Houston were removed from CCA's facility. Citing safety and security concerns, officials would not comment on where the transferred inmates were being placed.