Inmates shoehorned, get creative

Friday, May 4, 2007 | 7:03 a.m.

CARSON CITY - Nothing fires primordial fear like rats.

Maybe that's why Howard Skolnik began his media tour Thursday of the minimum-security and too-crowded Warm Springs Correctional Center by telling a tale that inflamed the inner fears of every reporter present.

"You put a bunch of rats in a small space and they start to eat each other," said Skolnik, the new head of the state Corrections Department. "Some of them have demonstrated a propensity to eat each other in the past. Figuratively."

By the way, he said, when he worked in an Illinois prison, he attended the funerals of five prison workers during an 18-month period.

"I vowed I'd never see that again," he said.

But there probably shouldn't have been any concern among the reporters Thursday. Taking the tour with them were Gov. Jim Gibbons, his press chief, two security guards and Warden Stefanie Humphrey.

Of the 500 inmates at Warm Springs, this tour would go past about 100 of them, sitting in their cells. The doors were open but they knew not to budge.

The tour's theme: The prison system, in overload crisis with 13,113 inmates, needs help.

Skolnik says there are a couple of possible solutions. Either build new prisons - the governor is asking for $300 million over the next two years and almost $2 billion in the next 10 to construct prisons - or adopt innovative laws, such as earlier parole and a scaling back of minimum sentencing guidelines established in the mid-1990s.

In lieu of money, Skolnik suggests tent cities to house some of the least violent inmates.

At this prison, all of the two-man cells have been turned into four-man cells.

Humphrey led Thursday's tour, followed by Gibbons - with his two security guards covering his back. Skolnik, popular with reporters for his straight talk, trailed far behind.

First stop: a room previously dedicated to activity classes and the like, which now houses 10 inmates. This, says Skolnik, is one of the dangers of crowded prisons. Fewer activities lead to boredom, restlessness, agitation and the potential for violence.

Dominating the room is a painting of an eagle with the caption, "Making the Most of a Bad Situation."

The tour group enters the room to look around, and the inmates, making the most of their situation, remain on their beds.

Down the hall, four giants of men rest in bunk beds in a 9-by-12-foot cell, decorated with photos and magazine pictures.

The touring celebrity is recognized. "Mr. Governor!" an inmate yells.

Gibbons smiles and flashes a thumbs up.

Far from Gibbons, in one of the cells, Skolnik talks to four inmates.

"I've only got four months to go, so, it's not so bad," one of them says.

"Yeah, but it's a tough four months, huh?" Skolnik replies.

"It's just a mess, you know?"

"We're trying," Skolnik says. "That's all we can do."

At one point Gibbons remarks to Humphrey that "some of them get pretty creative in a small space."

It's the kind of creativity borne of those confined to their beds because there's no room to move.

In one cell, power cords dangle from a power strip that is strung up to a ceiling fan, feeding electricity to four TVs and a radio.

Of the four men in the cell, three are from California. One of them identifies himself as Rick Jones, a 46-year-old meth user from Santa Cruz who is 18 months into his two-to-six year sentence. His bed costs the state about $125,000 to build and $20,000 a year to operate. That's how the prison bureaucrats quantify the cost of building and running prisons: by the bed.

"I sold cars for 15 years," Jones said. "I'd never been to prison."

The other guys are in for a fourth DUI conviction, for home invasion and for shoplifting from a Target in Las Vegas.

The governor doesn't linger at tour's end. As soon as he's out the door, inmates file into the hall and, in fast-and-furious fashion, grouse about being sentenced too severely for minor crimes.

One fellow is in for battery. Another for stealing a car. A third for grand larceny.

"Whoa! There's a hard-core criminal right there!" someone teases. Other inmates laugh.

They complain more about not being able to get out on parole, of how they can't be present at the first hearing, and how the situation at Warm Springs is unlivable because the place is so congested, there's barely room to move.

So they make the most of a bad situation.