Scenario:
Ardmore Prison and Warden Duffy
Ardmore Prison, located in Centerville, Illinois, is a small maximum-security prison that holds 450 inmates. The warden is George Duffy, who has been on the job for four years. The governor appointed Duffy. He runs his prison with an iron hand and has a zero-tolerance policy about rule infractions. Any inmate violating rules gets solitary confinement for two months. The relationship between correctional officers and inmates is strained because of this policy. Duffy says that any correctional officer who lets an inmate get away with anything will be in trouble. A snitch system is used to identify officers who fail to report inmate rule violations. Correctional officers who see other correctional officers being lenient with inmates report such incidents. Duffy then confronts these officers and chews them out for their poor discipline. Inmates generally have a hostile attitude toward the correctional staff and like to pull pranks on them. One day in the cafeteria during lunch, a correctional officer was walking down a row of tables where inmates were eating soup and sandwiches. An inmate threw a piece of bread covered in mayonnaise at the officer's back, which stained his shirt. Although the officer did not see who threw the bread, he reported the incident to the captain in charge immediately. The captain then ordered all the inmates to leave the cafeteria, whether they had finished their lunch or not. All inmates did as they were told. Later that evening, four inmates were pulled at random from different cells and placed in solitary confinement. The warden announced over the intercom that four prisoners were going into solitary confinement and would stay there until whoever threw the bread at the officer confessed. Duffy also announced that there would be no dinner that evening. This situation was more than the inmates could stand. One inmate set his mattress on fire and threw it out of his cell into the cellblock. Several inmates followed suit, setting fire to their mattresses and throwing them out of their cells, while other inmates threw debris out of their cells. The inmates then began banging various objects on their cell doors, shouting, and making as much noise as they could. The noise was unsettling.
Duffy ordered several correctional officers to turn on the fire hoses, put out the fires, and hose the inmates causing the most trouble. The officers put out the mattress fires and went from cell to cell and hosed down all the inmates with a steady stream of cold water. As punishment, the warden ordered a general lockdown to go into effect immediately. Inmate yard privileges were suspended indefinitely. Inmates would be confined to their cells for 23 and a half hours a day and receive only one half hour for recreation. They would be permitted to bathe only once a week. In addition, inmates who burned their mattresses would have to sleep on the floors of their cells. The media found out about the riot and covered the story in the local newspapers and on television. In an interview, Warden Duffy referred to the riot as a "minor incident" that "we now have under complete control." Six months has passed and the prison is still under general lockdown. Inmate morale is at an all-time low. No one ever confessed to the bread-throwing incident.
Now, please continue on to the discussion questions
QUESTION: Think about the scenario and what stood out to you as the salient issues. Reread it once or twice as needed. What are some of the ethical issues facing Ardmore prison and the way Warden Duffy runs it? Also, what are some alternative ways Duffy could have managed the prison that may have minimized the occurrence of inmate rioting?