Introduction
The Morey unit hostage situation, considered the longest in American history, began on the 18th day of January 2004 when inmates from the Lewis prison complex in Arizona took control of the control tower at the institution and also held two officers of the same institution hostage (William, 2005). According to Jim Robideau (2005), who is the department of corrections (DOC) head, one of the inmates overpowered the first officer shortly after 5.00am during the preparations for breakfast. During the scuffle, the male of the two hostages was injured but the woman was not hurt. Also injured were two other officers and a staff members, who sustained minor injuries as the inmates made a dash for control tower. All other staff was not hurt and the other inmates were safely locked up in the cell. The prison has a capacity of 4,000 inmates, most of which are convicted of aggravated assault and manslaughter and consequently the prison was rated as medium to high security. Just a week earlier, a fight between two inmates had spread among the others creating a mass unrest among more than 80 convicts. The two incidents were however not related. The prison is organized into levels, based on crime and risk, and the Morey unit was level, four, the second highest in the ranking.
Reactions to the incident
Various reactions followed the beginning of the incident. With most people as would be expected wishing a safe ending for the standoff and for the safety of the officers held hostage. After a few days of negotiations the male officer who was injured was released and was later confirmed to have been discharged from the hospital and gone home. Whereas most people considered the inmates to be the very epitome of evil for their acts, both past and present and some quarters actually proposing that a rescue attempt should be made and it doesn’t matter whether they survived or not, that the priority of the assault team should be the safety of the remaining female hostage. Those following this line of thought were actually encouraged by the release of one of the hostages since a rescue mission was now statistically more viable since the only loss that was possible was one life. Other people however agreed with this sentiment, saying that apart from the hostage not appreciating being treated like a mere statistic, a representation of numbers, there was a elevated danger for the hostage in case as assault was made on the control tower (USA Today, 2008).
Similar incidences
It is said by experts that the most dangerous time for hostages is the time when the ordeal begins, especially where there is violence involved, which is the case most of the time, and when it ends. The latter danger is somewhat contingent on how the situation is resolved. If the relevant authorities choose to use negotiation, the hostage has the highest chance of making it out with minimum harm. This is because negotiations make the captors relax, they feel as if what they are trying to achieve is actually happening and thus they calm down meaning that they have no reason for harming the hostage(s). In 1977 an 11 day standoff in Lucasville near ended peacefully through a negotiated settlement. The situation developed after there was a prisoner revolt in the prison, that was triggered by a TB testing disagreement between the prison administration (specifically the warden) and Muslim inmates. When the prison administration decided to lock down the prison and forcefully inject all the prisoners that were rejecting the treatment the Muslim community responded, and their plan was to take over a small part of the prison to make the warden back down but the situation went out of control immediately it begun culminating in a hostage situation. By a stroke of luck there was tension between the prisoners themselves which after it had been solved by the uniting of the prisoners, led to a negotiation and surrender, with no one getting hurt (except for five inmates that were considered to be traitors, but their deaths can be attributed to prisoner tension rather than the actions of law enforcement).
On the other hand, an escape attempt always greatly increases the chance of the hostages being harmed first and foremost because the assault is an act of violence, a language which the perpetrator understand only too well and which they respond in kind, mostly in harming their helpless hostages rather than engaging the better armed/equipped tactical team in the assault. Other reasons for harming the victims include to show that the captors are the one in control thus discouraging further rescue attempts if the first one fails for some reason. It is however sad that the media hypes rescue operations by depicting the captors as either unskilled or inept thus the law enforcement officers always have the upper hand. Also public pressure for the authorities to do something rather than talk can also have an effect on the decision on which approach to take, as the law enforcement officers do not want to appear incompetent, not to mention that they have their own illusions on the superiority of their weapons, training and tactics, an assault ends up looking like a really attractive alternative. The plain truth is that from the perspective of the safety of the hostages, the most superior weapon, training or tactic that the authorities have in their possession is that of negotiation. An example of why this is a bad idea is the 1971 Attica prison of New York prisoner uprising that ended in an assault of the facility in an attempt to take it over by force, wherein 1500 members of the police force and the national guard stormed the prison, the result of which was 42 dead, 10 of which were prisoners.
Causes of the crisis
There have been many ideas that have been advanced as having been the cause of the situation, raging from the working conditions of the staff at the facility to their outright carelessness. For example, it was reported that there were at least four doors that were meant to specifically prevent this sort of incident when closed but had been left open at the time. Accounts of Internet posting in reaction to the crisis shed a different light to the whole episode. One writer who claimed to be related to one of the inmate said that the reason why the inmates were so predisposed to such violent behavior as was evident in the Morey unit incident was the treatment that the inmates were being subjected to, with words such as ‘inhuman’ and ‘animal like’ and ‘dirt’ featuring prominently in her description. This post was however quickly responded to by a correctional officer, the people who were being accused of being part of the cause of the situation by their treatment of the prisoners, in which he defended himself and people like him saying that the inmates got that kind of treatment because of the kind of people that they were. That they got rough treatment because they gave the correctional officers a rough time. This all boils down to the conditions that the correctional officers have to work in, they deal with people that have been declared not fit to live with the rest of the society and thus have to adjust their relationships accordingly to survive. The inmates were sociopaths and the only way to deal with them was to bring oneself down to their level. Who was more correct in this debate is largely a matter of opinion (Rap and Davis, 2007).
Other causes that have been forwarded apart from the working condition of the correctional officers include their compensation (Desmond, 2005). Since it is obvious that their work conditions are somewhat outside the control of the authorities (they are issues to deal with the morality of the inmates), it therefore follows that they should at least provide adequate compensation for the sacrifices that the officers make in the line of duty. It is however not the case. According to Ed Skinner (2005), the payment schedule in the department of correction has many paradoxes and loopholes such as experienced officers earning the same as new assignees, supervisors earning less than the junior staff they supervise, and all these are despite generally low wages in the entire system, averaging to about $12 an hour for the lowest ranking officer, and a high of not more than $31,000 a year for the highest paid. This non-encouraging remuneration meant that the state correctional apparatus was chronically understaffed, and in fact at the time of the incident, the Lewis prison Morey Unit where the situation developed there were at least 200 positions vacant, which represents about 19% of the total workforce at the unit. This is not to mention the inadequate training that the existing staff has received before reporting for duty, as a close analysis shows that, most of the officers have less than two years on the job. The crisis also happened at a time when the state was experiencing a budget crunch, which meant that calls for increased funding fell on deaf ears.
Lessons learnt and prevention strategies
One of the most important lessons that has been learnt from all this crisis is the power of negotiation. The next time the security apparatus is considering to exercise the option of an armed assault it should take a look at the resolution of the Lewis prison hostage situation, in which nobody was hurt very seriously. We can also learn from effect of employee motivation on the events that led to the situation. The employees had probably resigned themselves to their routine uninteresting jobs and somewhere down the line the leaving of normally locked doors that would probably have prevented access for the two captors became pretty much a normal occurrence. The compensation of the employees plays an important part here since when one feels that his job is worthwhile he will pay more attention to it, rather than view it as a means to an end, something that has to be endured. Improving the payment packages will also improve the employee turnover and thus increase the overall experience level of the entire staff.
References
Ed Skinner, (2005) ‘AZCOP Speaks’ , from the World Wide. Web.
Desmond, P., January 24, 2005. ‘34 years later, budget would compensate Forgotten victims’. The legislative gazette.
Prison talk, ‘Two prison guards taken hostage at Arizona prison’ , from the World Wide. Web.
Rapp, K. and Davis, R (2007). ‘15 days in hell.’ England: The Lois Fraley Foundation.
Untitled (Undated). ‘The Morey unit incident’ , from the World Wide. Web.
USA Today (2008).‘More talks for guards release, standoff called the longest in decades’, from the World Wide. Web.
Williams, Gary (2006), ‘Siege on Lucasville.’ Boston: Rooftop publishing.