No barbed wire or walls around jails where ex-Congressmen serve time
Michael Roston
Published:
Tuesday January 30, 2007
 Three of the four ex-Congressmen behind bars, including former Ohio Republican Bob Ney, are serving time in federal facilities that have no wall or fence around them, according to a report in today's Roll Call. In spite of this fact, law enforcement officials sought to ward off the notion that they were serving time in a 'Club Fed'-like jail.
Four Congressmen are currently behind bars, according to the article by Rachel Van Dongen: James Traficant, a former Ohio Democrat; Frank Ballance, a former North Carolina Democrat; Randall 'Duke' Cunningham, a California Republican; and Ney. Traficant is currently housed in Minnesota’s Rochester Medical Center for unstated medical reasons, but the other three are incarcerated in federal penitentiaries.
Ballance and Cunninghmam have both been housed in North Carolina's Butner Correctional Complex, a minimum security prison sometimes called "Camp Cupcake," which the jail's administrator described to Van Dongen as "an easy place to do your time." Ney is serving in the Morgantown, West Virginia Federal Correctional Institute alongside former 'Survivor' winner Richard Hatch, where there is an alcoholism treatment program. His attorney said he had "heard good things" about the facility.
A facility like Butner is described as having "pen-dormitory style housing, just eight prison guards and no towering fences or guard towers to prevent escape." Prisoners "can walk away at any time." However, one attorney with knowledge of federal jails suggests the lack of tight security may be even worse than the standard prison.
"Particularly for folks who have lived a very comfortable life, being in a facility without a fence sometimes is a heck of a lot more difficult...If you look out and there’s no restriction except that which you impose on yourself, that’s tough for some folks," she quotes Alan Chaset as saying.
The full article can be accessed by Roll Call subscribers at their website. An excerpt is provided below.
#
But experts in the federal prison system, and ex-cons who have been there themselves, say that it would be misleading to think that Congressional felons are living the high life at a “Club Fed”-like facility, eating steak and lobster for dinner and spending their days on golf courses.
These experts say that life in a federal prison camp, especially for someone who used to be in a position of authority, is hard. While there is little supervision, and you can walk away at any time, the same rules and regulations that govern an inmate’s every move apply to low-risk inmates as to their more violent counterparts.
“Clearly, if you’re going to have to go to an institution, the minimum security places are the places to go,” said Alan Chaset, a retired Virginia attorney who specialized in reducing sentences for convicted felons.
But Chaset warned that the relative freedom of such a place could pose an overwhelming temptation.
“Particularly for folks who have lived a very comfortable life, being in a facility without a fence sometimes is a heck of a lot more difficult,” he said. “There’s going to be that phone call or that letter or whatever interaction with family that makes you want to be home.”
Chaset added, “If you look out and there’s no restriction except that which you impose on yourself, that’s tough for some folks.”
|
