Staff to parole board: Prison discipline policy too slow to be useful

An updated discipline policy at the Department of Corrections has so frustrated staff that they sometimes avoid writing up inmates who harass officers.

The South Dakota Board of Pardons and Paroles heard that message on Wednesday morning as they prepared to conduct a parole hearing for an inmate named Xavier Gainsforth. 

Gainsforth, the board learned, had been threatening or verbally abusive toward DOC staff for months.

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“Staff had given up on writing him up for threats, because he keeps making them,” Ryan Howey, a DOC case manager, told the board. 

The incidental discussion of discipline policy came about a month after two nights of unrest at the South Dakota State Penitentiary, during which at least one correctional officer was injured. 

The unrest came after the DOC curtailed tablet-based messaging and phone calls, a move that upset inmates and family members. During the first incident, journalists gathered outside the penitentiary could hear inmates inside yelling “we want phones.” Gov. Kristi Noem said in an interview on the week of the event that the tablets played a role in the start of the incidents.

A representative for state employees told South Dakota Searchlight, however, that recent changes to DOC discipline policy had left inmates feeling empowered to lash out against officers. 

A letter from correctional officers released to The Dakota Scout newspaper shortly thereafter made a similar point, suggesting that the tablets were merely the spark, and that the new discipline policy was the reason the disruptions continued.

Board shifts feelings on clemency after hearing from staff

The board members and DOC staffers on hand for Wednesday’s parole board meeting at the penitentiary’s Jameson Annex didn’t speak a word about tablets or the unrest that played out last month.

The question of discipline was instead tied specifically to the board’s decision on Gainsforth.

The 29-year-old is in prison on drug charges and a Clay County aggravated assault. Board members John Brown and Ken Albers had offered up Gainsforth to the full board after hearing from him in a two-person screening panel in March.

Before securing a hearing from the full board and a shot at early release, parole eligible inmates must clear such a panel. The two-person panels typically consider inmate discipline, an inmate’s plans for work and housing after release, and any coursework and evaluations that might be affixed to the inmate’s in-prison record.

At the time of his March screening, Albers said Wednesday, Gainsforth had one major write-up investigation pending for a January incident in which he engaged in what the inmate described as “disruptive conduct.” Gainsforth had expected that issue to be resolved by the time Albers brought the case to the full board. 

Gainsforth was briefly out on parole last year, but picked up a new drug ingestion charge and returned to prison. 

Albers told the board that a decision on how long to keep him for the parole violation had been pushed back six months already, so he thought the board ought to take up the question – provided his disciplinary record was complete enough to judge his readiness for release.

During their initial discussions, some board members appeared ready to consider sending Gainsforth back out. 

Vice Chair Kirsten Aasen noted that while he’d picked up a new felony, that felony is as about as minor as a South Dakotan can get, and denying Gainsforth could make him wait a year for another hearing.

“It was an ingestion felony,” Aasen said. “I wouldn’t want to set someone out a year for that.” 

Another board member, Peter Lieberman, said he typically wants parolees who pick up a new felony to sit in prison for at least a year before they get another chance at supervision. But he said “there are exceptions,” and reminded the board that South Dakota is the only state in the nation to attach felony charges to ingestion. 

Discipline problems revealed

The tenor of the discussion changed after the board asked the DOC staffers on hand for the hearing about Gainsforth’s disciplinary history.

The January incident remained unresolved, the board learned, but there was more. Howey told the board that Gainsforth had only recently lost his job as a roving cleaner because he hadn’t been doing it. Instead, he’d been using his “red shirt,” meaning the shirt worn to indicate job-related freedom of movement, to wander around the facility. 

“He never worked,” Howey said. “He just uses the red shirt to manipulate the system.”

The day after Gainsforth lost his job for being in areas he wasn’t supposed to be, Howey said, he somehow got another red shirt, put it on to wander again and ducked staff during the chow time.

Moreover, Howey said, Gainsforth regularly insults or threatens staff, at least once mentioning a gang affiliation. 

Officers haven’t wanted to discipline him because a recent change to DOC policy has slowed down the process, Howey said. He didn’t specify the reason for the slowdown beyond telling board members that it now takes a long time for write-ups to make their way to a disciplinary hearing examiner for review. He said there are two examiners, but “we could probably use 10.”

‘Order restored’ at penitentiary following ‘disturbance’

News of the alleged pattern of behavior from Gainsforth was met with surprise. Every parole hearing involves at least some consideration of an inmate’s behavior behind the walls. If the record is incomplete, board member Kurt Hall said, “we need to find a way to address that.”

More importantly, Hall said, it ought to be addressed for the staff inside the prison.

“We think it’s bad here,” Hall said. “Think about it as a correctional officer.”

Lieberman and Hall both suggested that the DOC provide more hearing examiners for disciplinary incidents.

“How can you have discipline in an institution if threats are ignored?” Lieberman said. 

DOC spokesman Michael Winder did not return an email requesting comment on the alleged slowdown in disciplinary proceedings, what specific policies may have contributed to it, or the number of hearing examiners available to conduct contested hearings on disciplinary matters.

The current discipline policy posted on the DOC website shows that Secretary Kellie Wasko signed off on an update last October. The new policy, unlike the one it replaced, says all major infractions must be heard by a disciplinary hearing officer, and that disciplinary officers must be trained prior to serving in the role. 

The new policy also says a hearing officer must be “a staff member at the level of lieutenant or above” who is unconnected to the incident behind an alleged infraction.

Inmate: I deserve respect

Gainsforth wasn’t in the room for any of the parole board discussion on discipline. When he arrived, board members peppered him with questions about his parole plans, what he’d learned inside, why he hadn’t participated in therapeutic coursework and what had happened with his prison job.

He said he’d spend his time with sober friends, has a job waiting for him, wasn’t offered coursework, and only wore a red shirt the day after losing his job because no one told him he’d been fired. Another DOC staff member, however, read the incident report on his dismissal, which aligned with Howey’s earlier description.

As to the insults and threats hurled at staff, Gainsforth said he only talks back to officers when he feels disrespected, or feels that the officers aren’t doing what they ought to be.

“I understand that it doesn’t help me, but I also understand that me, as a human being, I deserve respect,” he said.

Board member Vaughn Beck moved to deny Gainsforth’s parole and set his next hearing out a year. He told Gainsforth there are times when it’s wiser not to talk back to authority figures, particularly in a prison environment where his behavior is logged and reported to the people who’ll decide if he gets a shot at early release. 

Disagreements over staff behavior, Beck said, don’t justify the harassment of officers.

“You need to show us that you can behave in here,” Beck said. 

Gainsforth’s parole was denied on an 8-1 vote, with Albers casting the lone vote in the inmate’s favor.