DOVER, Del. (AP) - The head of Delaware’s corrections system is stepping down after a brief tenure marked by a fatal prison riot, lawsuits alleging mistreatment of inmates, and chronic staffing and morale problems.
The Department of Correction issued a statement Friday saying Commissioner Perry Phelps plans to retire July 15.
“Serving in this role has been challenging and rewarding, but I consider it an honor and privilege,” said Phelps, who began his career in 1988 as a prison guard.
The announcement comes less than two weeks after Gov. John Carney refused to say whether he still had confidence in Phelps following allegations that contract medical workers were falsifying inmate treatment records. It also came one day after the latest in a series of acquittals of inmates accused of participating in the fatal 2017 riot at Delaware’s maximum-security prison, a verdict Phelps called “upsetting.”
Phelps was confirmed as DOC commissioner in January 2017, two weeks before the riot broke out at Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna. Prison guard Steven Floyd was killed during the uprising. Two other guards were released by inmates after being beaten and tormented. A female counselor was held hostage for nearly 20 hours before tactical teams burst in and rescued her.
Eighteen inmates were indicted on riot-related charges, but only one, a convicted murderer who is serving life in prison and who boasted in court of planning the uprising, has been convicted of Floyd’s murder.
In October, Phelps was named as a defendant in a class-action lawsuit alleging that scores of inmates were subjected to inhumane conditions and brutal physical and verbal abuse both before and after the riot.
State officials, meanwhile, agreed in 2017 to pay more than $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of Floyd and other prison staffers. An independent review ordered by Carney found that DOC officials’ dismissal of warnings about trouble brewing at the prison reflected an overcrowded, understaffed facility plagued by mismanagement, poor communication, a culture of negativity and adversarial relationships among prison staff, administrators and inmates.
Lawmakers have provided millions of dollars in additional funding since the riot to increase correctional officer pay, fund new positions, improve training and enhance security. But the prisons remain chronically understaffed, with limited educational and rehabilitative programs for inmates.
Bureau of Prisons chief Steven Wesley, one of Phelps’ closest confidantes, left that post in early February to take another job, at a significant pay cut, with another state agency.
In November, officials began transferring hundreds of inmates from the Vaughn prison to Pennsylvania in an effort to reduce overtime for severely understaffed correctional officers. But overtime costs to keep Delaware’s prisons at minimum staffing levels is expected to exceed last year’s record of almost $31 million, according to Geoff Klopp, president of the Correctional Officers Association of Delaware.
“We still don’t have enough staff to safely and securely run the facilities and to give the inmates all the programs they should be getting,” said Klopp, who believe Phelps “did the best he could with what he had.”
Despite DOC’s funding woes, one of Phelps’ priorities after the riot was getting more than $1 million worth of new take-home cars for himself and top DOC administrators. Phelps wound up with a 2018 Dodge Durango, a full-size SUV, after noting that he needed lots of leg room because of recent knee surgery.
A July 2017 email that was drafted by Claire DeMatteis, an attorney hired by Carney to implement recommendations from the independent review, and which was to be sent under Phelps’ name to Carney’s budget office, outlines the justification for the new vehicles.
“Senior DOC officers … need to be respected and treated as law enforcement officers,” the email reads. “Authority for take-home vehicles will go a long way toward boosting their morale showing them the respect afforded other law enforcement officers in our state.”
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