SIOUX FALLS - Strolling the halls and cell blocks of the South Dakota State Penitentiary, Warden Doug Weber knows most of the faces and many of the names of the 1,300 inmates who live here.
They know him, too, and show it with a nod of the head, a raised hand or even an occasional joking comment.
"You look good in a suit," one middle-aged inmate calls out as Weber smiles and nods his head in acknowledgment of his more formal attire, worn for a media tour.
As TV crews and a newspaper team follow him past the inmate dining call, Weber calls to a couple of 20-something inmates standing just inside the entrance.
"What's going on?" he says. "Everything OK?"
It's more than just a greeting from the 52-year-old Sioux Falls native and former U.S. Marine, who has worked in the state prison system for 26 years.
Weber really wants to know what's going on and whether everything is OK.
As the man charged with keeping the prisoners in and contraband out, Weber believes that knowing the ways and wants and moods of the place is essential.
"I do a morning walk with my senior staff. I make sure I'm in every unit every day," Weber says a few minutes later, during a brief break in the tour. "They know me. They know they can talk to me about their issues and problems."
Problems and issues can elevate to much more than that in a world where more than 1,000 men are locked in close quarters for years at a time. Weber saw firsthand what can happen in May of 1993, three years before he was promoted to warden by former Gov. Bill Janklow, when a group of inmates took control of the outdoor recreation area inside the prison and clubbed a staffer with a baseball bat.
The riot ended the next morning, but Weber never forgot the unsettling breakdown in order and security, if only for a few hours in just a part of the prison.
"Everything I do is a learning experience," Weber says. "That was obviously a very significant one. It's something you never want to see repeated, so you do everything you can so it never happens again."
It hasn't happened again since then, including the last 11 years since Weber became warden. That doesn't surprise Janklow, also a former Marine who considers Weber one of the best hires he ever made.
"He's the perfect warden. He's a doer. And he doesn't play bureaucratic games," Janklow said. "He knows everybody in there. He's in the lunch room. He's walking around the rec areas. He talks to the inmates when they've got problems. The guards trust him. He's a hands-on, get-your-hands-dirty guy."
Janklow said he spoke with prison inmates, guards and general staff during his 1994 governor's campaign and after he won the election. And the more he heard about the problems and needs in the prison the more he leaned toward Weber.
After the election, Janklow asked Weber to join him for a soda in Sioux Falls.
"I told him I wanted to meet with him and he said, 'Yes, sir,'" Janklow said. "We were in a place on 41st street, having a Coke, and I said, 'You're going to be the next warden.' And he said, 'No, sir.'"
But Janklow convinced Weber he was the right man to reshape the prison. And the former four-term governor never regretted it.
"When I got into office again in 1995, we'd had the riot in the prison. It was in a real turmoil," Janklow said. "We never had trouble again. His inmates are better people when they leave than when they come in. Because almost all of them get out, we've got to make them better people. We don't at our peril."
There has been just one escape from the penitentiary with Weber in charge.
A maximum-security inmate rode out of the prison by hiding on the top of an axle on a dual-axle trailer that had delivered materials to one of the penitentiary shops.
"The officer who searched the vehicle, frankly, missed him," Weber said. "He concealed himself between the axle and the trailer, made it past the outside fence and rolled off the trailer as it exited the property."
The inmate was at large for only about an hour, however, before he was captured in Sioux Falls.
"It was a short-lived escape," Weber said. "He didn't have a plan beyond getting outside the gates."
Many inmates have such plans. With that one qualified exception, none have succeeded in Weber's time as warden. Few even reach the point of action.
Weber relies on an alert staff, his own close personal contacts within the prison and a system of "snitches" to uncover escape plans long before they are attempted.
He prefers the plans never get to the actual physical security system, which involves a modern mix of heavy doors, secure locks and ubiquitous electronic monitoring gear.
One plan discovered earlier this year involved two inmates who plotted to climb across the razor wire around the prison by using bedding as a cushion.
"It was a terrible plan, but they thought they could do it. I will never say never, but it would have been highly unusual for that to succeed," Weber said. "There are many, many rows of razor wire, literally razor blades rolled on wire, that will cut very severely, and also an electronic shaker system that alarms if the fence is disturbed."
But making sure that inmates stay where they are is only half the security battle for Weber. He wants them to be safe, too.
Providing a secure environment for inmates to do their time and, in most cases, prepare to re-enter the outside world is a never-ending priority, Weber said.
"By and large, the majority of these guys come in here and want to do their time quietly, peacefully," Weber said. "They want to learn something in the process. They want to change their behavior. And if they can do that without having to worry about their own personal safety, it's a lot more effective."
The cornerstone of that security system is a screening and classification system that segregates inmates considered to be risks to other inmates or prison staff. That allows the majority of inmates to focus on rehabilitation, education, job training and enduring the long days and months and years until they can be released.
When an inmate arrives at the prison, he goes through an extensive assessment that includes chemical dependency, educational needs and potential to attempt escape or assault other inmates or prison staff members.
The assessment helps determine where the inmate will be placed, and also helps assure the safety and security within the prison that is Weber's first priority.
The new Jameson annex is essential to that process. It's an addition to the 125-year-old prison that was initially opened in 1993 and expanded in 2006.
Jameson has the maximum-security units, including the ultra-high-security death-row and inmate segregation unit.
Three inmates are currently on death row. About three dozen are on short-term segregation for major rules infractions. And about 50 are in more long-term segregation because they are considered escape or assault risks.
Taking the potential troublemakers out of the general population on a long-term basis is a reversal of past prison policy, which sought to provide protection for the vulnerable inmates.
Before Weber's revised segregation policy, the prison would often have half a dozen or so of the most dangerous inmates in segregation and more than 100 inmates in protective custody because they believed they were in danger from other inmates.
"Now, instead of focusing all our energy on trying to protect inmates because they're afraid for their safety, I focus on the predatory types and remove them from the population," Weber said. "Then everybody else can get about their business in the penitentiary."
Weber believes that business, for most inmates, is a sincere desire to serve their time and re-enter society with a good chance of success. And he gets to see examples of that outside the prison all the time, when he meets former inmates.
"I see them on the street periodically, and they're always eager to talk to me about their families or jobs or new babies," Weber said.
Weber celebrates those moments and the successes of those who seem to be making it on the outside. But he also understands the majority are likely to be back. That's part of the job, too, one he also accepts.
"If I became disappointed every time they came back in, I wouldn't last very long here," he said. "We just take them back in and give them the opportunity to do it better next time."
Read related stories:
Death chamber gives somber sense of realities
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/12/18/news/local/doc4764d24e08e04454611106.txt
State's inmate population leveling off
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/12/18/news/local/doc4764d18857b5e636102074.txt
Work, faith help inmates rebuild lives
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/12/18/news/local/doc4764d107e413b298816735.txt
Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com.
