Warden Tries to Build ‘Better People’

Thomas Powers oversees the nation’s smallest state prison population like a businessman, spreading responsibility among his staff and employing what he likes to call “MBWA”--management by wandering around.

“We have a product, and our product is people,” said Powers, 32. “We’ve got to do a pretty good job of making them better people.”

The 6-foot-4, 245-pound Powers tours each cell block twice a week and meets with 20 to 25 prisoners a week to discuss their problems. “It gives the inmates the opportunity to know that from the top down, we’re here to help them and not punish them,” he said.

Robert Cartledge, a guard for seven years, called him a “new generation” warden. “He’s more of a hands-on guy. He’s a lot closer with the inmates.”

“Cool guy,” said Laverne (Charley) Fasthorse, who’s doing three years for burglary. “He’s a Christian, you know. He’s a good man. Tom participates with the people. I mean, I’m on his basketball team.”

Powers became warden a year ago of a prison with cell blocks as new as 1987 and as old as 1915, with an average population of 515--one to a cell.

In September, the U.S. Justice Department listed the penitentiary as the nation’s smallest--456 inmates, down from 466 in 1988--and one of two states with a drop in prison population. The other was Tennessee.

Although acknowledging that some prisons--”crazy places,” overcrowded and rife with problems--are beyond any warden’s help, Powers said: “It would be the ultimate challenge” to run one.

Powers credits his staff for much of his success and believes that with a good staff, the programs and the type of rapport he has built with inmates at the North Dakota State Penitentiary could be successful at larger prisons.

“I ran a 100-bed prison and was told I couldn’t do those things in a 250-bed prison. I ran a 250-bed prison and was told I couldn’t do it in a 500-bed prison. Although I’m content now, I might want to move on to a bigger penitentiary in the federal system and do what we’re doing here.”

A native of Syracuse, N.Y., Powers grew up in Pennsylvania and graduated from Villanova University, majoring in sociology and criminal justice. After he attended the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Training Academy, he became a deputy warden of the Cumberland County Prison in Carlisle, Pa., and at age 27 became the warden at the Bradford County Prison in Towanda, Pa.

He supports President Bush’s call for the death penalty for heinous crimes and drug kingpins--”I think it needs to be stringent and narrow in scope”--but believes America needs more minimum-security prisons and halfway houses to keep people convicted of lesser crimes separate from hard-core criminals.

“I think in this business, there is a degree of overkill,” he said. “Anytime you take an individual out of their home environment and they can’t see their family, you’re going to have an impact.

“We use the family to our benefit. The family is too often overlooked in this business.”

Where possible, criminals should be imprisoned close to their families and communities, and should participate in work-release programs that would benefit the community, he said. “My philosophy is that inmates have taken from society and they have to give something back.”

He acknowledges, however, that “there are 10% of the people in this business who you will never reach.”

Ninety-two percent of North Dakota prisoners are employed or enrolled in some educational program. Eighty-five percent are in treatment programs for alcohol or drugs, the root of most of the crimes, Powers said. “We’ve made treatment the central focus of our facility.”

The North Dakota prison houses minimum- and maximum-security inmates. “Property offenders probably are the biggest majority, and then sex offenders, and then those who have committed (other) crimes against people,” he said. “We seem to be seeing more sex offenders--that seems to be more of a trend over the last five years.

“We get them from all over the country, some just passing through, some boarding for the federal prison system.”

The visiting room resembles a school cafeteria, with rules posted at the front, and no glass windows to separate inmates from visitors. Escape attempts are rare, and one attempt that was made recently ended when the inmate gave up a handmade gun peacefully after a talk with the chief security officer.

“That was no accident. The fact that that inmate gave him the gun shows he knew that inmate well,” Powers said.

“There are a lot of wardens who like the fact that we have a manageable population. I think we have a lot of potential here for a national model. I think North Dakota is a kept secret.”