Surrender Ends Standoffs at 4 Federal Prisons

Rioting inmates surrendered control of a prison dormitory Saturday, ending a one-day uprising that began after the government ordered federal prisons locked down nationwide.

The surrender ended confrontations that broke out between authorities and inmates in four prisons. Inmates set fires, threw baseball bats and broke windows.

The disturbances began last week after Congress refused to reduce penalties for crack cocaine convictions.

U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Faye Pollard could not say whether the congressional action played a role in the violence.

“We’re still looking into the probable causes of these disturbances,” she said.

The clashes started late Thursday at the federal prison in Talladega, Ala., and spread to those in Memphis, Tenn., Allenwood, Pa., and this town 40 miles east of St. Louis.

In response, the Justice Department ordered all federal prisons locked down indefinitely. Several groups of inmates in Greenville refused to return to their cells Friday afternoon and then seized most of one housing unit.

Some prison employees barricaded themselves inside one section until a SWAT team rescued them late Friday. Ten staff members suffered injuries, mostly cuts and bruises. Three were treated at a hospital and released; a fourth remained hospitalized in good condition.

By 9 a.m. CDT Saturday, guards at the medium-security Greenville prison had secured the inmates and regained control.

It was not immediately clear whether any of Greenville’s approximately 1,200 inmates were hurt or how many were involved in the uprising. No inmates escaped.

Early Saturday, the prison was brightly lit from its buildings to its barbed-wire perimeter. Emergency lights flashed from police cars, fire trucks and other vehicles guarding the surrounding roads. The facility is bounded by farmland on two sides, Interstate 70 on the south and by the city limit on the north.

“Through this entire incident, we never felt that residents were in danger,” Police Chief Jack K. King said.