Goodrich insists detention centers is no sex retreat

Mckinley County Adult Detention Center Corrections Officers Yolanda Lee and Thomas Clark work in an office next to one of the pods at the jail. MCADC officials have added more cameras to the facility and required male and female officers to patrol in teams to help reduce the risk of sexual relationships between officers and inmates. [Photo by John A. Bowersmith/Independent]

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — The Brian Orr trial this week brought up a number of allegations about what goes on behind the scenes at the McKinley County Adult Detention Center.

Orr, who was acquitted of charges of sexual impropriety with female inmates at the jail, talked of investigations when he was there in 2003 and 2004 of staff members having romantic relationships with inmates and women inmates having sex with other women inmates.

All of which brings up the question: Is the county jail a modern Peyton Place where inmates and staffers are having sexual romps on a regular basis?

Maybe it was back then but the jail's current warden, Donna Goodrich, said she doubts that the situation exists today, especially situations where male staff members are abusing women inmates and jail authorities are doing nothing about it.

Goodrich said that in the three years she has been the jail's warden, there have been no allegations, no reports or even any hints of staff members abusing their authority in this way.

In the first place, she said, the jail is operated much differently than it was when it was under the authority of private companies. Today, it is operated by the county.

Vigilance
There are more staff around and she said that, unlike her predecessors who stayed in their offices most of the time, she makes frequent visits to the area where the prisoners are housed.

"The staff here was a little concerned at first when I started doing this, thinking that I was spying on them," Goodrich said. But they soon realized that her purpose was to keep the lines of communication open to the prisoners and they began to welcome the visits as well.

She began talking to the prisoners, both female and male, on a regular basis and assured them if they had a problem of any kind, they could come to her. She also changed the procedures for making a complaint.

The old procedure required the prisoner to list out the complaint on the form before it was given to a staff member to give to her. Goodrich said she realized that if the inmate accused a staff member of abuse or improper sexual behavior, the complaint may never get to her.

Also, the person who was the go-between could alert the staff member who the complaint was against.

Open-door policyTo combat this, she allowed prisoners to just put on the request that they had an unspecified complaint and she would make arrangements to talk with the inmate in private.

"The inmates also know they have free access to my office at all times," she said. "My doors are always open."

The county also added more cameras making it more difficult for inappropriate behavior to go undetected. The cameras are monitored 24/7 and the county put in cameras in areas where it was possible that inappropriate behavior could take place.

Goodrich also enacted policies that prohibited a male staffer to go into the women's section of the jail alone; he had to have a female staff member accompany him.

All staff members must go through regular training and during the training, she said, staffers are told of the possible penalties loss of job, and possibly prison if they take sexual liberties with any of the inmates.

But human nature being what it is, what about the possibility of an inmate and a staff member falling in love and deciding, as two consenting adults, to try and find some secluded place in the jail at night to show each other how they feel?

"I wouldn't say it would be impossible but it would be difficult (to accomplish that)," Goodrich said.

Of course, the possible penalties probably would be a bigger deterrent than having the affair made public, she said.

The jail already has addressed one incident regarding an alleged sexual contact between a female and male inmate but this was later ruled to be unfounded. Goodrich said the jail staff takes precautions to make sure that the male and female inmates are segregated.

Pod life
As for the possibility of sexual relations between inmates living in the same pod, Goodrich said "there's nothing we can do about that."

The jail has a policy of classifying prisoners, so an 18 or 19 year old in jail on a driving violation wouldn't be put in the same section as a group of sex offenders.

But as for the others, it's difficult, she said to monitor 40 people, especially at night and especially when most of those who are under arrest are there because they have had a lifestyle of not conforming to the rules.

But if anyone comes to her and says that they have problems, for one reason on another, staying in the pod they are in, they are immediately transferred.

In some cases, said Goodrich, it could because there's someone in the pod they can't get along with or it could be that the person is feeling some sexual tension that they would rather get away from.

"We don't ask why," said Goodrich, "We just move them."