PREVIOUS MANAGEMENT STYLES LEFT CORRECTIONS DEPARTMENT UNSTABLE

COLUMBIA - The recent history of South Carolina prisons is the tale of two
directors - one a tough Texan who whipped the system into shape but
alienated his employees and the other an insider who soothed hard feelings
but was too loyal to the men he worked alongside for nearly 30 years. A
report on the state Corrections Department, written by two former FBI
agents, says to understand the sex, drug and morale problems facing the
prisons, you have to know the men who ran the system for nearly six years.
Michael Moore was director of South Carolina's prisons for two years,
leaving to become director of Florida's prisons in December 1998. Then
Corrections Department veteran William "Doug" Catoe took over before being
fired by Gov. Jim Hodges in January. The report on problems in the state's
prisons was issued in April by agents Tommy Davis and Dodge Frederick.
Frederick acted as interim director of prisons for about four months before
Hodges hired former Oklahoma prison director Gary Maynard. "Over 28 years
experience in prisons, I have learned where I fit," Maynard said. "And that
would be somewhere between Mike Moore and Doug Catoe." Davis and
Frederick's report said many employees never knew certain policies were in
place. Hodges asked for the report in October after investigators verified
nearly a dozen complaints of guards and prison employees having sex with
inmates.

There also were allegations of drug use in prison and cover-ups by guards
and management. Phone messages were left with Florida prison officials for
Moore and with Catoe's family in Columbia. Neither man called back.
Employees, spurred by loyalty or fear, won't talk publicly about their
former bosses.

And a spokesman for a national corrections agency refused to even talk
hypothetically on how a director's personality can affect his job
performance. Moore took over the department from Parker Evatt, who was
chased into retirement after a trusty serving a life sentence raped a boy
while running an errand outside prison gates. Critics wanted then-Gov.
David Beasley to hire a tough director to whip the prisons back into shape.
"It was a mess before Moore came on board," said Sen. David Thomas, who
chaired the Senate Corrections and Penology Committee for six years while
both Moore and Catoe ran the department. The report by Frederick and Davis
praises Moore for tightening prison discipline. But the report quotes one
unidentified senior official at the department as saying, "he declared war
on the staff and inmates at the same time." Moore immediately stopped
furloughs for violent prisoners and ended a sports league that bused
inmates between prisons.

Inmates at one prison rioted a month after Moore started and some blamed
the new director's stricter policies. Undaunted by the criticism, Moore
would start even stricter policies limiting prisoners to 10 photographs
each, banning new televisions and repairs of existing TVs and requiring
inmates to get haircuts. Moore was tough on his staff, too, alienating many
longtime employees.

At the time, Thomas thought Moore might have been too hard on prison
employees. "But in retrospect, knowing what we know now, I wonder if his
way was right," Thomas, R-Fountain Inn, said. When Catoe arrived, he
immediately tried to soothe employees wounded by Moore's management style.

But Thomas said Catoe's kind streak was his downfall because he could not
fire managers who were involved in wrongdoing or tried to cover up the
misconduct. "Catoe grew up in the system," Thomas said. "He was too gentle
on his own folks.

If you want to be a proper manager, you have to move that part of you
aside." Thomas and some current members of the Senate Corrections and
Penology Committee think internal investigators and high-ranking prison
officials may have covered up sexual activity and drug selling in South
Carolina prisons.

They say Catoe was not involved in the activity himself, but did not try to
ferret out who did. The report by Frederick and Davis said the top
management at the Corrections Department needed changing even before Hodges
fired Catoe after allegations surfaced that guards allowed inmates on a
work release program to have sex in the governor's house. "I think we'll
find with Mr. Maynard the best of both worlds," Thomas said. "He seems to
want strict regimentation in the prisons, but he seems to work well with
his employees. "And because he is an outsider, he won't come in with the
baggage of being friends with his managers."