NATION'S JAILS UNDERFUNDED, UNDERSTAFFED, EXPERTS SAY

Local Lockups Often Ignored Despite Billions Spent On Building Prisons

MURPHY, N.C. -- Lee Wood was locked up in the Cherokee County Jail last
summer on charges of possessing marijuana and stolen goods. He ended up
dead on the jailhouse floor in less than a week.

Prosecutors say a criminally negligent jailer denied the 26-year-old
diabetic the insulin he needed to live. After five days, relatives say,
Wood's tongue was swollen out of his mouth and he begged a fellow inmate
for a can of soda, desperate for sugar. When he collapsed, he weighed just
100 pounds.

Experts say the inattention that led to Wood's death is all too common in
jails across the nation.

Stephen Ingley, head of the American Jail Association, said the majority of
jails are understaffed and underfunded, from rural facilities like the one
in Cherokee County to the biggest urban jails.

While billions have been spent building prisons, the local lockup often
gets ignored, Ingley said.

"If the county needs a new school and needs a new jail, and they go out on
a bond issue, who's going to win?" Ingley asked.

Jails are on the front lines of the criminal justice system, coping with
inmates straight off the streets, often with serious mental or physical
problems. A typical 1,000-bed prison has 500 annual admissions, Ingley
said, while a jail of the same size will admit 22,500.

The problem hit home last year in western North Carolina. Four months
before Wood's death on Sept. 5, eight inmates were killed when fire swept
through the Mitchell County jail. Seven of the inmates were trapped in a
second-floor holding cell.

The county has agreed to pay $2 million to families of the victims and the
state still faces lawsuits.

'A financial problem' State labor officials concluded that inspectors for
the county and state repeatedly failed to detect safety violations at the jail.

"In part, it's a financial problem," said David Whelan, a criminal justice
professor at Western Carolina University, which will host a regional jail
safety summit Thursday.

"But it's also a problem of having proper understanding of liability and
proper understanding of management and planning," he said. "I think that
there have to be guidelines that are followed for all these emergencies
that have happened."

Lee Wood had been in and out of trouble since his teenage years. His
father, Jimmy Wood, said his son had served six months for selling
marijuana and another six months for beating up a man he caught in bed with
his wife.

Lee Wood went into jail for the last time on Aug. 31.

His father said he didn't hurry to bail his son out because he was afraid
he would get back together with a troublesome girlfriend who landed him there.

Jimmy Wood and his wife, Marylin, said they called the jail daily from
their home outside Andrews to make sure their son was getting his insulin
shots. Each day, jailer Judy Mason told them he was.

Jail death On Sept. 4, another inmate called the family to say Wood was
sick and needed help. The Woods said they spent much of the next day trying
to get medical attention for their son.

The head of the county emergency medical service asked Mason to transport
Lee Wood to a hospital. On Sept. 5, a district judge issued an order that
Wood be transferred to the state corrections department for safekeeping.
Wood died before that order was carried out.

"I can't picture how they didn't give my son his medicine and let him lay
there on the floor and die," Jimmy Wood said. "If he'd just gone there and
they shot him, I could live with it better than that they let him go like
that."

Sheriff Alan Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of waiting
17 days to report Wood's death to the state. A judge sentenced Kilpatrick
to 24 hours of community service and $500 in fines.

Mason, meanwhile, was charged with involuntary manslaughter and failing to
provide medical care in Wood's death. Her lawyer, Jerry Townsend, declined
to comment.

Her defense is expected to focus on claims that Lee Wood refused to take
his insulin and was under the influence of other drugs at the time of his
death. An autopsy by the state medical examiner's office showed no evidence
of other drugs.

in Wood's system.

Charles Hipps, district attorney for Cherokee and six other western North
Carolina counties, said conservative attitudes toward government spending
have kept jails operating on slim budgets.

"The cultural attitude is going to have to change," said Hipps, who died of
a heart attack Feb. 28. "There's going to have to be some dollars spent."

On the Net:

American Jail Association:
http://www.corrections.com/aja