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Involvement in an emergency is unlike any other correctional experience. I have a colleague who says about deer hunting: "You don't know what it's all about until you've dragged a body out of the woods." Correctional emergencies are like that. You have to experience an emergency to truly understand the complexity of the long-term responsibilities and issues it can create.
The Siege
On Oct. 25, 1989, the routine afternoon activities of the 2,600-bed State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill in Camp Hill, Pa., were being carried out in an uneventful fashion. Staff meetings were coming to a close. Line movements from the education building to the cellblocks in Groups II and III were orderly. Recreational activities were proceeding smoothly on both the Main Stockade Field and the Group I field. Kitchens I and II were preparing for the evening meal. At three o'clock, I had finished the last meeting of the day and was sitting down to begin opening the afternoon mail when my institutional line rang. Picking up the phone, I heard my deputy superintendent for operations say: "Superintendent, an inmate coming in from Main Stockade just assaulted an officer at E-Gate. We have an officer down and inmates are refusing to lock up in Groups II and III."
Two minutes later, I was in the deputy's office, located inside the 52-acre institution in a cellblock/office/infirmary complex designated as Group I. I had entered the institution to get a face-to-face briefing on the assault, anticipating no personal danger to myself because, in my mind, it was still a routine day at Camp Hill. Standing at the windows in the DSO's office a few minutes later, looking in the direction of E-Gate, I watched Group II and III correctional officers running for their lives...