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Former Ohio Prisons Inspector Says Lack of Funding, Support Threaten Inspection Committee's Work

prison guard tower
GINO REYES
/
U.S.A.F.
The budget for Ohio’s Correctional Institution Inspection Committee has been slashed.";

An office that inspects and reports on conditions, trends and violence in Ohio’s 27 adult prisons and three juvenile facilities is down to one staff member, and its work is being done largely by college interns. The office’s former director says she’s worried that trouble, which should have been foreseen, is on the horizon.

Joanna Saul Carns leads an office that investigates prison complaints in Washington State.  In 2016, she resigned as director of Ohio’s Correctional Institution Inspection Committee but hoped lawmakers who forced her out would keep funding it. Instead its budget has been slashed, it’s down to one staff member, it hasn’t issued a report in four years and is relying on unpaid interns.

“These staff people are dealing with tremendous workloads in a stressful environment. And so, things will fall through the cracks. And it’s not through anyone’s malintent,” Carns said. 

Carns said interns aren’t trained to analyze data on prison violence, mental health care and contraband among more than 49,000 inmates. She’s hoping lawmakers will bring back funding to the office to ensure more oversight over the prison system.

Karen is a lifelong Ohioan who has served as news director at WCBE-FM, assignment editor/overnight anchor at WBNS-TV, and afternoon drive anchor/assignment editor in WTAM-AM in Cleveland. In addition to her daily reporting for Ohio’s public radio stations, she’s reported for NPR, the BBC, ABC Radio News and other news outlets. She hosts and produces the Statehouse News Bureau’s weekly TV show “The State of Ohio”, which airs on PBS stations statewide. She’s also a frequent guest on WOSU TV’s “Columbus on the Record”, a regular panelist on “The Sound of Ideas” on ideastream in Cleveland, appeared on the inaugural edition of “Face the State” on WBNS-TV and occasionally reports for “PBS Newshour”. She’s often called to moderate debates, including the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s Issue 3/legal marijuana debate and its pre-primary mayoral debate, and the City Club of Cleveland’s US Senate debate in 2012.