By Titan Barksdale
Raleigh News & Observer
Related: 18 inmates injured in a Md. prison fight
RALEIGH, N.C. — Street gangs in North Carolina communities have boiled over into the state’s prison system, resulting in more gang assaults behind bars.
Gang-related fights in North Carolina prisons have risen steadily since 2004, according to state prison officials. There were five gang-related fights in 2004, the first year such statistics were collected. The total jumped to 59 in 2007.
And as of February, 24 gang-related incidents had occurred this year -- nearly half of last year’s total.
The state recorded its first documented gang-related killing in a prison last month. On Feb. 5, inmate Gary Bell, 41, was stabbed to death at the high-security Scotland Correctional Institution in Laurinburg. Bell was serving a 10-year sentence on a habitual felon conviction.
Three inmates have been accused in the attack. Edward Curk Wiley, 25, and Harold Lamont Parker, 35, have both been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy. Another inmate, Jodie L. Steele II, 26, has been charged with conspiracy and accessory after the fact.
Wiley is serving a 15-year sentence for statutory rape, and Parker is on a six-year sentence for a habitual felon conviction. Steele is serving a year for an involuntary manslaughter conviction.
Few details have been released about Bell’s death, but authorities say he was stabbed several times with a piece of fence from the prison.
The killing marks at least the second brutal stabbing in the Scotland prison in 2 1/2 years.
In 2005 at Scotland, Charles Morris was stabbed by an inmate whose prison record shows he had been involved with a gang. Morris has been moved to a prison in Pender County.
State Department of Correction officials deny that the rising numbers signal trouble with managing gang violence in Scotland or other prisons in North Carolina. But the influx of gang members into the prison system is growing, and the violence is increasing.
“We know we have to do more,” said Bill Smith, a gang specialist with the Correction Department.
Stabbing victim sues
For Shari Morris, the latest stabbing brings back painful memories of the brutal assault on her husband. Charles Morris suffered permanent injuries from the assault, in which he was stabbed in his chest, abdomen and legs as he slept in his prison bunk.
Shari Morris says Scotland correction officers should keep better watch over prisoners and improve weapons checks. “It seems that the staff is not able to head some of this off,” she said.
She said the correction officers dismissed her husband’s warnings that he was in danger. She said he had been attacked twice before.
Charles Morris has taken legal action against the department. In a lawsuit filed with the N.C. Industrial Commission, Morris claims that correction officers’ negligence led to the stabbing. Morris says guards failed to keep careful watch of inmates housed in different areas of the prison.
“These officers ... negligently allowed the assailant, assigned to another dorm and unit to enter his cell,” the claim says.
Morris, who is in prison on a habitual felon conviction, has difficulty speaking and walking since the attack, the lawsuit said. He is seeking $500,000 from the department.
An assistant attorney general who is defending the department has asked the commission to dismiss the claim. The department denies any intentional wrongdoing by correction officers.
Prison officials said they are keeping better track of the problem. “We’re seeing an increase because we’re better trained to know what to look for,” spokesman Keith Acree said.
Prison officials won’t say exactly how they identify gang activity and what they do to prevent violence. They say providing too much information about gang incidents can undermine the prisons’ efforts and endanger other inmates and their relatives.
But prison officials said they take the problem seriously. The prisons have special correction officers to monitor and identify gang activity and develop information from local law enforcement. In 2005, a special prison unit in Morganton was opened to house disruptive gang members.
At least 22 street gangs have been identified in state prisons, officials said, including Crips, Bloods and Sur-13 and lesser- known gangs such as the Orphans and Tiny Rascals.
“The big [gangs] you see in the street are the ones you see in the jails,” Acree said. Some gangs require assaults as an initiation rite, and other assaults are retaliatory, prison officials said.
Fredrick Hubbard, an administrator at the Scotland prison, insists that North Carolina prisons are no less safe than other state prisons across the country.
“We have facility searches and inmate searches,” Hubbard said. “The weapons are not coming in from the outside. [Prisoners] can find any object and make a homemade weapon out of it.”
Copyright 2008 The Raleigh News & Observer