Prison terms

The ACI has its own rules for releasing reports on escapees.
As a result, we may never know why Steven Glazier died

by John Winters

Some time on October 10, 1997, 36-year-old Stephen T. Glazier walked away from his work-release job in Bristol for the last time. And although he was serving a five-month sentence for assaulting his wife with a deadly weapon, he did not make the 10-minute trip to nearby Portsmouth, where his spouse lived. His bent was more self-destructive and would end in a Kingston hotel room registered to an acquaintance.

After Glazier disappeared from the steel company that employed him, his boss placed a call to the contact in the work-release program at the Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI) in Cranston. But according to Albert Bucci, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections (DOC), the work-release coordinator's pager "failed," so a lieutenant at the prison was not notified of Glazier's failure to return to the ACI until about 10 p.m.

A search was initiated, but by then Glazier was most likely holed up in the room at the Welcome Inn that would become his final resting place. The next morning, police found him dead of an accidental overdose, in a space littered with the evidence of his final hours -- some vodka, orange juice, and a powder that authorities believed to be cocaine or heroin.

"Acute intoxication by combined effects of cocaine, opiates, and ethanol" was the official proclamation on how Glazier snuffed out his life, according to his autopsy report. But the sad fact is that we may never know the entire story, because, like the population living behind the concrete walls and razor-wired fences at the ACI, the report on Glazier's death is under the DOC's lock and key.

Other crucial facts in the case are also unavailable to the press or public, including Glazier's work-release employer and whether the prison coordinator whose pager failed was found at fault or reprimanded. Even something as seemingly benign as the written directives that come into play when an inmate escapes or walks off a work-release job site are off limits, according to Bucci. Most brazen, this information is not even available to the family of Stephen Glazier.

Although they did not wish to participate in this article, the family would be out of luck if they were to request a copy of the report, says Bucci. "We would not share it with them. We would talk to them about it. It depends on their questions," he says. In other words, if the family were to come looking for closure, they probably would have to go elsewhere.

The entire scenario fits a paradigm described by Eric Lotke of the National Center of Institutions and Alternatives. "Prison systems are traditionally unaccountable," he says. And it is a shame a program of such good intentions is maligned by this cloak of secrecy.

Indeed, most experts agree that work release is a good way to help inmates bridge the gap between confinement and life back in society. In Rhode Island, the program began more than two decades ago, ideally to ease minimum-security inmates back into society and to give them incentives to behave while behind bars. Such programs also allow prisoners to pay back some of their debt to society in a very literal way.

An average of 85 to 100 inmates are involved in the program at any one time in Rhode Island. And although it includes inmates who are serving time for manslaughter, rape, and armed robbery, they cannot enter the program until they have made their way to a minimum-security facility. No one serving life without parole is eligible.

To encourage self-empowerment, the program mandates that inmates arrange their own job and find transportation, usually via bus. While on the job, the prisoners are overseen not by DOC officers but by their on-the-job supervisors, and security measures include background checks on the employers in the program, a roving prison supervisor who randomly checks up on the inmates, and notification of local police when an inmate begins work in their town.

"There are a lot of positives and very little negative," Bucci says of the program. The negatives include "four or five escapes a year," he says, most of whom are caught with little incident. Still, there have been a few incidents (such as the March 1993 escape of convicted murderer Ronald F. Oatley Jr., who walked away from a work-release job only to rob a convenience store at gunpoint) that serve as reminders of the danger involved in prisoners working out in society.

Indeed, the reason the records in the DOC files are closed may be that there have been controversies in the past surrounding the work-release program. Specifically, a 1995 WJAR-Channel 10 investigative report on the subject led the DOC to make several changes, such as background checks on prospective employers. Also, inmates were no longer allowed to work for relatives, while care was taken to keep those with restraining orders against them (as Glazier did, filed by his wife) away from those they might harm.

And so, if the DOC has its house in order now, why are reports like the one on Glazier closed? The reason given presents an interesting contradiction.

Bucci says the information is investigative in nature and that the DOC does not share any investigative reports with anyone. However, under state law, some sensitive information may indeed be withheld -- but only as it pertains to an investigation by a law-enforcement organization.

Although Bucci bases his claim on this, the fact is that the ACI is not a law-enforcement organization. Proof of this can be seen in the fact that when an inmate walks off a work-release job, the prison can do nothing but provide information to local and state police, which do the actual searching. What's more, even if the DOC were a law-enforcement agency, the state law says that portions of a report/record can be "closed" only if it harms the investigation in some way.

Kyle E. Niederpruem, freedom of information chair for the Society of Professional Journalists, says that such statute-stretching is common among prison officials. She adds that the US Supreme Court looks to two cases in considering such matters. One says journalists have no constitutional right of access to prisons or their inmates other than what is afforded to the general public. The other defers to prison administrators, who must show that a policy is reasonably related to a legitimate "penological" interest, such as security.

"Prison officials know they can stretch these rules and regulations to the limit in denying access," says Niederpruem.

Still, unlike Rhode Island, other New England states allow unfettered access to such materials as escape reports and policies and procedures. Spokespersons for the corrections departments in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire all say that these are public documents in their states.

In Massachusetts, the Correctional Offenders Information Act limits access to some information, but that law is expected to be repealed this year, according to Jack Authelet, the state's Society of Professional Journalists chair.

"It's all public information on the work-release program," he says. "The public has the right to know how its business is being conducted."

Media access to inmates is another area where Rhode Island lags behind its neighbors. All the other New England states allow unrestricted, face-to-face and phone interviews with prisoners, according to a survey conducted last year by the journalism magazine Quill. Rhode Island, however, is listed as requiring all questions to be submitted in advance for approval and as having a policy against phone interviews. (Bucci says the only requirements for face-to-face interviews are that the director approve them in advance and that the subject matter of the interview be disclosed. As for phone interviews, he says the DOC does not prevent them.)

But as closed as the state's DOC is, it is not out of step with the nation as a whole. Many states cop to the "investigative restrictions" clause when it comes to opening reports, and, in general, the corrections industry is moving toward tightening access and shutting out the prying media. This is troubling, since not only are inmates' lives and rights at stake, but also tax dollars and public safety.

"It's more important than ever to get inside the walls and accurately report on what is going on," Niederpruem says. "Without access, that can't be done."

One thing the Rhode Island DOC has made abundantly clear is that it is in no way responsible for the death of Stephen Glazier, despite the breakdown in communications and the fact that his disappearance was not reported until 10 p.m. on the day he walked off.

"Human behavior is unpredictable," Bucci says. But Lotke sees it differently -- more a matter of priorities than chance.

"There's a lot of disposable people in the world," he says, "and evidently, he [Glazier] was one of them."

But while Glazier may have been just one of 3000-plus prisoners to the ACI, to his parents, he was anything but disposable. Unfortunately, for now the book is closed on the lonesome death of Stephen Glazier, and thanks to the fortress erected by the DOC, it most likely will remain so.

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