By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD — When Claudia Prescott told her supervisors at the New Hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord the low staffing numbers made it unsafe for her to do her job, she said she was put on paid leave, investigated, forced to take a psychological exam, and then fired.
Prescott, 51, is now fighting to get her job back, and fighting to get Department of Corrections administrators to take the safety of officers and inmates seriously.
“I’m not going to go away. Everyone in there is still in jeopardy,” Prescott said.
The DOC has been scrambling to fill positions for months, offering a $10,000 signing bonus for new corrections officers, and offering per diem support workers $50 an hour wages. The administration finally deemed the situation serious enough to ask for help in March, getting soldiers for the state National Guard to work shifts.
But the National Guard deployment came after the department had placed Prescott on leave for telling Deputy Commissioner Paul Raymond and Warden Michelle Edmark that the staffing levels were dangerously low.
Prescott, a 17-year veteran officer and former union representative, felt the staffing situation had deteriorated in December of 2022 when she was working a weekend third shift. There were not enough officers available to keep the inmates and each other safe, and she let her supervisors know.
Prescott sent an email explaining she would keep the unit she was supervising on lockdown during the shift in order to protect staff and inmates. According to documents filed with the state Personnel Appeals Board, her supervisors told her she did not have that authority.
It is a fireable offense to risk the life and safety of a corrections officer or inmate, Prescott said. It’s also a serious violation for corrections officers to not follow orders. When asked by her supervisors if she would follow a direct order to allow the inmates out of their cells, Prescott said she would keep people safe and not follow that order.
Prescott was never given a direct order to end a lockdown that she never actually instituted. Her supposed insubordinate offense is that she sent an email to her bosses alerting them to what she saw as a dangerous situation in the prison and let them know how she would follow the policy to keep people safe on her watch.
“We’re putting our lives in our supervisors hands. I told them, ‘If you’re not going to (keep us safe) then I am.’ At the end of the day you have to do the right thing,” Prescott said.
Prescott was immediately put on administrative leave, suspended while the department investigated her insubordination. Meanwhile, conditions were getting worse, she said.
In January, Corrections Officer Lawrence Prather suffered a heart attack and died while he was on shift in Concord. He was working alone in a station normally staffed by two officers. In February, an inmate was murdered by another inmate during an assault at the prison in Berlin.
In March, the DOC closed its internal investigation into Prescott, but she was then ordered to undergo a psychological examination since her insubordination was deemed out of character by the administration.
The department’s examiner, Nicole Sawyer, not only found Prescott mentally healthy and fit for duty, but found the supposed insubordination to be a result of her serious concerns about safety in the prison.
“When discussing the incident that led to her being referred for this evaluation, CO Prescott articulated her concerns for her safety and the safety of her coworkers with specific details referenced to national standards, statutes, policies, and budgeting concerns,” Sawyer wrote in her report. “She demonstrated that she is well versed in safety protocols and the history of staffing of the DOC, particularly the men’s prison. She also demonstrated that she is outspoken and assertive and may at times lack tact in her delivery but is not ill-intentioned or misguided in her assessment of a given situation.”
Sawyer reviewed all of Prescott’s employee evaluations going back to 2007 where she was consistently praised for her leadership style and commitment to officer safety.
Prescott was called into a meeting with Edmark in July, and reiterated that she would not release inmates from their cells in situations where it is unsafe or a violation of DOC policy. Again, Prescott is not accused of actually instituting a lockdown in violation of a direct order. She sent an email stating that such a lockdown is necessary given the dangerous staffing levels.
In August, Edmark fired Prescott.
Prescott is appealing her termination. On Wednesday, DOC lawyer Mary Triick told the Personnel Appeals Board the department will move for summary judgment against Prescott. There has been no final hearing in Prescott’s appeal yet, and therefore no decision on the case.
The National Guard left the prisons in June, but it’s not clear if the staffing levels are any better. When the DOC finally asked for help in March, it announced the vacancy rate for entry level corrections officers was 51 percent. The year prior the vacancy rate was 39 percent.
DOC officials did not respond to a request for comment. The department is careful to guard data on the number of officers and the current ratio of officers to inmates.