Mecklenburg Correctional Center

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Mecklenburg Correctional Center is a medium security prison operated by the Virginia Department of Corrections in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, U.S.A.

Opened in March, 1977 at a cost of $20 million dollars, this 360 inmate facility in Boydton, Virginia was intended to serve as the facility for the "worst of the worst" among inmates in the Virginia Department of Corrections system. At the opening ceremony, Governor Mills E. Godwin stated that the facility served as a "monument to failure", as the inmates to be housed there were viewed as the most incorrigible and likely unable to be returned to free society.

The prison has features, such as numerous electronic cellhouse doors that required the continuous presence of a corrections officer around the clock. This put fewer than necessary officers on the floor to observe inmates. Additionally, the low pay led to numerous guard positions remaining unfilled and caused some guards to be susceptible to bribes from inmates to bring in contraband into the facility. There were a high number of guard on inmate as well as inmate on guard assaults, leading to numerous lawsuits alleging human rights abuses against the Corrections department.

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The 1984 escape from death row

Six inmates facing the Virginia electric chair made a daring escape from the facility on May 31st, 1984. The inmates who escaped, two of the infamous Briley Brothers (James and Linwood), Lem Tuggle, Earl Clanton, Derick Peterson and Willie Jones had observed how guards were lax about following procedures. While returning to the building from evening recreation time, the hulking Clanton hid in a guard station restroom, then charged out on cue from another inmate when the the guard station door was open.

Clanton overpowered the guard and released all of the locks in the housing unit. Inmates took over the unit and stole the uniforms of guards who subsequently entered on rounds. They bluffed their way out of the unit by putting on riot helmets to conceal their faces as they carried a purported bomb (in actuality a cellhouse tv covered with a blanket) out of the unit and into a waiting van, which they then drove out of the prison.

Once the six men were free of the prison, they escaped across the nearby North Carolina border. The men soon split up, unsure of what to do now they were back in free society. Earl Clanton and Derick Peterson were caught the following day when a police car driving past a laundromat noticed the men wearing what appeared to be the shirt of a prison guard with the badges ripped off. The two were intoxicated on cheap convenience store wine at the time.

Tuggle, Jones and the Briley Brothers stole a pickup truck with the vanity tag 'PEI-1' from the driveway of it's owner. The Brileys were dropped off in Philadelphia, where they went to work as mechanics for a friend of a local uncle. Tuggle and Jones got as far north as Vermont, where Tuggle was apprehended after robbing a souvenir shop for gas money. Jones gave himself up the following day, just five miles south of the Canadian border. All six men were returned to Virginia under heavy security.

Linwood Briley was executed on October 12, 1984, James Briley was next to be executed on April 18, 1985, Earl Clanton was executed on April 14, 1988, followed by Derick Peterson on August 22, 1991, penultimately Willie Jones on September 15, 1992 and the last of the six to be executed was Lem Tuggle on December 12, 1996

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Aftermath of the escape

The impact of the 1984 escape had sweeping ramifications for the Virginia corrections system. The director of the Department of Corrections was forced to resign. The warden of the facility, Gary Bass, was transferred out of that position. In federal courtroom testimony in a case involving the prison on September 27, 1984, Bass stated that various lawsuits against the prison had weakened morale among corrections staff and left them feeling that the "ACLU was running the prison".

In the years that followed the 1984 escape, many reforms occurred at Mecklenburg Correctional Center. There were educational programs introduced for inmates as well as work details. Guards received better training, in which they were trained not to abuse inmates and use force only when emergency situations warranted it. A positive result of this change in philosophy -- the number of inmate on guard assaults dropped significantly in the following years.

The prison was proposed for closure by Governor L. Douglas Wilder in 1993. However, the succeeding administration of Governor George F. Allen determined that Mecklenburg should remain open, reclassified from a maximum security to medium security 'intake' facility. Death row was moved from the facility to Sussex I State Prison near Waverly in 1997. Today, most inmates who come to Mecklenburg are newly convicted and spend a few weeks there before being classified based on their security risk and sent to another prison.

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Sources

"Escape Taught Hard Lesson - Death Row Flight Saw Fear Wipe Out Security Illusion", Frank Green and Michael Hardy, Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 29, 1994

"Plot Warnings Were in Vain", Frank Green and Wes Allison, Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 29, 1994

"Five Years After 'Great Escape' - Bomb Set Off Prison Changes", Jim Mason, Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 30, 1989