Sheriff Found Guilty of Violating Detainees’ Rights With Restraint Chairs
CHEYENNE, WY – The Wyoming State Penitentiary is a place where many of Wyoming’s most violent and dangerous criminals are sent to serve their time. According to the Department of Corrections, an inmate’s life expectancy there is 1 in 15.5 years.
In July of 2015, the Wyoming State Penitentiary’s new executive director, Mark W. Ewins, a former Wyoming State Penitentiary warden, decided to take what he called a “risky” step.
Wyoming state prisons were required to have a policy in place that required employees to use restraints to restrain staff and inmates who were violent, belligerent, or considered a threat to themselves or other people.
Ewins said he and his designee, former Warden Greg Menges, believed that the way to protect the safety of Wyoming State Penitentiary staff and inmates was to use the existing policy in the penitentiary’s restraint chairs.
“There were no plans to change the policy,” Ewins said of the policy. “The policy was adequate to meet the requirement.”
The policy that became effective in the fall of 2014 said officers or volunteers were required to use the restraint chairs to physically restrain staff and inmates who were violent, belligerent, and considered a threat to themselves or other people.
A video of that policy and Ewins’ comments can be seen here.
Menges defended the policy in an interview with KWWL. One day after KWWL’s story aired, Menges resigned.
“I feel it is my responsibility to be out front with the problems at WSP. I feel it was a good policy and all I can do is to speak out and I’m just going to try to stay out front. I have a whole process of trying to change and improve the policies,” Menges said.
At the time of the story’s airing, Ewins acknowledged that use of the restraint chairs had been an issue at the WSP.
In his first statement made about the incident to the Wyoming State Legislature, E
