NEWS

May 9, 2008
Despite exemption, prisons to ban smoking

Iowa's prisons will become tobacco-free in early January even though state lawmakers exempted the institutions in a new law that bans smoking in most public places.

Prison officials are concerned about rising health care costs for inmates and believe banning smoking will help reduce those bills, said Fred Scaletta, prison spokesman.

Tobacco historically has been an important part of inmate culture. In the past decade, however, there has been a trend toward eliminating smoking in the nation's prisons.
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The Federal Bureau of Prisons, with more than 200,000 inmates in 114 facilities, has been smoke-free since 2004, said spokesman Mike Truman. Surveys have shown a majority of the 50 state prison systems are either tobacco-free or have partial smoking bans.

Some observers in Iowa, though, are worried about repercussions from a smoking ban.

"If you take away cigarettes from the inmates, they may have nobody else to take their frustrations out on other than a correctional officer," said Danny Homan, president of Council 61 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

State lawmakers excluded Iowa's prisons from a statewide smoking ban signed by Gov. Chet Culver that begins July 1 for bars, restaurants and other places.

But Iowa Department of Corrections officials said they are using the exemption to gain extra time to establish a tobacco-free environment for the state prison system's 8,600 inmates.

Scaletta said Jan. 1 next year has been tentatively scheduled as the tobacco-quitting date. The ban will cover every correctional facility, including cellhouses and prison yards. Smoking-cessation classes will be offered to inmates to help ease the transition. Correctional officers who need a nicotine break will have to step outside their prison's front door.

Marcus Rimmer, who is behind bars on a theft conviction, doesn't expect life to get any easier when cigarettes are banned.

"It's going to be very difficult," said Rimmer, 32, of Des Moines, a longtime smoker in custody at the Newton Correctional Facility. "I know cigarettes are a bad thing, but it's better than causing trouble and being violent. We need some kind of avenue to relieve our stress."

Homan said there were "tremendous problems" at the Clarinda state prison when it became tobacco-free six years ago.

Three of Iowa's prisons - at Clarinda, Oakdale and Mount Pleasant - already prohibit all tobacco use. Smoking is allowed in the prison yards at Fort Madison, Anamosa, Fort Dodge, Rockwell City, Newton and Mitchellville.

The prevalence of smoking among people who have been in jail or prison is more than twice as high as among the overall adult population, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Oakdale prison surveyed inmates in 1996 and found 90 percent described themselves as smokers. Most prisoners roll their own smokes to save money.

At the Newton prison, it was hard to find inmates enthusiastic about the prospect of going cold turkey while serving a prison sentence.

"It's a bad idea," said Jason Brown, 40, of Des Moines, serving time for robbery. He smokes 13 to 15 cigarettes a day. "Once you take cigarettes out, you will have short-tempered inmates. Inmates are edgy already dealing with stress."

However, most inmates transferred to the Newton prison haven't recently been smoking, said Warden Terry Mapes. One reason is that all new Iowa inmates are sent to the Oakdale prison reception center where cigarettes aren't allowed.

"You really do these guys a disservice by allowing them to get back into the habit, so for them it may not be very difficult" to stop smoking again, Mapes said. "But how do you tell a guy who is doing a life sentence at the penitentiary that smoking is not good for your health?"

The Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility, which holds more than 1,000 inmates, has been tobacco-free since Jan. 14.

The ban was ordered after prisoners repeatedly ignored instructions not to smoke inside the institution, which has dormitory-style rooms, Deputy Superintendent Charles Higgins said.

"People are adjusting relatively well at this stage of this game," he said.

"Obviously, we had some problems initially. We had some people who were heavy smokers. But we handed out some mints and stuff like that for the first week or so, and everybody has adjusted to it now."

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