Havoc created in jail cells

Chronically violent prison inmates, who officials were forced to relocate when doors in their Walpole cellblock began mysteriously opening without cause, lashed out in two other prisons where they were transferred this week, prison officials said.

Inmates from the notorious 10 Block segregation unit at MCI Cedar Junction in Walpole ripped beds off cell walls, kicked toilets loose, and broke observation windows at MCI Norfolk and the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley this week. All of the destruction took place while the inmates were inside their cells and there was no damage to tiers or common areas, officials said.

The inmates who went on the rampages were among 162 of the state's most incorrigible offenders, who were transferred to six other facilities Monday after three doors at Walpole's Department Disciplinary Unit opened spontaneously in what officials have called a malfunction of the prison's electronic door-control system.

''The bottom line is that we have moved a lot of inmates who are destructive anyway," Department of Correction spokeswoman Diane Wiffin said. ''They are in prison because they couldn't follow the rules of society, and they are in segregation because they couldn't follow the rules of prison. They don't adapt well to change."

Wiffin said that eight cells in the segregation unit at MCI Norfolk were rendered uninhabitable after about a dozen inmates reacted violently to their move to new quarters on Thursday. On Wednesday, she said, a few inmates who had been transferred from Walpole to Souza-Baranowski began acting up, rendering one cell there unusable.

Wiffin said that correction officers from Walpole have been loaned to the two facilities to help guards there handle the new inmates and that several cases resulting from the damage are being referred to the Norfolk district attorney's office for prosecution.

Steve Kenneway, president of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union, said that the Walpole unit was the worst place for the problem to occur because many of the inmates are there because they are chronic rule breakers, have assaulted guards, or have assaulted -- and in some cases killed -- other inmates.

''Now we have the facilities that are housing these knuckleheads going through what the Walpole people unfortunately have to go through all the time," he said.

Department of Correction officials acknowledged earlier this week that guards at Cedar Junction had complained about malfunctioning doors in the Department Disciplinary Unit for a week prior to the mysterious door-opening on Monday.

In that incident, the disciplinary unit's centrally operated electronic door-control system opened a cell door for no apparent reason at about 7:05 p.m. One inmate left the cell briefly, but went back inside voluntarily and allowed correction officers to relock the door, officials said.

Later Monday night, the computerized system spontaneously opened two exit doors on the unit, prompting Commissioner Kathleen M. Dennehy to order all 106 inmates on the unit moved until the problem could be assessed. Dennehy also ordered that 56 inmates from Block 10, another disciplinary unit, be moved as a precaution.