Fenceless prisons defended after latest escape

Correctional officials acknowledged yesterday that only one of the nine facilities that house the state’s 1,261 minimum-security inmates is surrounded by a fence, and doors are often kept unlocked to accommodate inmates who come and go to eat, work, exercise, and attend programs.

Yet, Manson Brown, whose escape from the Old Colony Correctional Center last Friday has triggered a massive search, is the only state inmate at a minimum security prison to walk off this year, according to correctional officials. Seven fled from minimum-security prisons last year; just one did in 2007.

Prison officials said they have no plans to tighten security at the state’s minimum-security prisons, which are run in much the same way as other minimum-security facilities nationwide.

“This one event will not define the Department of Correction as far as the appropriateness of security levels that we place inmates at,’’ Christopher Fallon, a spokesman for the department, said yesterday. “We don’t think there’s a problem with security, and I think the numbers [of escapes] sort of bear that out.’’

Fred Cohen, a retired criminal justice professor at the State University of New York at Albany, who is overseeing Ohio prisons as a federal court monitor, said that minimum-security prisons nationally have little or no perimeter security.

“By definition, a minimum security prison is going to have the most freedom, it’s going to operate most like the community, often without fencing, and sometimes doors are open,’’ said Cohen, adding that such facilities are meant to prepare inmates for release.

Brown, 51, was convicted in 2005 of home invasion and armed robbery and would have been eligible for parole in October 2012. He fled from the Bridgewater prison Friday between 5:40 p.m., when an officer saw him, and 6:30 p.m., officials said.

Officers later learned that Brown had read an article in Friday’s Boston Globe disclosing that Brown had been indicted Nov. 19 on rape charges, after the State Police crime lab allegedly matched his DNA to samples taken from a woman during a Cambridge home invasion in 1996.

A spokeswoman for the office of Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr. has acknowledged that prosecutors did not alert correctional officials to Brown’s indictment. Prison officials say they would have moved Brown to a more secure facility if they they had known of the new charge.

The state does not place sex offenders in minimum-security prisons, Fallon said.

The State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section and correctional officers have been searching for Brown throughout New England and in other states, according to David Procopio, a spokesman for the State Police.

Yesterday, helicopters and bloodhounds joined in the search for Brown, of Mattapan, who is 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighs about 145 pounds, and sometimes wears glasses, he said.

Steve Kenneway, president of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union, said the union believes there should be locked fences around all minimum-security facilities.

“They have the ability to walk away at any time,’’ he said.

Fallon said inmates are not eligible for minimum-security placement unless they are eligible for release or parole in less than four years and are considered a low security risk based on a point system. Their disciplinary record, criminal history, and participation in programs are all considered.

Officers do not always monitor the entrances at minimum-security facilities, but conduct hourly checks on the inmates, Fallon said.

“There is a level of accountability,’’ Fallon said. “We rely on security staff to do their jobs.’’

Of the state’s 11,183 inmates, 1,261 are assigned to the state’s five minimum-security facilities or four other facilities that house inmates in minimum security and prerelease units, he said.

Len Engel, senior policy analyst for the Boston-based Crime and Justice Institute, cited numerous studies indicating there are lower recidivism rates among inmates released from the state’s minimum-security prisons.

“It doesn’t make sense that a guy is behind bars 24-7 and the next day he’s out and we expect him to be assimilated,’’ Engel said.