While attending the installation supper at a lodge a few miles from Leavenworth, KS (not his regular lodge), my husband struck up a conversation with a fellow brother who also happened to be a guard at the Leavenworth Federal Prison. After a few minutes, the subject of Y2k was brought up by the guard. The guard looked my husband straight in the eye and said that they have a "Y2k Plan". This is the plan: They will open the doors to the prison for 40 minutes, let everyone out, bring their families in and lock the place up tight. The guard didn't wink or smile when he said this. He said it would be their own island, in whatever mess was around them.

-- Midwest Mason (middleof@merica.com), December 22, 1999

Answers

Well, I hope they've stored enough food at the prison for a 3-day winter storm!

-- impala (impala@wild.com), December 22, 1999.

Hope Porky's got his bugout bag ready.

-- Sam (Wtrmkr52@aol.com), December 22, 1999.

This is highly unlikely. I think we should all view this with an enormous grain of salt.

I've met prison guards before. While it is likely that non-violent or minimum-security offenders might be released in a severe emergency, the murderers and rapists are not going to be released on an unsuspecting community. They would be shot in their cells first; many guards are eagerly waiting for a legitimate excuse to do this.

-- Woody (woody@toyfactory.com), December 22, 1999.

Silliness. Neighbor is a guard at Chino here in SoCal. It's all extra shifts and lockdown baby. Nobody in, nobody out.

-- Carlos (riffraff1@cybertime.net), December 23, 1999.

Uh oh. I posted the above, but I just saw there's another "Woody" on the board. Better change my name...

-- slottedpig (slottedpig@toyfactory.com), December 23, 1999.

If they actually do something like this we, as a society, should seriously reconsider whether public hanging constitutes a 'cruel and unusual' punishment or not.

Isn't it ironic? Armed guards will be letting crooks OUT of a hardend, well stocked site at Leavenworth while in D.C. the crooks will be walking INTO a hardend, well stocked site with armed guards.

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), December 23, 1999.

But public hanging involves using a rope, a renewable resources that is not intended for disposal, but is so environmentally friendly that when it biodegrades it helps the environment. Wouldn't the fern feeling damnocrats approve of it?

-- Phread (lurking@y2k.com), December 23, 1999.

-TECH32-

That was priceless.

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), December 23, 1999.

These prison stories are getting pretty tedious. Every town/city, every county, every State and Federal prison is run by a different set of people with a different set of rules. There is no one thing that will happen.

The only thing they have to do to secure the doors is chain them shut and have a few extra guards to run individual prisoners out or in per cell block. There are at least three layers of securable doors in a medium or high security prison. They will simply weld the doors shut if it comes to that. The guards will not risk their lives going in to a prison block which is not lockable. If prisoners riot or try to escape they will simply shoot them on sight as they try. One bullet per head.

They are not going to let these prisoners out simply because the water or electricity is out or food is not coming in. I'm sorry, but these folks who run the prisons live nearby to them and will not just open the doors.

In a situation where prisoners overwhelm a few guards as chaos descends will be met with overwhelming force.

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), December 23, 1999.

Tell hubby my worshipfull master corrections officer hubby says.."NEVER"..! It is just as Carlos says FULL LOCKDOWN. Your husbands fellow brother is saying what he's "like" to see happen perhaps..wishfull thinking. But in reality...no jails have plans like this. In case of nuclear plant emergency or nuclear bomb they wouldn't even open the doors then.

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), December 23, 1999.