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Unlucky Seven

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By Monday, Schriro has found room for improvement. Eight days after Williams killed himself, she orders that all inmates returning from court be screened to determine whether they're suicidal. The goal is to identify inmates who may become suicidal in reaction to adverse court proceedings. Previously, inmates were formally screened only at initial booking. "We're doing a re-intake each time they come back from court," Schriro says. In addition, jailers last week began updating suicide-watch lists at least every eight hours to ensure that supervisors have the latest information on inmates deemed suicide risks. More changes are likely, Schriro adds.

Schriro has plenty of experience running jails and prisons. She was the workhouse superintendent from 1989-93, leaving that job to become director of the state Department of Corrections. Gov. Bob Holden replaced her in May, five months after he took office. Since then, she's been a finalist to head state prison systems in Idaho and Texas. If she's disappointed she didn't get those jobs, she doesn't show it. "I tell you, there's no place like home," she says. "I really love this work." Her experience shows during a recent visit to the workhouse. Just four days into her new job, inmates and staff alike call out greetings as she walks the corridors. "Ms. Schriro, come on in and visit us," hollers one inmate from a dayroom enclosed in steel bars. The familiarity is a function of Schriro's years spent in corrections and the frequency of her visits to the workhouse during her first days on the job. "It's pretty unusual, a commissioner here three times in one week," she says.

JoAnn Williams, who has represented jailers since 1986, is skeptical that Schriro will make a difference. "She's left and returned, and the condition of the facility is the same," she says.

Ed Bushmeyer, who took over as the city's public-safety director after Francis Slay became mayor, says he talked to Schriro about the suicides before hiring her. "He's very concerned," Schriro says. "We're both really committed to protecting the [inmate] population, as well as the staff." Besides suicides, Schriro is worried about a certain security problem in the workhouse, which she says she won't identify, at least until the problem is solved. Reducing the inmate population is also on her agenda. "The challenge is to earn public trust and maintain it over the long haul," she says.

But Schriro and other city officials will have to work hard to win the Lloyd's trust.

"I'm not money-hungry or whatever, but I think people don't change unless you start making them pay financially," Loretta Lloyd says. "I'm going to pursue it. For my child and other people's children, you can't treat them like that, even though they've done things to be incarcerated."

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