By VIVIANE GILBERT STEIN of the East Oregonian
PENDLETON - The women are coming.
Within the week, women inmates will arrive at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution for the first time in its all-male history.
Desegregating a prison poses more challenges than one might think. The female inmates must be separated from the male population at all times - even visually.
| First of a Four-Part Series |
| Part I: Building preparations almost complete for new inmates |
| Part II: A look at the change from the eyes of the EOCI staff. |
| Part III: Education programs will be tailored to the women's needs. |
| Part IV: Women arrive at the formerly all-male Pendleton prison. |
That has led to an almost complete overhaul of an entire building behind EOCI's walls. One building, known as the H Unit, will house the women, their work, their meals, their education and even their exercise time.
"It's amazing, the changes that have gone on in such a short time," said H Unit Manager Lisa Large.
"Really, this does look better than it did a month ago," said Sgt. Robert Veatch, who was overseeing male inmates work in the H Unit Friday. "They've done a great job."
H Unit will be, in effect, a tiny prison within a prison.
"We don't have any space dedicated for any particular use - everything will be multi-use," explained Pat McKeone, assistant superintendent of program services. "We're doing everything in two spaces, pretty much."
Two large rooms will be multi-purpose rooms. Tables will be set up and taken down three times a day for meals. In the morning, one room might be used for exercising and laundry; in the afternoon, for classes, programs and as a library; in the evenings, for television watching.
"So it'll just be one thing after another using the space," said Large.
Wheels on the bottom of just about everything that can be moved will help meet that challenge. "We'll be mobile," Large said. "We'll move everything wherever we need to move it."
Elsewhere in the unit, two tiers of cells have been adapted to house 160 women. Some cells have been turned into interview rooms and offices. Privacy partitions have been installed in the showers. "Beauty bars" have been built outside the showers, to allow the women a place to dry their hair.
And inside the cells, a small but significant change signals a subtle difference between the former and future occupants: ladders.
Following a recommendation from the Department of Corrections, ladders were installed for women inmates to more easily reach the upper bunks. The bunk's height of 60 inches could be difficult for some women to climb on and off, but it's a luxury that EOCI staff expect to hear complaints about from the male inmates.
Most of the renovation work - probably 95 percent, Large estimated, - was done by EOCI's male inmates. That has included painting, plumbing and electrical work, as well as making the ladders and welding them to the metal bunks.
More work still awaits. For example, the exercise yard is a muddy mess and will remain that way for the time being. "When weather permits, the women will start helping to build their own yard," Large explained.
The yard will have a covered sitting area, bleachers and a walking track. But other features will await the new inmates. Possibilities include basketball, volleyball or badminton courts, but all will depend on what the women are interested in.
"We don't want to put a lot of energy and resources into something they won't be interested in," Large explained.
There are several pieces of exercise equipment indoors and plans for aerobics courses.
"The big key is, we don't know exactly who we're getting," Large explained. As a result, fine-tuning of exercise, educational and religious programs, for example, is on hold until the women arrive and staff can assess their needs. Too much preparation work could be lost "if we're going in the wrong direction," she pointed out. "So we're looking at seeing who we get and going from there."