A Breakout on the Mayor's Watch

Giddy as he is from the potshots that he and his would-be successor, D.C. Council Chairman Linda Cropp, have been taking at mayoral front-runner Adrian Fenty, Tony Williams nonetheless ought to wipe the grin off his face. The mayor should repair to a quiet corner this weekend and digest the latest confidential review of yet another troubled city agency under his jurisdiction.

The list of beleaguered D.C. government agencies is already long, with the Mental Retardationand Developmental Disabilities Administration, the Department of Mental Health, the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services, and the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs vying for the worst-in-show title. But now there's a new contender.

For all the barbs thrown at Fenty -- the Democratic council member from Ward 4 -- for his principled stance against the hastily and politically inspired crime bill, Williams cannot escape questions about lax mayoral oversight that are rightfully headed his way as a result of the report on escapes from the D.C. jail by inmates Joseph Leaks and Ricardo Jones on June 3.

Read the results of the internal investigation of the escapes from the Department of Corrections' Central Detention Facility (CDF) -- or D.C. jail -- and it's easy to see why any self-respecting mayor should drop his head in shame. Williams -- not Fenty or any of the other leading mayoral candidates -- was responsible for the jail. Several corrections directors have labored under Williams over the past eight years. He praised the last one lavishly. And it's fair to say that, on the mayor's watch, there has been an assembly of jailers that might be hard to surpass for corruption and negligence.

Thus far the new corrections director, Devon Brown, has fired 11 workers for their roles in the jailbreak, and the U.S. attorney and the FBI are conducting a criminal investigation relating to possible corruption charges. Arrests are distinctly possible. Consider these conclusions in the report prepared by the Corrections Department's Special Investigations Division:

· "There is strong evidence suggesting that the staff intentionally aided and abetted in the planning and execution of the escapes."

· "While departmental policy and procedure are for the most part sufficient, staff negligence in properly adhering to them and circumvention of established regulations were contributors to the escape."

· "Mistakes in the security classifications of both inmates repeatedly occurred by employees holding varying levels of authority, thereby allowing inappropriate housing, job assignments, and contact between inmates Leaks and Jones."

· "Proper controls on inmate movement throughout the facility were lacking."

· "Despite departmental policy requiring the siren at the CDF to be tested on a quarterly basis, this exercise had not occurred in at least four years."

It gets better -- or worse.

Let's take inmate Leaks. He had a long rap sheet, including a history of escape. In fact, he had escaped from the D.C. jail in October. He should have been classified at the highest offense level when he was sent back to the jail. Instead, he was twice misclassified to a lower offense level, with jail officials considering neither his escape record nor other infractions, including parole violations.