Toolan incarcerated at Cedar Junction
Opportunities and freedoms are slim; daily schedule is rigid
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
Thomas Toolan, III, convicted on Nantucket June 21 of first degree murder conducted with exreme atrocity in the fatal Oct. 25, 2004 stabbing of Elizabeth "Beth" Lochtefeld, spent about a week in an evaluation process at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Concord, Mass., beginning the afternoon following his sentencing to life in prison withot parole.

Subsequently, he was sent to MCI-Cedar Junction, an old maximum security prison in South Walpole that opened in the mid-1950s and has 20-foot walls topped with layers of live electrical wires. This is where Toolan may spend the remainder of his life.

According to Diane Wiffin, Director of Public Affairs for the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, who noted that state law prohibits the release of information on individual inmates, all cells in the state's maximum security prisons are single. Cedar Junction inmates sentenced to life behind bars begin their terms in an orientation section where they are screened for suitable placement in one of the prison's three general population units. Cedar Junction has a current count of 729 inmates with prison capacity standing at 816.

Wiffin explained that the daily schedule for general population inmates begins at 7 a.m. when they go to the facility's chow hall for breakfast. Lunch is from just past noon to 1:30 p.m. and dinner begins at 5:15 p.m., but since there are so many prisoners to feed, individually they only receive about 20 minutes to eat during each meal. The usual time allotted out of their cells is six hours per day, when inmates may shower, use the phone, visit the prison law library or engage in prison programs or employment. Programs include substance abuse education, vocational skills, life skills and religious meetings. Employment opportunities include making vehicle license plates, working in janitorial or food services or becoming library clerks. Inmates in employment or other programs may remain out of their cells longer than six hours a day. While lockdown is at 9:30 p.m., general population inmates control their own cell lights and may stay up after lockdown to read, for example.

The Department of Corrections Web site outines security levels at maximum holding facilities as reflecting the need to provide the tightest "external and internal control and supervision of inmates, primarily through the use of high security parameters and extensive use of internal physical barriers and check points. Inmates accorded this status present serious escape risks or pose serious threats to themselves, to other inmates, to staff or the orderly running of the institution. Supervision of inmates is direct and constant." The control and supervision in a medium security prison is the same, although inmates at these facilities are considered less of an escape risk or threat than at the maximum level. Medium security inmates who are willing to comply with the institution's rules are offered more choices for employment and prison programs.

Wiffin explained that all first and second degree 'lifers' stay in maximum security prisons for a minimum of two years, but all inmates are reviewed every six months, according to their offender classification, to determine suitability of institutional placement. That evaluation is a point-based score system to allow officials to decide if inmates should remain where they are presently placed or if they should be moved to another maximum security facility or a medium security jail. Since Toolan was sentenced to life in prison without parole, Wiffin said he will not be transferred to a minimum

security prison. I