Wow wow wow. This is a must read. The problems seem insurmountable.
There are always bad apples, and underpaying, under training employees in any profession is always going to produce systemic problems, IMO. That plus the sheer size of the US prison population and the huge number of violent inmates equals an inevitable flow of stories about things going bad and wrong.
From a report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2013 (stats are as of 12/13/2013):
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p13.pdf
Total number of prisoners in the US ( state, private, and federal facilities): 1,574,700
Percentage of prisoners in STATE PRISONS serving sentences for violent crimes (includes murder, assault, sexual assault, and burglary): 53.8%
Total number of state prisoners convicted of violent crimes: 707,500
Percentage of those violent offenders convicted of murder: 12.7%
So, in 2013, state prisons held 55,708 convicted murderers out of a total of 707,500 inmates in prison for violent offenses.
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In New York State (NY correctional system report, as of 1/2014)
http://www.doccs.ny.gov/Research/annotate.asp
Total state prison inmates: 53,565
Percentage convicted of violent crimes: 65.5%
Number of inmates convicted of murder: 6,975
Percentage serving LWOP: 1% (256 inmates)
Percentage serving Life-Max: 18% (9,751 inmates)