Sixty-four sprawling acres lie imprisoned behind Stateville Correctional Center`s maximum security walls, confining more than 2,000 inmates. Spirals of barbed wire top off a fortress of cyclone fences while guard towers rise above the surrounding flat farmland like silent, watchful silos.
Despite all the incredible internal and external precautions, trained staff and physical barriers, the bottom line for protecting the public from hardened criminals is still a jailhouse staple: lock and key.
Since 1905, the Folger Adam Company in Lemont has been keeping prisons locked tight, quietly producing security and detention equipment for 87 years. Set back inside a quiet industrial park, their 120,000-square-foot unassuming, low-rise, modern building houses corporate offices and design and manufacturing areas. Their corporate style seems surprisingly low-key for a detention industry leader commanding more than 80 percent of the marketplace.
Folger Adam also produces custom high-security locking devices, electronic security systems and controlled access products for apartment complexes and other buildings-a lesser-known aspect of their company services. Many in the correctional industry view Folger Adam products as the standard by which to judge all others.
”Locks are the most important feature of every prison,” said Gary Gayhart, president of Ackley-Dornback, Inc., a detention equipment contractor in Wauwatosa, Wis. ”Security is only as good as the locks keeping the doors closed, making Folger Adam products the first and last line of defense in a prison. We`re dedicated to them, having used their items exclusively for the last 15 years.
”They have higher degree of standards than any other manufacturer. Their products are thoroughly tested for reliability and longevity before being brought to the marketplace. They are at the forefront of security innovation. With Folger Adam we can put in their products, walk away and never have to go back.”
The concept of quality always has been a predominant theme at Folger Adam, which has roots hailing back to the Joliet area from before the turn of the century. Company founder William J. Adam settled in Joliet from Canada in the 1870s, starting Adam Steel and Wire Works. His products consisted of chicken wire, ornamental fencing and grillwork.
His son, Folger Adam, entered the business in 1905 following graduation from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. After his father`s retirement, he changed the company name and focused on producing security equipment. Among the first prison products of the company were portable jail cells.
From such humble beginnings, the Folger Adam company has grown to a corporation of $70 million in annual revenues and 345 employees.
The corrections industry is a growing, thriving business, a fact not lost on Folger Adam. Across the United States, 1.2 million persons fill 3,400 county jails and more than 2,500 state and federal correctional institutions. Stateville has 2,130 inmates, a number Warden Salvador Godinez said soon will increase.
About 45 percent of the inmates at Stateville are serving time for murder. Another 35 percent are incarcerated for crimes such as attempted murder, deviate sexual assault, heinous battery, rape, armed robbery and aggravated arson.
”Our past fiscal year ending on March 31, 1992, was a record-breaker for us,” noted Robert J. Carter, vice president of sales at Folger Adam. ”I think it is reasonable to say that almost every detention facility in the U.S. has some of our equipment.”
Folger Adam products cover the full range of security requirements for correctional and detention facilities. When it comes to locks, they have 845 different variations.
Their product lineup includes locking hardware, door controls, central facility monitoring, closed-circuit television, fire management, intercom and paging, sound threshold monitoring, motion detection, audio surveillance, cell-door locking devices, corridor/entrance door operators, prison cell furniture and fixtures.
Computer technology aids the design and development of their products. Bill Malinowski, the computer-aided design drafting (CADD) coordinator, has worked at Folger Adam for the past five years.
”With CADD,” he explained, ”we can draw a lock from concept to cut metal on the computer screen before even touching a pencil.
”An eight-pen plotter resembling a small robot then draws out the design for the engineers when they`re ready to put pen to paper. This mechanism provides a neat, uniform result when printed out that is extremely accurate.” In designing, Malinowski emphasized, engineers must first keep in mind the function of the lock or hardware, along with the prospect of inmate abuse. ”We even design doorknobs focusing on safety first,” he said. ”If an inmate gets into a tug-of-war with a guard, we want to make sure that the doorknob on his side is difficult to grasp and the one on the guard`s side is easy.”
Every step of the way in designing hardware, Folger Adam engineers must be cognizant of how an inmate could turn an item into a weapon or sabotage the product.
”We use stainless steel in our locks instead of carbon steel,” he added, ”so that an inmate couldn`t use a corrosive substance to rust or corrode it.”
Project engineer Rick Frausto has been at Folger Adam for more than 12 years, custom-designing locking devices for courthouses, county jails and federal prisons. Working closely with architects who specialize in designing prisons, he determines their lock and hardware needs.
”The choice of the locks used,” he said, ”depends on the type of inmates assigned to particular prison areas-designated as minimum, medium or maximum security.”
His biggest job was a prison with 700 locking units, a million dollars worth of equipment. A large job like that can take as long as eight months from beginning (first bid Folger Adam makes to a prison architect) to end
(final shipment of products).
Two recent corporate acquisitions have expanded the product line and services. Stewart Decatur Security Systems, Inc., Erlanger, Ky., acts as a detention equipment contractor, and the newly purchased William Bayley Co., Springfield, Ohio, is a leader in production of detention windows.
Because of widespread overcrowding in all prisons nationwide, there is a need for new facilities and expansion of existing ones. According to the American Correctional Association, the United States correctional system will spend $5 billion on prison construction in the upcoming year.
”The U.S. has more inmates per population than any other country in the world,” Carter said.
At Stateville, Carter noted that Folger Adam products were installed 10 years earlier in the infamous Roundhouse where an inmate uprising took place in July 1991 following the shooting of an inmate who had stabbed a guard captain with a homemade knife. Working closely with the architect, a custom-designed security system was installed that could be controlled from one remote location. The system prevented the rioters from reaching an area where they could have obtained arms and opened all the cell doors.
The unusual round cellhouse posed many unique challenges. Folger Adam utilized special push-pull cables that were installed between every cell to facilitate remote mechanical door control.
Whether old or new, all equipment needs to meet three important criteria for an expected 20 years of operational service: physical strength, durability and longevity. ”No lock is pickproof,” Carter said. ”Given sufficient time, talent and tools anyone could pick a lock. However, escapes generally take place because of a gap in supervision rather than by picking a lock. Our locks, though, are highly pick-resistant. Instead, inmates will try to sabotage the product.”
For the past 11 years, Dave Drew, a locksmith at Stateville, has maintained, repaired and installed locks and locking systems. He also teaches lock and key classes to all new employees. One of two full-time locksmiths, he estimates that there are more than 25,000 locks or locking devices at the prison. Wearing a beeper, he is on-call 24 hours a day.
”Folger Adam sets the standard of quality for everyone else,” Drew said. ”We have more of their locks here than any other manufacturer.”
Drew readily admits, though, that inmates are extremely clever when it comes to vandalizing locks and locking systems. They`ve used gum (even though it`s contraband), melted down plastic eating utensils, used bits of antenna, buttons or matchbooks to jam the locks.
”I`ve come to view it as a game,” he said. ”They try to sabotage the system, and it`s always a challenge trying to keep one step ahead of them.”
Jamming cell doors is not so much for escaping, Drew explained, as it is to ensure freedom of movement for the inmate within the prison. Eight hours a day, Drew patrols the seven different units or cellhouses repairing or replacing locks.
He noted that when cheaper locks had been used from other manufacturers, they had to be replaced with Folger Adam products.
”The others were constant maintenance. The inmates were always breaking through them. They just didn`t do the job,” he said.
Although the locks and locking systems at Stateville are a combination of electrical or manual, if there`s a power outage, keys are used to override the systems. A lost key is a very serious matter.
”You`ve seen it in the movies,” Drew said, ”about using a bar of soap to make an impression for a mold. That really is possible and as soon as a key is lost, I change the lock.”
Drew has even discovered inmates attempting to make keys out of rulers but has never seen a Folger Adam lock picked.
Spare keys are literally kept under lock and key in the Key Room at Stateville. Fewer than a dozen supervisors have access to this room where many short cabinet doors jangle with thousands of keys that are well-organized and cross-indexed in case of an emergency.
Although it seems ironic, a prisoner who becomes locked inside his cell is in a dangerous situation, especially in case of fire. Cells can actually be condemned, Warden Salvador Godinez said, if the locks aren`t in working condition.
To ensure quality in all their products, Folger Adam subjects its products to a series of rigorous tests. Before a product can be listed, accepted and classified, it must be subjected to a variety of standardized tests. This includes meeting standards and specifications set forth by Underwriters Laboratories, Builders Hardware Manufacturers Association (BHMA), National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), along with others.
”We don`t just meet the standard`s minimum requirements,” said Jim Richards, a Folger Adam product design engineer involved in product testing,
”We surpass them. We test our locks to a minimum of one million cycles, even though the requirement is 20,000.”
Tests include visual and dimensional checks using an optical comparator, which projects the grooves of a locking mechanism onto a large screen similar to an overhead projector.
Folger Adam engineers carefully scrutinize components and assemblies, giving selected products exhaustive life-cycle testing. Custom testing apparatus simulates field conditions. For instance, overhead cell-door operating devices are run 24 hours a day under weight exceeding that of a typical cell door.
When there is no readily available means of testing products to their satisfaction, Folger Adam personnel create their own. To gather performance data on hinges, locks and door position switches an innovative device was designed that opens and closes doors 20 times per minute. Fortunately, this test is done in a soundproof room, Richards said.
”We want our products to meet security, longevity and durability needs,” Richards added. ”A correction officer`s life may depend on it. Testing even runs over the weekends. We`ll use counters and closely monitor when a breakdown occurred so that we can begin an investigation.”
Charlie Moore is president of U.S. Security Systems, a detention equipment contractor in Montgomery, Ala., using exclusively Folger Adam products.
”Folger Adam is the leader in the industry because they`re very quality oriented,” Moore said. ”They make sure their products meet stringent testing requirements before going to the marketplace. Building a prison is not like building a hotel, where you can go back later and fix or replace something.
”With a prison, you`ve got to have complete trust in the products you use. The dependability of the lock and key is critical to the operation of the prison.”
According to the American Corrections Association (ACA), the recidivism rate for inmates is 80 percent. By Jan. 1, 1993, projections show that there will be a 27.4 percent increase of Illinois inmates in confinement bringing the state`s total to 35,055.
”These statistics show the need to focus on rehabilitation,” said Jennifer Butz, sales and marketing manager of the ACA. ”Through education, literacy programs and vocational training, inmates can secure the skills they need to reintegrate into society.”
In the meantime, Folger Adam will keep the doors locked.
