Tennessee Prison System Seeks To Improve Its Image By Opening Doors To More Tours

The Tennessee Dept. of Correction is inviting more people — including reporters — to come see its prisons for themselves, especially after a slew of media reports in recent months about alleged prison violence against guards, poor staffing conditions and misclassified inmate deaths. 

On a recent Tuesday morning, Bruce Westbrooks, the warden of Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in Nashville, led a Tennessean reporter and me on an hour-long tour of the facility, after we got finger-printed, scanned and stamped. Photos and microphones were not allowed.

Throughout the tour, he pointed out how clean everything was, even in the kitchen on death row. I was corrected multiple times when asking about guards (their official title is “corrections officers”). Administrations also presented us with slideshows on the prison’s rehabilitation services, security measures and parole policies.

This tour and others like it are part of the department’s attempt to clear what it perceives as misconceptions about the state’s correctional system. About 60 people have completed “citizens academies” in the past year, which includes tours of several Tennessee prisons. Communications director Neysa Taylor says those participants become ambassadors throughout the state.

“If I can educate one person about what we do and how we do things well, that’s going to translate when you educate your friends,” she says.

The prison plans to lead more tours for reporters as well, Taylor says, although they moved up the pilot because of the recent increased media scrutiny. That scrutiny will likely continue, now that lawmakers are calling for hearings and investigations into prisons, but Taylor says she wants these tours to give reporters a “comprehensive” picture of the department.