The Army takes those mistakes very seriously, Schmitt recently told 45 military police captains. While soldiers and officers may have been experienced in police tactics, he said, they lacked the skills to handle situations beyond their military training.

The Army has since reshuffled its operations, putting more soldiers with experience in military prisons in contact with detainees. It instructs soldiers to treat detainees with dignity and tries to teach them skills to avoid situations that could violate detainee rights.

"I want to keep it on a humane level, because there's less likely to be another Abu Ghraib," Schmitt said.

A group from the military police captain's career course at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., toured the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth in November and was briefed on detainee operations. Nearly 95 percent of the captains have already been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan and await their next military police command.

It was the second such tour this year coordinated by the prison and the military police school, which is under the command of Fort Leavenworth's Combined Arms Center.

"We want them to know what right looks like," said Lt. Col. Dave Deadrich, deputy prison commandant.

Mental illness is common among detainees, said Schmitt, director of the prison's programs and service. Such detainees may be disruptive and require isolation, and soldiers who have worked in a military prison, such as members of Fort Leavenworth's 705th Military Police Battalion, have the skills to manage them, he said.

Inmates will try to manipulate soldiers, through small favors such as cigarettes or food, or by going on hunger strikes to tie up manpower, Schmitt said.

"You are the entertainment," he said. "Keep them busy so they don't find other things to occupy their time."

Deadrich said the point is for captains to see how felons should be managed.

Inmates at Fort Leavenworth are first-time offenders who will spend an average of 19 years behind bars. They range in rank from private to lieutenant colonel, convicted of everything from murder to sex crimes.

Those who run the prison expect inmates to follow orders and serve their time peacefully, Deadrich said, or risk being sent to a special housing unit.

"The maximum-security guys haven't figured out yet that they need to comply," said Pete Grande, the prison's chief of staff.