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Federal Budget Addresses Prison Understaffing |
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Years of underfunding in the federal prison system has created serious inmate overcrowding and correctional worker understaffing throughout the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). The short-funding has created hazardous and sometimes deadly conditions for inmates, federal correctional officers and the communities in which they work, leaders from AFGE’s Council of Prison Locals (CPL) told a U.S. House committee this week.
More than 200,000 inmates are confined in federal lockups today, up from 25,000 in 1980, from 58,000 in 1990 and from 145,000 in 2000. By 2010, it is expected there will be 215,000 prison inmates in BOP institutions.
The omnibus spending bill to fund the government through fiscal year 2009 that President Obama signed yesterday and his fiscal year 2010 budget proposals provide significant increase funding for BOP over Bush administration levels. Says CPL President Bryan Lowry:
This is a good first step….We feel like our concerns about the safety and security of our nation’s prisons are finally being addressed. While we continue to examine the numbers, we feel like we’re on the right path.
The number of federal correctional officers who staff federal prisons is failing to keep pace with the tremendous growth in the inmate population. Today, federal prison staffing is at an 89 percent level, compared with the 95 percent staffing levels of the mid-1990s.
Lowry and Legislative coordinator Phil Glover appeared before the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science and made several recommendations to improve the safety of both officers and inmates. They called for:
- Increased federal funding so BOP can hire additional correctional officer staff to return to the 95 percent staffing levels of the mid-1990s.
- Placing two correctional officers in each high security penitentiary housing unit, particularly during the evening watch shift (3 p.m. to 11 p.m.) shifts.
- Ensuring all correctional officers have stab-resistant protective vests.
- Equipping correctional officers with nonlethal weaponry, such as batons, pepper spray and/or TASER guns. Training should include the appropriate use of such nonlethal weaponry so they are not used as a “first strike” response before other protective tactics are considered or attempted.
For years, CPL has fought for full staffing and funding throughout the BOP in an effort to combat a dramatic increase in violence. As inmate populations increased, staffing levels decreased, resulting in more assaults against correctional officers.
Earlier this month, AFGE President John Gage said the BOP, and other federal agencies, had been suffering for eight years under the Bush administration’s “starve the beast” approach to government funding.
The danger of understaffing, the Lowry said, was tragically shown last year when Jose Rivera, a correctional officer at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atwater, Calif., was murdered. Rivera, 22, was killed by two inmates with homemade weapons while working alone. He was a Navy veteran who served two tours of duty in Iraq and was employed by the BOP for less than a year.
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Blocking E-Verify was deliberate decision of the Senate leaders who place the interests of 40 million illegal aliens (According to Heritage Foundation), over the interests of millions of unemployed American workers. It would Extend the federal program to screen workers and job applicants to determine whether they reside in the United States legally. All Republican senators present in the chamber voted against tabling the measure to extend the life of the program. Nearly every Democratic senator, including Florida’s Sen.Nelson, Sen. Patrick Leahy voted in favor of tabling it in a 50 to 47 motion. U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., offered the reauthorization amendment to the omnibus spending bill, including an amendment to the Stimulus bill. His legislation would have allowed the program going for another six years. Chances are it will still run until September according to the Sen. Sessions. The main culprits involved to killing of E-verify was Sen.Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Without the successful e-Verify program running illegal aliens will continue to appropriate jobs, that should go to the 6 million plus unemployed. Americans and legal residents their jobs and homes in dire straights. The United Stated cannot continue to educate, give free health insurence and a wide spectrum of social benefits, that is costing the taxpayer hundreds of billions a year. The ominous US Chamber of Commerce and special interest lobbyists are the main cause of overpopulation, traffic chaos, pollution and the devastating effect of farmland turned into concrete for housing. The American worker is in a crisis situation, but Democrats to appease special interest organizations, have sold their loyalty for corporate campaign contributions.
We must–NOT–stop the bombardment of the Washington Switchboard 202-224-3121 for senator or Representative demanding E-Verify for ten years–if not –PERPETUITY?. President Obama switchboard (202) 456-1414 Comments (202) 456-1111
It is a tragedy that Jose Rivera who survived the Iraq war, should be killed while employed as a prison guard in California. This was perhaps the best job available to him as “living wage” jobs are now almost impossible to find in the current economic conditions.
Perhaps Mr. Rivera, as many who have served in the military, had to “earn” his citizenship by joining the military?
Building walls, prisons, denying immigrant children education and health care, etc. will not solve any of the now vast economic problems of working people in this country to survive economically. What we are ending up with is a racist police state which eventually will turn against even legal working people. “Divide and conquer” by any means necessary has always been the “modus operandi” of all ruling elites.
The millions of impoverished Mexicans were driven here by the foreign policies of the U.S. government and the local ruling elites in Mexico. U.S. illegal subsidized agriculture was able to dump cheap corn into Mexico. This drove almost one million peasant farmers off the land, into the cities and then North to the United States.
The NAFTA/CAFTA treaties forced Mexico and Central American governments to stop subsidizing essential public utilities (such as water)
and made them PRIVATIZED, for profit-businesses which the poor could no longer afford! One of the wealthies men in the world is a Mexican who bought cheaply the telphone system of Mexico, is now worth 60 billion.
A recent documentary by Forrest Tucker (The Crips and The Bloods) which traced the origin of these gangs to the period of time when “living wage” jobs in manufacturing left LA for China. The massive “de-industrialization” of the U.S., now almost complete with the bankruptcy of the big 3 auto companies, has meants a stagnation and even decline in wages over the last 30 years!
The American Heritage Foundation, the Rush Limbaughs, are nothing but corporate propaganda agencies. Of course they want to blame the unions, blame the Mexicans, blame liberals and progressives for everything so as not to allow critical examination of the root causes of these vast social calamities.
Capitalism in the U.S. has been on the decline for the last 30 years and has now finally collapsed. Global capitalism has followed the “lead” of U.S. capitalism.
Capitalism can not be “bailed out” or “reformed” or returned to some mythical state of idealized “free market” bliss. A new economy must be built out of the ruins of capitalism. A new economy which is focused on filling the economic needs “of, by and for” the people. Capitalism is based on maximizing the wealth of a tiny minority of people by exploiting and impoverishing everyone else. Social and economic inequaltiy is intrinsic in this run-amok gangster capitalism.
You lwill never learn about what or why the real reasons (not immigrants) we working people are being destroyed. Turn OFF Rush Limbaugh, the American Heritage Foundation, the Wall Street Journal, NPR or PBS corporate controlled media that forever celebrates capitalism.
For one place try an alternative socialist perspective: the World Socialist Web Site. http://www.wsws.org