Short-Staffed Federal Prisons Endanger Communities, Guards
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The union that represents correctional officers at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons says federal prisons—including the famed Supermax facility—are not safe and major steps must be taken soon to protect prison employees and the communities near the prisons.
Testifying before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security yesterday, Bryan Lowery and Phil Glover told lawmakers that budget cuts and short staffing increasingly pose a danger to officers, inmates and the 115 communities and small towns which surround the facilities.
Lowery is president of AFGE’s Council of Prison Locals, and Glover is the council’s legislative coordinator.
Prison Staffing Hazard: Take Action Today
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Every day in the nation’s woefully understaffed and severely overcrowded federal prisons, correctional officers face hazardous and sometimes deadly conditions. In 2008, a correctional officer was murdered by inmates in a California federal prison. A look at AFGE’s Council of Prison Locals website shows that assaults against officers and inmate violence are almost a daily occurrence.
Yet, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is refusing to use tens of millions of dollars appropriated by Congress to hire more officers to help bring the prisons under more secure control and reduce the violence for both correctional officers and inmates.
AFGE’s Council of Prison Locals is circulating an online petition urging U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to order BOP management to use the appropriated funds to hire more officers, fire Bush-era BOP Director Harley Lappin and hire 9,000 additional correctional officers.
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.
