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.
