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THUMBS UP: Several members of Congress have formed the Congressional Correctional Officers Caucus. The caucus, founded by Representatives Ted Strickland of Ohio, Tim Holden of Pennsylvania, Steve Horn of California, John Sweeney of New York and Peter King of New York, will address issues facing corrections officers. Currently the caucus has over 40 members who come from both parties and 25 states. Strickland launched the caucus on March 4 with a roundtable discussion held at Ohio State University and attended by COs and AFSCME Corrections United leadership.
THUMBS UP: Smoking is banned at Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County Prison because COs there were concerned about its effect on their health, says Darrin E. Spann, a prison hearings officer and chief steward of AFSCME Local 1738 (Council 89). The facility-wide ban on tobacco use by COs and inmates took effect in January. It was provided for in a collective bargaining contract that Local 1738 negotiated in 1997 for its 165 members.
THUMBS DOWN: 1,600 COs will lose their jobs in the District of Columbia’s Department of Corrections (DOC) between now and 2001 because of the transfers of the District’s long-term felony population from DOC to the federal government.
They will have opportunities to land other corrections positions at DOC job fairs and at career transitional centers where they will receive help with resume building. Also the DOC is asking federal and local agencies if they need these individuals, none of whom are affiliated with AFSCME.
This downsizing represents a 59-percent cut in the CO workforce, which now numbers 2,700, says Darryl Madden, director of communications for the DOC. The 1,100 COs that will remain have the most seniority under the DOC’s reduction-in-force rules.
THUMBS UP: Funds to reduce drug use in prisons are included in President Clinton’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2000. The money, totaling $330 million, would help states and localities test, treat and sanction drug offenders and would also help to enforce zero tolerance for drug use by prisoners, parolees and probationers. The president is asking for $65 million for residential drug treatment in state prisons and $6 million for surveillance systems, drug-sniffing dogs and advanced technologies for drug detection.
THUMBS UP: Connecticut reopened a facility — the Northeast Correctional Institution in Mansfield — following AFSCME corrections officers’ protests against prison overcrowding — including picketing in front of the governor’s mansion.
Governor John Rowland had said he preferred to send inmates to private out-of-state prisons at a cost of $12 million. To save money, the state had closed Northeast in 1997. It sat idle for almost two years even though state facilities were overcrowded by 2,000 prisoners. Northeast can hold up to 500 inmates.
The reopening “is a start but it doesn’t solve the overcrowding problem,” says Bill Meyerson, public affairs director of AFSCME Council 4 in New Britain. “Large sections of other prisons are empty and should be opened to ease overcrowding.”
Cramped quarters led to “more stress among corrections officers and an in-crease in assaults by inmates on inmates and staff. It also increases the chances of riots and escapes,” Meyerson says.
THUMBS UP: A program to reduce stress is being implemented by AFSCME Council 4, the Connecticut Department of Correction (CDOC) and Education and Training Programs Inc. (ETP). The one-year educational program called Families, Officers and Corrections Understanding Stress (FOCUS) aims to reduce COs’ stress and family tension. ETP is a nonprofit company under contract with the CDOC to provide employee assistance program services.
Through training sessions in communications, stress management, conflict mediation, parenting skills and money and debt management, the program hopes to identify and reduce occupational stress. This cooperative program is possible because of a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice.
Stress shortens COs’ lifespans and causes marital and family problems. COs also experience high incidences of heart attacks, ulcers and hypertension.
Training sessions will occur during lunch, two-hour workshops and half- or full-day family academies. The five facilities holding the FOCUS sessions are a jail, a women’s prison, Level II and Level IV prisons and a supermax. They are the Cheshire, Webster and York corrections institutions, the Hartford Correctional Center and the Northern Correctional Institution (in Somers).
For more information on the FOCUS program, contact Larry Mens, project director, at 1-800-767-6171.
