Thumbs
THUMBS DOWN: for the security captain at the State Correctional Institution in Pittsburgh who stayed silent when he discovered 13 inmates planned to kill a CO as part of an escape attempt. The captain discovered the plot on Thursday, but waited until Sunday to lock down the prison and inform the COs. During the lockdown, COs confiscated some half-dozen knives, believed to be intended for use during the escape.
THUMBS UP: for COs in Texas Council 7, who won reclassification for 1,400 sergeants after two years of union pressure on the state. Under threat of a Fair Labor Standards Act suit, the executive director of the state's Department of Criminal Justice worked with the union to reclassify sergeants from exempt to non-exempt. Starting Sept. 1, the sergeants received up to 480 hours in comp time and checks of up to $8,000.
THUMBS DOWN: for New Mexico's governor, Gary Johnson (R), who wants to close down several state-run prisons and open two new prisons under private management. When the state's corrections secretary, Karl Sannicks, testified before a legislative committee that privatizing the prisons wouldn't save much — if any — money, he was fired.
THUMBS UP: for AFSCME activists in Minnesota, who may have rendered privatization efforts there D.O.A. COs lobbied successfully to replace a privatization bill with one requiring the comparison of two five-year plans: one under private management, one under public. Then they got a number of restrictions included, which even the other side acknowledges will keep privatization from coming out cheaper.
THUMBS DOWN: for Iowa, where the state's facilities are now at 146 percent of capacity and inmates are double-bunked and subject to unenforceable no-smoking rules. Three recent incidents have required the use of force by a CO.
THUMBS UP: for Missouri's Jefferson City Correctional Center, which has increased its staffing levels, brought in metal detectors and shipped out some of its worst troublemakers in response to almost weekly incidents of violence this summer and fall.
THUMBS UP: for the jury in East Texas that convicted three inmates of a 1993 assault on CO James Kennedy, a member of AFSCME Local 3806 who works at the maximum security Michael Unit. "Anderson County people aren't going to take it. You assault an officer, you're going to do some time," said Capt. Richard Simmons, president of Texas Council 7. In Texas, it's a third-degree felony to assault a CO. When the state legislature made the offense a misdemeanor two years ago, AFSCME lobbied hard to reverse the change — and won.
