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RIBCO
Articles of Interest
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2007-01-15
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Union Calls For More Prison Guards |
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By Hector Gutierrez, Rocky Mountain News
January 13, 2007
Rocky Mountain News.com
A union representative for federal officers called on Congress Friday to authorize more guards after seven staff members were injured this week trying to quell disturbances among inmates inside a high-security prison in Florence.
The prison, which has been the scene of several assaults and slayings among inmates in the past, has been on lockdown since the fights broke out Tuesday, said Traci Billingsley, the Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman in Washington, D.C.
The latest fights followed similar disturbances on Jan. 3, though this week's incidents were worse, said Ken Shatto, union president of Local 1301 of the American Federation of Government Employees Council of Prisons Local 33.
In both cases additional corrections officers from the Administrative Maximum United States Penitentiary, or Supermax, and the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution were forced to converge on the high-security prison to help bring the inmates under control, Shatto said.
The redeployment of corrections officers exposed a security risk because it meant Supermax, where some of the country's most dangerous criminals are housed, and the medium-security facility were left seriously short-handed, Shatto said.
"We're right on the brink, and it could have crossed over," he said. "We just missed a full-blown riot."
Billingsley said the Florence Federal Correctional Complex was designed to allow guards to redeploy to the different prisons if violence erupts among inmates.
"The position of the Bureau of Prisons is that these institutions are adequately staffed," Billingsley said.
However, Rep. Liane "Buffie" McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, requested Friday that when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tours the Supermax prison next month, he also visit the other facilities in the Florence complex. McFadyen said she will ask that the attorney general include an entourage of union officers.
Billingsley said three guards were injured Tuesday while trying to subdue an inmate who was trying to hurt himself. A fight between two or three inmates escalated to involve more prisoners and at least three inmates were injured, Shatto and Billingsley said.
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