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RIBCO
Articles of Interest
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2007-01-15
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Near Riot Heightens Prison Security Concerns |
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Publish Date: 1/13/2007
Carson City Daily Record
Vic Vela
The Daily Record
A near riot situation was narrowly averted Tuesday at the United States Penitentiary in Florence as seven correctional officers were injured breaking up fighting inmates yielding weapons in what is the latest and most dramatic in a string of alarming security concerns at Federal Bureau of Prisons institutions in Fremont County.
This incident follows a disturbance from a week earlier where additional staff was called in to address threats made by aggressive inmates.
State Rep. Liane “Buffie” McFadyen (D-Pueblo West) and federal prison union representatives had a joint press conference Friday at the State Capitol where they expressed their concerns of safety issues at the federal prison level in Fremont County following Tuesday’s incident.
Statements made in phone interviews with McFadyen and union representatives following Friday’s press conference detailed a cryptic situation at USP earlier in the week. “We were at the apex where we could have lost control of the institution,” said American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 1301 President Ken Shatto.
According to Shatto, at about 6:15 p.m. Tuesday a tower officer overlooking the prison yard fired four dispersion or “non-lethal rounds” to warn a group of inmates were involved in a fight. A half an hour later, correctional officers responded to a separate incident involving several inmates fighting with weapons in another part of the prison; officers there attempted to contain the situation with weapons containing rubber bullets. Seven officers were injured while attempting to break up the quarreling inmates, according to Shatto.
Shatto said “40 to 50 staff members” from Florence ADX, or Supermax, and the Florence Federal Correctional Institution, FCI, were called to the prison for help.
The correctional officers involved managed to control what was very close to becoming a disastrous situation, according to Shatto.
“They couldn’t have handled it more perfect,” he said. “Otherwise we could have lost control.”
Staff from federal institutions was also called to USP Jan. 3 after inmates were reportedly growing more aggressive toward correctional officers. Shatto is concerned that the recent incidents are indications that staffing issues are being noticed and taken advantage of by inmates.
“The inmates are getting bolder,” he said.
Safety concerns at Fremont County federal institutions, especially Supermax, have recently caught the attention of federal lawmakers. Sens. Ken Salazar-D and Wayne Allard-R toured Supermax after an October Department of Justice Report indicated lapses in inmate monitoring and lack of staff trained to detect terrorist activities at all Bureau of Prisons institutions. That same month, a federal arbitrator ruled that the Bureau must boost safety for correctional officers after it found federal institutions in Florence to be under-staffed.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is scheduled to tour Supermax in February. Although, McFadyen says she hopes he will tour all federal facilities in Fremont County.
Florence ADX was staffed at a higher level following the recent attention, but union officials say the Bureau simply moved correctional officers from the two other federal prisons in the area to Supermax, leaving the other two even further understaffed.
“It’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul,” said AFGE Local 1302 President Barbara Batulis
Shatto said more staff and funds need to come from the United States Congress to alleviate safety concerns.
“It’s not our leaders in the Bureau causing this,” he said. “We just have no money.”
McFadyen criticized federal prison operations Friday, referring to the U.S. as an “incarceration nation.”
“We’re in a situation in the U.S. to be tough on crime and lock people up and forget about it,” she said. “But, in Fremont County it’s never out of sight, out of mind.”
McFadyen said she will be calling for a Congressional field hearing to discuss funding for staff at federal prisons, an issue which she says is going unnoticed as money is being targeted in other areas, federally.
“The President talks about 20,000 more troops for Iraq,” she said. “But, what about the security issues at home?”
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