Accidental Tourist

BOP FOODDUDE · 04-23-2008, 01:34 AM

I received an e-mail about the recent Florence riot with a link to prisonofficer.org and stumbled on to this forum. What a tool this could be.

Our institution like many others is under staffed, under funded, under trained, and under appreciate. We are experiencing terrible retention rates for newly hired officers due to fear for their safety, lack of authority, and managements' insistence of doing more with less philosophy. Recruits are hard to come by, because they are being told by friends and family not to come to work at our institution. Word has gotten around that we are losing control. Some would say we already have lost control. We have been in "lock down" the last five weeks from as many incidents.

We are currently a medical care level III facility with a growing population and a shrinking work force. Our Correctional services department is 78% staffed and our Medical staff is at 60%, but yet Management keeps bringing inmates in.

We have talked to Management until we were red in the face, we have filed grievances on health and safety, and we have pleaded with Management to stop or slow down the incoming inmate population until our staffing numbers improve. To no avail, management has continued down this path of destruction and left us no choice, but to bring out the big guns.

Today, we brought in two separate District Directors for two separate Congressmen. They were very receptive to our issues and our membership opened up to them sharing all the stories that we know and live everyday. Needless to say they were shocked and in disbelief.

Tomorrow, we have a press conference and press release planed for "high noon" at the Federal Building downtown to highlight both our local and National concerns. We are done being silent, please wish us luck.