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| Enough is enough: Correctional officers rally |
| By desmoinesregister.com - TIMOTHY MEINCH |
| Published: 11/23/2011 |
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IOWA -- Correctional officer Mike Gass does not seek higher pay, nor is he demanding more days off. He wants just enough to feel safe working at Iowa Correctional Institution for Women, he said. Gass and nearly 20 other correctional officers stood at the entrance of ICIW in Mitchellville on Nov. 17 holding stop signs that read “ENOUGH!” This was the second protest this month, two weeks following a similar rally at Newton Correctional Facility, demanding more security staffing from Iowa Department of Corrections. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union organized the rallies. “I just want to be able to do my job with just enough,” Gass said. Gass calculates enough at ICIW means hiring 30 more correctional officers, in addition to the current 102 at the facility. The theme of accomplishing a lot with a little has gone too far at correctional institutions across the state, said AFSCME Iowa Council 61 President Danny Homan. “Give us the staff to do our jobs before someone gets hurt or an inmate gets killed,” said Homan beside the group of protestors in Mitchellville. Homan aimed his complaints at the governor’s office and Iowa Department of Corrections Director John Baldwin. The AFSCME president said last session the state allocated $25 million of funds for the hiring of 40 correctional officers across the state. So far he has only seen one of these job positions filled. “We’re asking Iowa Legislature to conduct an investigation into IDOC,” he said. “We believe they are using that money in other areas.” Gov. Terry Branstad’s spokesman Tim Albrecht said all the money went toward salary raises that Homan had previously arranged with former Gov. Chet Culver. “This financial mess was caused by Danny Homan himself, who forced a massive $30 million salary increase over the next two years, in corrections alone, with the sweetheart deal he cut with outgoing Gov. Culver,” Albrecht said. Homan said the funding for the pay increase was budgeted separately from the funding for 40 new officers. That is why he is calling on officers to demand an investigation into what he calls misappropriation of state funds from the Legislature. “With staffing levels at the bare minimum as they are now, there’s going to be an escape or incident affecting these communities,” Homan said. About half of the people at the rally work at ICIW, where correctional officers have become accustomed to wearing many hats – too many hats, the correctional officers say. On a typical day, a single correctional officer may oversee food services, laundry, recreation, counseling or religious services in addition to standard security duties. But it was not always this way. “As we become lower in staff, correctional officers function as the catch all,” said Jerry Jones, president of AFSCME Local 451, which oversees the Newton and Mitchellville facilities. When correctional officer Michelle Jacobs started at ICIW in 1998, the facility employed 124 correctional officers to manage approximately 350 inmates, the chief steward of AFSCME 451 said. Today the 102 employed correctional officers oversee an average inmate population of about 540 at ICIW. Mitchellville officers say they have seen an increase in violent incidents and assaults, both inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-officer. These incidents can be more difficult to resolve at the medium-security ICIW than other facilities. “Because of dorm-style housing, we can’t lock up the inmates or separate them,” Jacobs said. At ICIW correctional officers also are not allowed to use pepper spray – step two of three in the force continuum for law enforcement – to resolve conflicts. “Because they’re women, we can only use our hands,” Jacobs said. This is a point of contention among the officers. They said they do not always feel safe and equipped to subdue violent inmates at ICIW, where one officer may be in charge of more than 50 inmates at a time in the medium-maximum unit. Read More. |
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