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| Corrections workers say:‘Enough’ |
| By messengernews.net - BILL SHEA |
| Published: 11/29/2011 |
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Fort Dodge, IA -- Within the high razor-wire topped fences of the Fort Dodge Correctional Facility, a little more than 1,200 inmates are watched by a security staff that has 55 fewer corrections officers than it did 10 years ago, according to leaders of the officers' union. At the North Central Correctional Facility in Rockwell City, a similar problem exists, the union leaders claim. There, they say, 40 corrections officers oversee 500 inmates crammed into a facility designed to hold 260 inmates. On Monday afternoon, union leaders and about 30 off-duty corrections officers holding banners shaped like stop signs with the word ''Enough'' printed on them gathered near the driveway to the Fort Dodge prison to call attention to that situation and to demand that the Legislature do something about it. Danny Homan, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union in Iowa, said the state's Department of Corrections has a mission of protecting the public, its staff and the inmates. ''We can't do that without staff,'' he said. ''It's impossible to do that without staff.'' According to Homan, at least a partial solution to the problem is available. He said this year the Legislature budgeted enough money to hire 40 additional corrections officers. But he said just one officer has been hired. He said the union will ask the Legislature to conduct a formal investigation into what was done with the money earmarked for hiring the additional corrections officers. Read More. |
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