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| Corrections officers are launching a preemptive strike on proposed budget cuts |
| By WOOD-TV |
| Published: 09/06/2004 |
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They say plans to cut back on or close officer towers, also called gun towers, threatens public safety and their very own lives. Imagine being fenced in with one friend and 200 of the state's most dangerous inmates without a weapon. It's a situation corrections officers in Carson City, Mich. face every day. Sometimes the only thing that stops a tense situation from turning into a riot are the armed officers in the gun towers. That is why officers took to the picket lines last Monday, protesting plans to cut back or close them. It's a move that could affect prisons in Carson City to Ionia to Muskegon to Jackson. Officers call the towers the last line of defense against inmates who make a break for it, help keep the public safe, and stop people on the outside from trying to get something into the facility. The officers who man the towers say you just can't put a price tag on the deterrent effect. Officers have already picketed in Ionia. They were in Jackson on Tuesday and Muskegon next month. A spokesman at the corrections department would only call the gun tower controversy a "budget issue" and says it will be up to lawmakers to decide if the towers will remain open, cut back, or close. |
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