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| Families of slain corrections officers demand action on prison staffing |
| By thetimes-tribune.com - Bob Kalinowski |
| Published: 10/07/2013 |
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WASHINGTON - Time has only deepened Donald Williams' wound. The reluctance of lawmakers to enhance protections for his late son's colleagues in the federal Bureau of Prisons has the grieving father convinced that they see his brutal death as a cost of doing business. There's no other explanation, Donald Williams said, for why the bureau has remained in a deadly status quo of underfunding and overcrowding since an inmate ambushed, stabbed and beat his son, Eric Williams, 34, to death as he worked alone in a housing unit Feb. 25 at United States Penitentiary at Canaan. Joined by the families of two other slain correctional officers Tuesday in the nation's capital, Donald Williams blasted Congress for failing to adequately fund federal prisons in the wake of his son's murder and for continuing to allow correctional officers to work alone in housing units of more than 150 inmates. "I'm starting to wonder, did Eric, did he die for nothing? Is it OK that these correctional officers die, because it's only every once in a while? Maybe they're expendable. Maybe they don't matter to the government," Williams, of Nanticoke, said during a speech at the National Press Club, blocks from the White House. "You know, as long as there isn't too many of them, spend the money somewhere else, don't fund the prisons. That's what I'm starting to think is the attitude." The event, designed to put faces to the victims of federal prison violence, was the kickoff of a weeklong lobbying effort by the Council of Prison Locals to draw awareness to the dangers of the job and urge Congress to boost funding in federal prisons. 'Shutdown' day perfect chance to raise issue Williams shared gruesome details of his son's death with the audience, which included union officials, reporters and families of the correctional officers. An inmate stabbed Eric 129 times and beat him so badly his skull was crushed, Williams said. "I didn't even recognize my boy laying in that casket," he said. Upon being awaken around 1:30 a.m. on Feb. 26 to learn his son was killed, Williams recalls asking, "What about the fellow correctional officers that were there - they couldn't intervene, they couldn't help?" It was then Williams first learned the stark reality: officers like his son work by themselves in housing units filled with murderers, drug dealers, rapists and even terrorists. Williams was equipped only with handcuffs and a radio with a panic button, when an inmate blindsided and repeatedly stabbed him during lockdown with a crude, handmade knife known as a "shank." "He's all by himself. How crazy is that?," Williams said. "That's inviting it. I was shocked." Two correctional officers per housing unit had been standard in the Bureau of Prisons until 2005, when the agency eliminated 2,300 positions and mandated a "mission critical" ratio of one guard per cellblock to reduce costs. Union officials on Tuesday demanded a second guard be added to each housing unit and said it could be done by hiring 1,054 correctional officers at a cost of $78.7 million. The proposed 2014 budget for the Bureau of Prisons is $6.82 billion, though a House subcommittee recently recommend slashing the proposal by $110.6 million. Cuts at a time when the agency is working at bare-bones staffing levels is unacceptable, said Eric Young, newly minted national president of the Council of Prisons Local. "Unlike other federal agencies that can cut back on federal services, the Bureau of Prisons cannot. When we do, this is the consequence. These are real people," Young said pointing to enlarged photos of Eric Williams and two other slain correctional officers, Jose Rivera, of Atwater, Calif., and Osvaldo Albarati, of Puerto Rico. Read More. |
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