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| Lockdown Ends at N.Y. Prison |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 01/03/2003 |
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Tensions between state officials and prison officer union leaders simmered Monday after the end of a lockdown at a maximum-security prison near Syracuse. State prisons officials ended the six-day lockdown at the Auburn Correctional Facility. The security measure followed a series of violent outbursts involving inmates and officers. In a Dec. 21 letter to state corrections commissioner Glenn Goord, the union representing prison officers accused the administration of failing to protect them by not locking down prisons fast enough, delaying the transfer of inmate instigators and transferring inmates from other prisons' special housing units to Auburn. ''NYSCOPBA will not and cannot rely on your office to insure (sic) the safety of the men and women who work New York state's correctional facilities,'' said the letter written by Grant R. Marin, western region vice president of the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association. In a response to the union, Associate Commissioner Kevin Breen maintained that prisons in New York are safer now than ever before, partly because of what he called ''the best and most professional correctional work force in the nation.'' Inmate-officer assaults are at a 20-year low - 686 out of a prison population of more than 69,000 in 2001 compared with more than 1,200 assaults in 1990 when the prison population was 55,564, corrections spokesman James Flateau said. The number is expected to be lower in 2002, he said. Among other things, Breen credited: A staff-inmate ratio better than in other large states, 19,500 officers for 69,157 inmates compared with 19,000 officers to 151,000 inmates in California; the construction of 27 perimeter towers at 23 prisons; and the construction of 3,000 disciplinary cells. ''With that said, the commissioner believes even one assault on staff is too many; he will continue to seek both criminal prosecution and departmental sanctions against any inmate who assaults our staff,'' Breen said. |
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