By Eric Mark
The Citizens’ Voice
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — The Wyoming Valley’s Congressional representatives have proposed legislation they say will help protect correctional officers from assault on the job.
U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Moosic, has introduced legislation to make permanent a pilot program that permits correctional officers and others who might respond to conflicts in correctional institutions to carry pepper spray for personal protection.
U.S. Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., have introduced similar legislation in the Senate, Cartwright said in a news release issued Thursday.
The proposed legislation — the Eric Williams Correctional Officer Protection Act of 2015 — is named after a correctional officer from Nanticoke who was killed by an inmate at the U.S. Penitentiary at Canaan, in Wayne County, in 2013. Williams was unarmed when he was attacked due to regulations that prohibit correctional officers from carrying weapons, Cartwright said.
A pilot program that allowed correctional officers to carry pepper spray was expanded following Williams’ death, but Cartwright says he and Pennsylvania’s senators want to permanently establish authority for correctional workers to carry pepper spray.