By Shawn Ryan
Den Pubs
KEESEVILLE — The men and women of corrections often feel like they’re the forgotten members of the criminal justice family. But there’s an organization, the Correctional Peace Officers Foundation (CPOF), whose aim is to change that.
Formed in 1984 by five corrections officers in California’s Folsom Prison, the CPOF is a not-for-profit foundation whose charter originally was to provide a death benefit for corrections officers killed in the line of duty. They formed after a corrections officer was killed in Folsom prison, and they realized that the state provided very little for the benefit of the surviving family.
Their mission has grown in recent years, to include a Catastrophic Assistance Program to assist members of the “family” who are undergoing a catastrophic event.
“We just lend a helping hand,” said Jay West, a retired corrections officer and CPOF’s representative in Upstate New York. “We take care of any type of crisis the family might be having.”
The Catastrophic Assistance Program will provide money to help after a fire, if there’s an illness in the family, the death of an immediate family member, etc.
Under their original charter the CPOF covered just corrections officers, but now covers civilian employees as well. Their only parameters are anyone who takes care of incarcerated felons.
Full story: Foundation aims to assist corrections officers