By C1 Staff
ORLANDO — A recent guest column in the Orlando Sentinel discussed how keeping the death penalty would result in a safer working environment for correctional officers and other prison staff.
Guest columnist Eric Young, the president of AFGE, Council of Prison Locals, cited the deaths of Jose Rivera, Eric Williams and Osvaldo Albarati to explain the dangers that officers face behind prison walls.
All inmates accused in these officer’s deaths are already serving life sentences, making the act of adding on more time irrelevant.
“Another life sentence, for a criminal already in prison for life, is not justice for the families of fallen officers,” Young writes. “Without the death penalty, there is no more punishment that can be given to murderers. Without this vital deterrent, all correctional workers are less safe. But the death penalty is not always an option in these cases, and something has to change.”
Young wrote that the Council of Prison Locals, a union that represents correctional workers in the federal prison system, supports H.R. 814, the Thin Blue Line Act. This act would impose harsher penalties on “the murder of anyone tasked with protecting our communities, including law-enforcement officers, correctional officers and firefighters, among others,” Young explained.
“If passed, this law could finally provide peace and justice for these officers’ families, and make our prisons safer for tens of thousands of dedicated correctional workers.
“We owe it to the Rivera, Williams and Albarati families to stand up and fight for its passage.”
H.R. 814 was assigned to a congressional committee on Feb. 9 of this year; it is still in consideration before being possibly sent to the House or Senate. It is sponsored by Rep. David Jolly, Florida. At the moment, it has a two percent prognosis of being enacted.