By C1 Staff
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A retired correctional officer who worked at the St. Clair County Correctional Facility for 25 years says that conditions have been deteriorating for years.
FOX News reports that the anonymous officer retired last year and said that administration at the facility were more concerned with appearances and had little concern for the safety of officers.
“It seems like nobody cares about the officers safety until one of us gets hurt,” he said. “As long as everything is running good, it’s just inmates getting cut, but no officers getting hurt, nobody seems to care about what it’s doing the officers.”
He described working long shifts at the facility, going from eight hour to 12-hour shifts within the last year he was employed there. Officers were also expected to work four extra hours of overtime.
This left officers feeling “so tired you can’t function,” and ultimately decreased security at the prison.
“It’s just like anything else, you’re going to cut corners if you’re tired,” he explained. “If you’ve got 100 inmates to search and there’s only one [officer] that’s searching them, none of those inmates are going to get searched well.”
He wasn’t surprised by the violent incidents at the prison that broke out on Friday.
One officer was attacked during breakfast, and later 30 inmates rioted with an emergency response team. Fifteen inmates were treated for injuries.