By Rick Karlin
Times Union
ALBANY, N.Y. — Contending its members are in danger, the union that represents prison guards statewide launched a campaign Tuesday to publicize what it describes as an increase in assaults by inmates.
The attacks, according to the state Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, correspond to the most recent round of prison closures; four were shuttered in July.
“We’re just met with lip service,” said Mike Powers, the newly elected president of NYSCOPBA, which represents nearly 20,000 correction officers who work in state facilities.
Part of the problem, he said, is that correction officers are seeing dangerous inmates in medium-security prisons when they should be in maximum-security facilities. They believe it’s a policy intended to ease what had been overcrowding in the maximum prisons.
Powers also contends the state is underreporting the level of serious attacks against correctional officers.
Prison officials disagree. “The safety of our employees is a primary focus,” said Anthony Annucci, acting commissioner of the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, in a statement.
The agency notes that they are putting in security measures, including better lighting in inmate walkways, more extensive video surveillance and additional metal detectors.
They’ve also activated a special security team that has visited 11 facilities since last December to gather information about assaults. And they are using “body orifice security scanners” to help cut down on contraband like razors or other sharp objects,
Since 2009, 24 prisons or annexes have been closed, state records show.
Medium-security prisons seem to be the hardest-pressed, said state Sen. Thomas O’Mara. The GOP lawmaker from Elmira has 2,000 correctional officers in his district, and attended Monday’s NYSCOPBA conference at Attica.
He noted an attack in September at the Elmira Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Chemung County, in which an officer was stabbed seven times in the chest as he entered an inmate’s cell to search for contraband. A subsequent lockdown turned up 70 weapons.
Starting this fall, the state has changed the way it classifies assaults on correction officers, employing a ranking system that includes a new category of “severe’’ assault — including “obvious disfigurement” and “substantial risk of death or have caused death.”
Despite the dispute, jobs for correction officers aren’t going away. DCCS this fall has run two eight-week training courses for 150 new correction officers who are headed to prisons all over the state, replacing retirees. Three more classes will begin in December and January.