By Chris Cassidy
The Boston Herald
BOSTON — Violent inmates at the state’s highest-security prison are attacking unarmed corrections officers at a staggering rate, including two brutal assaults in less than a week that landed eight officers in the emergency room, according to union brass.
Sixteen officers working at the maximum-security Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley have been taken to the hospital for serious injuries since Jan. 1 after being kicked, punched and, in one case, nearly stabbed by dangerous prisoners, said Brian Jansen, the president of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union.
‘We’re alarmed by the amount of violence occurring at Souza-Baranowski,’ Jansen said. ‘These are the worst of the worst in the state and they’re all in one location.’
Jansen blames the rise on the double-bunking of inmates, but state prison officials dispute that.
One inmate, refusing to go back to his cell during lock-in, began attacking an officer with a weapon on June 3. The guard suffered head trauma, and four other bruised officers went to the hospital.
‘Some of them have not yet returned to work because of the injuries,’ Jansen said.
Four days later, three officers went to the hospital after an inmate attacked one of them during breakfast, he said.
On April 18, an inmate, upset about contraband confiscated from his cell, punched a female officer in the face and tried to stab her with a homemade weapon, he said.
An officer conducting a cell search March 14 was jumped by three inmates, kicked and beaten, Jansen said.
‘We’re deeply concerned about the safety of the officers,’ he said. ‘The precipitating factor of these assaults is the double-bunking and overcrowding of the state’s maximum-security facility. ...At any given time, you could have between 70 and 90 maximum-security inmates out in a single block with two unarmed officers.’
While staff assaults at the prison are rising, they’ve decreased across the entire prison system, noted Massachusetts Department of Correction spokesman Chris Fallon. In 2009, the state shifted ‘the most volatile’ prisoners from Cedar Junction in Walpole to Souza-Baranowski, a better equipped facility, he said.
The number of staff assaults at the prison climbed from 143 in 2008 to 173 in 2009, according to DOC figures. Fights between inmates at the prison nearly doubled from 84 in 2008 to 163 in 2009. DOC did not yet have full numbers for 2010 or 2011.
However, DOC doesn’t plan to change its prison procedures, which Fallon called sound. He defended double-bunking, noting other states also do it.
‘Corrections is a dangerous business,’ Fallon said. ‘With this type of population, you can’t prevent everything.’
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