Prison Guards Say Layoffs Could be Lethal

Cuts to the prison system have correction officers concerned, especially in the wake of Saturday night's melee that left four guards injured. To deal with a 5 percent budget reduction in the department, the city correction commissioner wants to slash 477 posts and reassign others. But today on the bridge leading to Rikers Island, representatives for the guards stood in protest next to a coffin, symbolizing the potentially fatal consequences of staff reductions. “Officers are already outnumbered 1 to 50," Patrick Ferraiuolo, president of the Correction Captains’ Association told the Times. "What do they want to make it, 1 to 100?”

This weekend a group of inmates, riled up over cell searches earlier in the day, refused to be locked into their cells at night. A fight broke out, in which a number of officers were disarmed and beaten with their own batons, reports the Village Voice. One required many stitches to his head. “The incident that occurred on Saturday evening at 11 o’clock could have been avoided had we had the proper staff to combat the situation at hand,” said Norman Seabrook, president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association. “This uniformed person could have been killed.”

One incident of violence may not be enough to prove the cuts are a bad idea, since inmate fights were down 8.5 percent in 2009, and serious injuries to inmates dropped down more than 9 percent, according to an official. Still, Ferraiuolo stressed the importance of being prepared. “We could go six months without an incident, but that doesn’t mean we can go without staff,” he said.

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By Sabrina Jaszi in News on March 31, 2010 1:19 PM

Comments [rss]

Fadlo K. Shell

Who the hell would want to be a prison guard?

cxb

Whenever there's a prisoner uprising it's always due to DISRESPECT by a guard who's a jerk.

(THIS JUST IN: POWER SOMETIMES CORRUPTS!)

Touching a guard is something inmates only do in the most extreme cases, b/c all guards have the call button on them. In a minute, a huge team of "ninja turtles" come in and have a license to beat anyone and everyone to a pulp.

Normally, if you tried to fuck with a guard your FELLOW PRISONERS will stop you b/c they all get punished when one slave, er, inmate challenges the Massa.

You also lose lots of perks if one inmate starts shit.

REMEMBER: if the govt or media says it, there's almost no chance it's true.

BloombergSCANDALS.blogspot.com

inoyourider

You're full of shit.

I've been out to Riker's several times on business and it's not cool at all.

Your tinfoil hat is not working.

cxb

Being a prison guard is a GREAT JOB.

1. It's almost always fun and interesting. You meet cool people and make lots of new friends every day. (I'm not kidding. Criminals are a lot more interesting and fun that most of you temps in your cubicles posting your middle class drivel on here.) (OUCH!)

2. Your duties are: Counting to 60 and unlocking doors.

Seriously.

And inmates treat the guards like they're friends. It's a giant boys club. The guards even bring in DVD players and bootleg DVDs, so we get to watch the movies free that you're paying $12.50 for.

NO ONE WANTS TO HAVE AN HONEST, ADULT DISCUSSION ABOUT ANY OF THIS.

The media wants to discuss VAPID topics and you all can't guess why.

Yeesh.

JenChungsBaby

Count to 60, unlock doors and watch DVDs with prisoners all day? Sounds like a crappy job unless you're one of those people who just wants to do nothing all day.

JenChungsBaby

Don't believe 90 percent of what any municipal union says. If it was up to them the guard/prisoner ratio would be 2:1 and they'd all make $250,000/yr. + OT.

horseplay

The rapper lil wayne must be scared shit! And is probably willing to use all of his own $ to make this issue go away. After all, he "is" in protective custody.

inoyourider

No matter how you look at it, that's a sucky job.

cxb

Wow. Do ANY OF you possess Critical Thinking?

Not everything is Hollywood.

FACT:

Correction Officer is a cushy job, far superior to NYC schoolteacher / cop / fireman, and I can give you thousands of reasons why.

But all you really need to know is that Rudy and Mike BLOCKED media and watchdog groups like Amnesty International from looking into Rikers (the world's largest jail complex.)

DID YOU KNOW that most guards in Rikers are... FEMALES?

The media didn't tell you this (nor the worse fact that Bloombag has MALE guards watching over FEMALE prisoners, which I think is psychotic and fails from BOTH directions, but again, the media refuses to discuss it to protect Psycho Mike).

In most of Rikers, it's 60-bed DORMS --- nothing like the movies, more like marine barracks but no bunk beds.

ONE female guard is locked into each dorm with 60 male criminals, while the second female guard is in a plexiglass cage watching over it all.

No one EVER fucks with the female guards and in fact, most of Rikers is super-civilized. It's changed over the last decade b/c most guards are now latino and black (instead of white racists from Long Island) and, A) have family and friends in jail; and B) have been harassed themselves by the NYPD while innocent.

ALSO, most people are in jail for DRUGS, meaning they are not bad people. They just had the misfortune of living in the most hypocritical nation in history.

Most people in Rikers I've interviewed (literally thousands of people) were very smart, very funny, and very nice.

They just didn't subscribe to your 9-to-5 asskiss world.

STOP BELIEVING WHAT GOVT TELLS YOU.

PLEASE??

[author shoots whiskey directly into his cranium to deal with this brainless world...]