Congress Passes "Eric Williams Correctional Officers
Protection Act
by Derek Gilna
The
"Eric Williams Correctional Officers Protection Act," named after a deceased correctional officer killed
by a prisoner at U.S. Penitentiary at Canaan , Pennsylvania
The job of
correctional officers is certainly not easy, and guards are always outnumbered
by prisoners, and there are other dangers for prison employees as well. The
United States Department of Justice estimates that at least one-third of all
federal prisoners suffer from some form of mental illness, and the BOP has
received no awards from prisoner-rights advocates for enlightened treatment of
those maladies.
Representatives
and Congressmen were both energetic and unanimous in their praise of the
deceased guard, but hopefully they saved some of their energy for consideration
of other important issues concerning prisoners: sentencing relief and reform of
the broken Bureau of Prison health care and compassionate release programs.
Congressional committees and the United States Sentencing Commission have both
commented negatively on that agency's inability to properly administer medical
care and the compassionate release program for sick, helpless prisoners who
often find that even a short sentence of imprisonment can be a death sentence.
Although
the arming of prison guards with pepper spray may seem a great idea to
Congressmen cocooned in the fortress-like U.S. Capitol Building, to the
prisoner forced to eat expired prison
food, suffer substandard prison medical care, and endure the daily petty
indignities of confinement, it does not seem like such a great idea. Prison
guards safety depends less on armaments than on good management, fair
treatment, and mutual respect, which is
often hard to get given the clear inability of the Bureau of Prisons to properly
manage its facilities.
