Union for Federal Prison Officers Opposes Reduction of Prison Inmate Work Program

Council of Prison Locals says UNICOR helps maintain safety and security

WASHINGTON, July 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Council of Prison Locals (CPL) of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) today denounced a decision by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to eliminate Federal Prison Industries (FPI) services at nine BOP facilities. The plan also calls for downsizing operations at three additional facilities and personnel reductions at eight more locations. In the end, 140 staff positions will be eliminated, in addition to the 105 eliminated in 2009, from a work force that has seen its staffing levels decrease for years.

CPL has been an advocate of the FPI work program, also known as UNICOR, which provides inmates an opportunity to earn money, learn marketable skills, and become productive members of society once their incarceration ends. The program also keeps inmates occupied and out of trouble, which leads to a more safe and secure prison environment.

"The decision to drastically alter the UNICOR program puts correctional officers in a very dangerous situation," said CPL National President Bryan Lowry. "UNICOR serves as a way to keep inmates occupied inside of critically understaffed federal prisons. Now is not the time to make additional cuts to the BOP system."

The FPI prison inmate work program is an important management tool that federal correctional officers and staff use to deal with the huge increase in the BOP prison inmate population. It helps keep 16,115 prison inmates, down from 23,152 two years ago, productively occupied in labor-intensive activities, thereby reducing inmate idleness and the violence associated with that idleness. It also provides strong incentives to encourage good inmate behavior, as those who want to work in FPI factories must maintain a record of good behavior and must have completed high school or be making steady progress toward a General Education Degree (GED).

In addition to maintaining the UNICOR program, CPL wants BOP to:

* Fully staff and fund its prisons - Right now the inmate-to-staff ratio is 150:1 on most correctional assignments and too often can be as high as 300:1. Correctional officers are unarmed inside the facility.

* Responsibly issue stab-resistant vests to correctional officers - Assaults on officers with homemade weapons have spiked in recent years.

* Issue pepper spray to correctional staff - This less lethal weaponry would provide correctional officers the ability to protect themselves when violent outbreaks occur, and more easily restore order to the facility.

For more information, please visit www.cpl33.info.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union, representing 600,000 workers in the federal government and the government of the District of Columbia.

SOURCE American Federation of Government Employees