Union Representing 33,000 Federal Correctional Officers Opposes Prison Reform Bill

WASHINGTON, May 18, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Federation of Government Employees and its Council of Prison Locals, which represents 33,000 federal correctional workers in the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), expressed their opposition to the FIRST STEP Act, which passed out of the House Judiciary Committee on May 9. The House of Representatives is expected to consider the bill as early as next week.

The White House held a Prison Reform Summit to highlight its support of prison reform legislation. While there are some positive things in the prison reform bill, the Council of Prison Locals is urging Congress and the White House to support comprehensive sentencing and criminal justice reform that will help reduce the federal prison population.

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, AFGE Council of Prison Locals President Eric Young expressed concern that the FIRST STEP bill doesn't go far enough to overhaul draconian mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines. He believes the current bill as presented could result in unintended consequences.

"By requiring that this new system be developed and implemented quickly, with no guarantee that Congress will actually appropriate the needed funds, this bill essentially creates an unfunded mandate that will drain already scarce resources away from where they are needed most right now ? increasing staffing levels at our federal prisons," Young said.

"Further, the FIRST STEP Act does not authorize any money for the creation of the new risk assessment system, which means that in all likelihood, DOJ may take funds from other parts of the BOP's already thin budget to fulfill this new directive from Congress." 

AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. echoed Young's concerns, saying that the bill would create a hasty and incomplete new system at a high cost, when the BOP has tested and refined its current risk assessment process over decades.

"Writing a $50 million check for a process that hasn't been tested or even created yet is not what we need right now. What we need is to direct those resources to hiring additional correctional officers," Cox said. "Creating a new risk assessment process this quickly, with no time to validate or test it, puts our correctional workers and our communities at risk." This bill comes just months after the administration proposed more than 6,000 job cuts in 122 federal prison facilities. The fiscal 2019 budget currently pending in Congress proposes an additional 1,100 cuts.

While this bill does include the Osvaldo Albarati Correctional Officer Self-Protection Act, which AFGE strongly supports, Young says that we should be investing more resources into staffing our prisons.

The Council of Prison Locals has achieved bipartisan support to reverse these job cuts and end the practice of augmentation to avoid hiring new correctional workers, with more than a dozen Congressional letters having been sent to the President, OMB Director, Attorney General, BOP Director, and to the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.

"Asking fewer correctional officers to supervise more inmates is a recipe for disaster," Young said. "We've already seen the results of lower staffing with our officers paying the ultimate sacrifice," Young said. "The Council of Prison Locals urges Congress to direct BOP's already scarce resources to where they are needed most ? hiring correctional officers and more inmate program workers who help prepare inmates to return to the community. We have bipartisan and bicameral support for comprehensive sentencing and criminal justice reform for non-violent offenders, and we urge Congress to pass that legislation."

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union, representing 700,000 workers in the federal government and the government of the District of Columbia, including 39,000 at the Bureau of Prisons.

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SOURCE American Federation of Government Employees