Just a little note here to say that the conditions inside MCI-H are approaching dangerous levels for all correctional staff not just correctional officers. Due to the Unit Management implications (which MCI-H was never designed for) staff that were located outside inmate housing areas, such as case managers, are now located in the offices that were the correctional officers before the implementation of the Unit management program. These staff do not even carry mace and there are simply not enough officers to adequately protect them. I would also like to point out that our new chief of security Phill Morgan is a welcome change. He was the chief when I started and he knows MCI-H and if he so chooses and the division is willing to listen he could help us get things back in order. There is rumor that he is going to give the offices back to the officers. It is long overdue. There have been allot of statements made lately in an attempt to sugar-coat the urgent need for more correctional officers on all shifts. Don't be fooled. They are vital. These people who work at MCI-H are some of the best most adaptable people I've ever worked with. They are strong and stick together. I hope they are rewarded for it.

Concerned

I hear the admin people say "no problem" and I hear the officers scream there is a big problem. I have zero personal knowledge of the issue aside from knowing a MCI guard years back who bragged of sleeping on the job quite often and of some worse things that guards are not supposed to do.

Isn't there an independent private outfit that can be hired to do an assessment of the situation and give an unbiased report?

Unfortunately this is the reputation that prison guards often have. I can assure you not many of them are angels. But that is not one of the prerequisites for working in a prison. Not every minute of the day is filled with manual labor. In fact it is not a physically demanding job at all unless something goes wrong, but prison guards get paid not for what happens all the time but for the potential of what can happen. If you have ever witnesses a jailhouse stabbing you might understand what that kind of experience can do to a person’s nervous system. Add the constant threat of violence and you can see why lessening the number of staff could only lead to disaster. I do think an independent agency would be a good idea but whatever has to happen it better be sooner and not later. Screaming prison guards are not all that is at stake here. Just remember there are a lot of mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, and brothers who are employed as correctional staff and why should there lives be put in jeopardy to save a few dollars or for the sake of some politically correct term like "right sizing" or "project restart". I actually support the concept of project restart right up to the part where you start cutting security staff to make room in the budget for more counselors and teachers. I live in this society too so if you can better a wrongdoer so he is an asset to society instead of a threat to society I am all for it. So hire more teachers, hire more counselors. But don't cut security so you can do it. I won't make excuses for the sleeping prison guard. He is placing his own life at risk. But it is time something is done and the piper paid.

The problem being faced in the DOC is the same as other beureucratic government machines. It is being run by a bunch of educated idiots or government cronies who never spent one day in a housing unit or courtyard but they all know how to run the prison. Most of these people have their management positions for two primary reasons: 1. They have a degree in business management, administration, criminal justice or sociology or 2. They are given these upper crust positions because they supported some influential politician running for office. They spend their days in offices coming up with "rules". Do y'all remember the song by Jonathan Edwards that said, "He can't even run his own life, I'll be damned if he'll run mine. They try to 'reform' inmates and they themselves need a good going over.

well, they are hiring...:

http://classified.herald-mail.com/topjobs/...tate/8-27a.html