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MONROE — Last Wednesday’s workers’ sign-waving outside the Monroe prison for better safety inside couldn’t have had more surreal timing.
Two days earlier, one of their colleagues was punched in the face.
The rally’s timing June 5 was coincidental, Teamsters Local 117 union spokesman Paul Zilly said.
But they are concerned.
Last fall in Monroe, one incident hospitalized two staff members.
A state Department of Corrections (DOC)-produced spreadsheet that catalogs aggravated staff assaults shows the annual number of incidents systemwide has increased since 2019. Numbers for basic assaults on staff weren’t immediately available.
This is even though there are fewer inmates in the state prison system compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic. Statewide, about 17,000 felons were in state prisons in March 2020, but it’s fallen to 13,600 as of the end of 2023. Among Monroe’s five units, the inmate population went from about 2,400 to 1,500 in the same period.
The prison population declined in part after state laws passed making drug possession no longer a felony, DOC spokesman Chris Wright said.
Who’s left are people who “have been convicted of more serious crimes and may be more likely to commit violent acts in prison,” he said.
Today’s prisoners are also more likely to enter with serious drug addiction, he said. (The DOC is looking for more funding for in-prison Substance Use Disorder treatment as they have been proven to work, he said.)
The union ties the increase in assaults to understaffing.
Paul Dascher, the secretary-treasurer for the Teamsters 117 union, said through a spokesman that the personnel assigned to response and movement positions have been reduced. These are security personnel who give extra oversight within the prison.
The DOC cutting back personnel in these positions “has impacted the ability for staff to respond to critical incidents,” Dascher said.
The department is nearly back to being staffed to pre-pandemic levels, Wright said. The DOC has hired some 1,142 new correctional officers since 2023.
“Still, DOC’s allocated staffing model is not enough to fully fund our 24/7 posts,” Wright from DOC said. “We will be seeking additional funding for more positions during the next legislative session.”
Dascher also said “management is overriding custody level recommendations, which puts individuals with a history of violence in less restrictive parts of the prison.”
Zilly said the union has the belief a majority of the override decisions are being done by workgroups at DOC which evaluate custody levels.
Wright said the DOC’s overall policy hasn’t changed about management being able to override custody level recommendations.
Monroe Correctional Officer Jayme Biendl’s death in January 2011 sparked the hiring of a national group to do a comprehensive, independent statewide safety audit.
The union said it wants a similar audit done today.
One’s in the works. Wright, DOC’s spokesman, said “consultants are still in the process” of producing a systemwide report.
Biendl’s death was DOC’s last line of duty death not attributed to COVID-19. When inmate Byron Scherf strangled Biendl in the chapel, incident reports found gaps where corrections officers were outside their posts.
Negotiations for the 2025-2027 union contract began last month, with meetings scheduled as far as mid-July. The current contract is good through mid-2025.
