By ESTEBAN PARRA
The News Journal
08/28/2004
As a corrections officers' protest moves toward its sixth week, prison officials said Friday they continue looking at options to fill vacancies that have left the state's prison system unable to transport inmates to mandatory court hearings.
Corrections officials have considered increasing the use of videoconferencing, which connects inmates in prison to courts via audio and video monitors. They've also considered using state police, the National Guard and, most recently, hiring a private security firm to perform the transfers.
"While we've been considering several contingencies since the start of the job action, the possibility of contracting an outside group came up about two weeks ago," said Beth Welch, corrections spokeswoman. She said if the department chose to do that, it would try to pay for the contractor with money already available before asking the state for more.
Without looking at private security firms, Welch said, officials expect hiring such a firm to cost about as much as paying officers to work overtime. Welch did not have that figure Friday.
Since July 26, corrections officers have refused voluntary overtime to protest working conditions including vacancies that require the use of forced and voluntary overtime. Of the 1,830 corrections officer positions in Delaware's penal system, 295 were vacant, officials said. Those vacancies include posts held by officers away on military duty.
A union official said staff shortages contributed to several security lapses in recent months, including a serial rapist taking a counselor hostage in July and raping her during a nearly seven-hour standoff. The incident ended when the rapist was shot to death by a corrections officer.
Although officers continue to work forced and voluntary overtime within the prisons, they have declined to work overtime shifts in the Court & Transportation Unit, which is responsible for getting inmates from one place to another, including court. Of the 138 inmates who were supposed to be transported Friday, 22 were not. The department asked officers to take 13 overtime shifts. None did.
For the past two weeks, department officials have assigned members of its Staff Training Relief Officers unit to fill vacant overtime shifts, but eventually those officers will have to return to other duties.
Paul E. Smith, a corrections officer who helped organize the protest, said he did not understand why the department would consider a private firm.
"They're not going to hire them on a Saturday and Sunday and have them in on Monday," Smith said. Besides their training, transportation officers have years of experience in the penal system.
"There's just a lot of things that don't make sense."
Contact Esteban Parra at eparra@delawareonline.com or 324-2299.
