NEWS

April 05, 2011
As Iowa’s prisons near record 9,000 inmates, union leader worries about safety

Iowa’s prisons are on the verge of exceeding 9,000 inmates for the first time ever, prompting worries about safety issues as state officials grapple with a tight budget that leave little room for adding more correctional officers. Iowa’s prisons on Monday held 8,992 inmates, which was just three below the all-time record of 8,995 convicts.

Monday’s population was 25 percent over the design capacity of Iowa’s nine state prisons, said Iowa Corrections Director John Baldwin. Danny Homan, president of Council 61 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said he is increasingly concerned about prison staffing issues. His comments came in the wake of stabbing on Friday at the Iowa State Penitentiary at Fort Madison, where one convict was hospitalized after being attacked by another inmate in the prison’s maximum-security unit, which houses the state’s most dangerous offenders.

While this incident did not result in the harm of any correctional officers or staff, we believe it is only a matter of time before we see an incident when staff is seriously hurt – or worse,” Homan said. “Iowa’s prisons are already understaffed, and the Department of Corrections has done nothing to address this problem. Correctional staff put their lives on the line every day to protect Iowans, and the least that state government can do is ensure adequate staffing levels to protect both the inmate population and those who have chosen this high-risk and at times, thankless job,” Homan said.

Homan called upon Baldwin to “get serious” about prison staffing issues , which he said have been ignored for years, and to make the safety of correctional officers a priority. Baldwin said in an interview Monday that prison disciplinary reports – which range from assaults to incidents of disobedience – have increased slightly since last year.

But he said the state is not losing control of its prisons and prison employees are doing an excellent job. The Iowa Department of Corrections currently has about 2,700 employees, which is down about 300 to 400 employees compared to about five years ago, Baldwin said. Gov. Terry Branstad has recommended 20 additional employees for the Anamosa prison and 20 more for the Clarinda prison, he said, although no extra employees for Fort Madison.

The Iowa Senate is considering six more prison workers at Fort Madison, 17 more at Clarinda and 20 more for Anamosa, Baldwin said. The Republican-controlled House is going along with the governor’s recommendation. The current state budget for the Iowa Department of Corrections, including prisons and community corrections programs, is $320.7 million. “I don’t think the prisons are more dangerous. What is happening, though, is that the incidents are up a bit from previous years,” Baldwin said. “

Most of our staff does an exceptional job with the resources that we have available to them.” “We always have concerns, in good times and bad, about the safety of our staff in community corrections and prisons,” Baldwin added. Iowa ranks 49th nationally per capita in corrections spending, a national study has shown.

A state prison population forecast by the Iowa Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning has projected Iowa’s prison population to reach 10,409 by June 2020 if policies and practices remain the same. Sen. Robert Dvorsky, D-Coralville, chairman of the Iowa Senate Appropriations Committee, said Monday that “budgets are really tight” and he isn’t sure if legislators can provide an increase in spending for Iowa’s prison system. But lawmakers will try to avoid cutting state spending on prisons beyond current levels, he said.

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