Tonight the Department of Corrections is responding to an NBC26 exclusive story that aired earlier this week. On Wednesday NBC26 got a unique perspective on some of the safety concerns at the Green Bay Correctional Institution while attending a round table discussion with officers who voiced numerous concerns.
Today the DOC Communications Director Tristan Cook provided NBC26 this statement:
“DOC Secretary Litscher has made the safety and security of staff, inmates, and visitors in all DOC facilities his top priority. This includes increasing recruitment and retention of correctional officers. In the last month, DOC has decreased the number of GBCI correctional officer vacancies by 9 FTE positions to 19 vacancies, with an additional 11 officers due to be added within the next few weeks. Secretary Litscher announced in May an $0.80 per hour pay raise for correctional officers, correctional sergeants, youth counselors, and advanced youth counselors, with employees in those classifications at certain facilities, including GBCI, receiving an additional $0.50 per hour add-on until early 2017. This measure is designed to increase both recruitment and retention of front-line security staff. Secretary Litscher is reviewing additional options to continue increasing recruitment and retention."
"Secretary Litscher has also directed DOC leaders and managers to promote open lines of communication between DOC employees and management and to seek feedback from front-line staff. Secretary Litscher regularly visits DOC correctional facilities to hear questions and concerns directly from front-line staff. As part of this effort, Secretary Litscher has visited GBCI 4 times since his appointment in late February.”
Tristan Cook
Communications Director
Wisconsin Department of Corrections
But even with this recent reaction to officer concerns, many members of staff at the prison still fear for their safety.
Hearing that some employees that work at the Green Bay Correctional Institution have already racked up over 800 mandatory hours of overtime this year alone was a surprising. But it was hearing how that mandatory overtime actually makes the prison more dangerous according to staff members that was the real eye opener.
At Wednesdays meeting about 20 different officers voiced their concerns on the matter. Many said when they are understaffed and unable to fill roles in the prison that this in turn leads to certain privileges being taken away from inmates. Recreation time or shower privileges for example were said to be revoked due to lack of employees on occasion. And when items like that are taken away according to some officer, inmates are agitated and upset and they can be more violent towards officers. But those concerns according to officers we heard from are being ignored.
"If there was better lines of communication… more open lines of communication where staff could talk about some of the issues going on and actually have a fundamental process where they can sit down and talk to their supervisors without being brushed off. A lot of stuff they believe could be taken care of on the front end rather than the tail end," says Sean Daley a prison workers representative from Council 32 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
The consensus regarding safety according to one officer who spoke at Wednesday night’s meeting was this: “A bad day for inmates is a bad day for officers. And the state will have to pay for the officer shortage when a mistake happens.”
NBC26 will continue to follow this story as new developments are made.
A meeting was held tonight to discuss the working conditions inside the Green Bay Correctional Institution. NBC26 was invited to listen in as correctional officers discussed the issues that grow more pressing everyday according to them. NBC26 shares what we learned inside the meeting that was plump full of emotion.
Tonight about 20 correctional officers from the Green Bay Correctional Institute met in De Pere to voice their concerns and frustrations about what they describe as brutal working conditions. We weren't allowed to film the meeting because many of them, rightfully so, feared they would lose their jobs if they appeared talking in front of media. Tonight we share with the public some of the disturbing details heard first hand.
Let’s start with mandatory overtime and how it really impacts employees. We met one man who works the 3rd shift who says he only sees his children about 5 hours a week. It clearly disturbed him as he described the constant overtime he is forced to work to keep his job. He says the night shift is 7 employees short of fully staffed at the Green Bay Correctional Institution and since January 1st he's already worked 850 hours of overtime. Another 3rd shift employee says he’s clocked 600 plus overtime hours in that time as well.
What all the men in attendance at Wednesdays meeting wanted was for management to listen to them about their safety concerns. They complained about often being thrown onto a different shift with inmates they're not used to which can be dangerous for them considering as they put it, inmates take note of such occurrences, and take advantage of fresh faces.
"They aren't people who are being locked up because they missed Sunday school they are very very violent people and every move that's made effects a human life whether that's staff or the inmate," says Sean Daley a longtime prison workers representative from Council 32 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
And their concerns were not going unheard on Wednesday night. State Senator Dave Hansen was there who recently proposed nine different bills to make state run prisons safer receiving little response from the Department of Corrections.
Another man in attendance at the meeting was Officer Jon McKee. He was recently assaulted by an inmate who threw boiling water on him burning nearly 40 percent of his body. Tonight Officer McKee seemed to be in good spirits, but his co-workers were clearly angered for him. They alleged several times that if correction officers knew the inmate that assaulted McKee was attempting to work in the prison kitchen, they would have denied the request. But as they put it, management doesn’t ask for their opinion on such matters anymore.
NBC26 will continue to follow this story as more developments are made.
