March 27
TEXAS: State prison guards tough to keep----Exodus fueled by lack of overtime pay and long hours could affect safety A move 2 years ago to eliminate most overtime pay for Texas prison guards may be contributing to a rising turnover rate that some experts say could compromise safety as guards are forced to work more hours to cover thousands of vacancies. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice tightened controls on overtime in March 2003 so that only compensatory, or "comp," time would be given for the first 240 hours of overtime earned within a year. Once that threshold is met, overtime is paid. The savings were immense. Correctional officers clocked 2.6 million hours of overtime worth $36.1 million in fiscal 2002, but that number dropped last year to 135,000 hours of overtime worth $2 million. The virtual elimination of overtime pay and the stress that comes with a job that pays a top salary of $2,589 a month - nearly 5 times less than Brad Livingston, TDCJ's executive director - make it more difficult to keep prisons fully staffed, correctional officers and experts say. "It worries me, and I suspect it worries people in charge of these prisons. It creates additional stress on those who are there," said Dan Beto, director of the Correctional Management Institute of Texas at Sam Houston State University, which trains TDCJ managers. Although the number of correctional officer vacancies has fallen from an all-time high of 3,406 in fiscal 2001 to 2,527 in January, turnover for TDCJ guards is inching upward. Last year, 5,511 correctional officers, or 21 % of the correctional officer work force, quit. That's about 5 % more than the turnover for all state employees, according to Texas State Auditor's Office records. The turnover rate for guards was 20.8 in fiscal 2003 and 19.7 in fiscal 2002, according to those records. 5 Texas prisons, the Ferguson, Coffield, Clements, Beto and Allred units, had more than 100 correctional officer vacancies as of Jan. 31. The 5 are among the largest prisons in the state's more than 150,000-inmate system. Safety intact, TDCJ says Carol Blair Johnston, TDCJ's director of human resources, insists that the vacancy situation coupled with the overtime work does not compromise the safety of prison workers or the inmates they oversee. "Our employees were able to cover that shortage and perform their duties in a very professional manner to support the safety of the facility," she said. TDCJ used a similar overtime policy years ago but began offering overtime pay within the past 5 years when correctional officer vacancies were higher. Because of the current guard shortage, correctional officers must contact their supervisors before each shift so managers can determine whether they have enough people to staff the prisons. "Correctional officers have to call in 4 hours before their shift to know whether or not they have to come in early," said Samuel Davis, president of the Correction Association of Texas, a 500-member professional organization. "Many of the men, or women, especially the women who are working, are single parents. It's very hard for them because of day care arrangements." The required overtime, which is legal, means those working extra shifts won't see any financial benefit until they've worked more than 20 additional hours a month. Additionally, those who refuse to come in early or stay late can be officially "written up" for failing to obey an order. Three "write-ups" can result in termination. In 2003, 111 failure-to-obey violations were recorded. The department could not say how many of those involved refusing to work overtime. However, such refusals were a factor in the dismissal of 4 correctional officers last year. Some guards complain that comp time is difficult to schedule when there are so many vacancies. Officers work either a 5-day, 8-hour schedule with 2 days off or a 4-day, 12-hour schedule with 4 days off. "With the shortage of staff, they can't take off," said Davis, a correctional officer for more than 20 years. "That's why many of the correctional officers are walking away from the job." Beto said the shortages have been a constant topic of conversation among prison shift supervisors. "They were explaining to me that one, they're shorthanded and 2, it's difficult to take overtime even if you've earned it," Beto said. TDCJ officials downplay any frustration generated by the overtime issue. "Our hardworking male and female correctional officers statewide are professionals who understand the demands of their job and realize the important role they play in providing public safety," said Mike Viesca, TDCJ spokesman. "The conditions of the job are explained up front - during the recruiting process - so that there are no surprises." Johnston, the human resources chief, said exit surveys from departing correctional officers cite pay and benefits as the top reasons for leaving. She said, however, that longer hours also are a concern among workers. Without the allure of a better paycheck through overtime, many officers are not volunteering for extra work, and so prison supervisors must force staff to work more shifts. "Of course, every effort is made to fill overtime slots with volunteers, but sometimes that's not always possible," said Viesca, who adds that he has not heard any grumbling regarding the overtime-pay situation. What's the law? In Texas, an employer can force an hourly paid worker to work overtime, said Larry Clore, a partner in Fulbright & Jaworski's Labor and Employment Law section. "Unless they have a contract that says that they can limit their hours, an employer is free to make them work as many hours as they wish," Clore said. In Texas, employment is an "at-will" relationship, meaning hourly workers and their employers can change the relationship "at will," or at any time. The worker can leave voluntarily, and the employer can choose to dismiss the employee. Frustration builds Requiring more workers to work extra hours, for comp time they can't seem to take, is breeding frustration. "Morale's not real good right now because of the shortage," said Beto, the Correctional Management Institute of Texas director. And that frustration and stress could affect overall safety. "Just how serious an issue it is, is hard to comment on," Beto said. "Sure, it proposes a safety issue." It's hard to gauge exactly how the vacancies affect safety. There is no national officer-to-inmate standard. "We do not require a set ratio because no 2 correctional facilities are the same," explained Joe Weedon, a spokesman for the American Correctional Association. "We require an institution or a program to have a staffing plan in place to meet the needs of that facility." Difficult atmosphere Turnover is a consistent problem in prisons, said Richard E. Griffin, an attorney with Jackson Walker in Houston and former chairman of the Arkansas prison system in the 1970s and 1980s. "You get tired of having urine thrown on you, and cussed, and everything that goes on in a prison unit, and not being able to do something about it," he said. "So, it's just not a good work atmosphere." It's a tense one, at the very least. Davis, the correctional officer who works at the Ramsey I unit in Rosharon, said officers who work 8-hour shifts a day get no time off for a meal and only enough time for a restroom break. Officers who work four 12-hour, 45-minute shifts get at least one 30-minute break. Additional breaks are given when possible, but the staffing shortage makes breaks tougher to grant. Those who make the prison system a career, Griffin said, do so for "the almighty dollar" and because they feel they work with good people and have hope for advancement. When any of those elements are removed, turnover increases, Griffin said. And the cost of attrition can be calculated not only in taxpayer dollars but in safety, he added. "It's a disaster because you're constantly training a new work force," he said. "It's a tremendous expense, and it's inefficient because you don't have experience at the positions that you need." Each correctional officer spends 5 1/2 weeks in training. Last year, $3.8 million was spent training correctional officers. Legislative relief The lack of overtime pay and possible repercussions on an officer's stress level as well as safety have caught the attention of at least 1 lawmaker. State Rep. Joe Deshotel, D-Beaumont, has authored a bill that would restore overtime pay to correctional officers. "I've been contacted by various employees by those agencies complaining of extensive overtime work and not getting compensated," Deshotel said. "I think it needs to be brought to light." RESOURCES PAID OVERTIME DECLINES Fiscal year Overtime hours Overtime costs 2002 2.6 million $36.1 million 2003 1.5 million $20.8 million 2004 135,000 hours $2 million (source: Houston Chronicle) USA: 'Hamp forum predicts end of death penalty About 100 people gathered last night for a public forum organized to protest the death penalty and plans to build 2 jails in Western Massachusetts. The meeting, held in Lyman Hall at The First Churches, featured a 4-member panel that included former death row inmate Shujaa Graham and Easthampton resident Robert Meeropol, son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, executed in 1953 for conspiring to give the Soviet Union the secret to the atomic bomb. It is a case that remains highly controversial. Russell T. Neufeld, former chief public defender in New York City, and Meeropol, the 1st 2 speakers during the forum, both said they believe the day will come when the death penalty is outlawed in America. "I think, ultimately, the way we're going to win is for people in the United States to see capital punishment as a great human rights abuse," Meeropol said. Gov. W. Mitt Romney is seeking reinstatement of the death penalty in Massachusetts through a system that will rely on scientific evidence as part of the effort to prevent an innocent person from being put to death. The last execution in the state took place in 1947, and the death penalty was outlawed in 1984. But Neufeld and Meeropol said there can be no perfect death penalty law. "To the extent that people feel they could have a foolproof death penalty ... it's just not real and it doesn't deal with the reality of the criminal justice system," Neufeld said. Graham said he spent 4 years on death row in California before being exonerated in 1982 in connection with the death of a prison guard. Graham had tears in his eyes as he talked about the death penalty before the forum, and he said he believes that one day capital punishment will be eliminated in the United States. "It's my hope that it can be done in my lifetime," said Graham, 54, who lives in Takoma Park, Md. One of the organizers of the forum, Annie E. Zirin of the Northampton branch of the International Socialist Organization, challenged devoting millions of dollars in state money to building the jails. Plans are under way to build a regional jail for women in Chicopee and a jail in Greenfield. The 4th member of the panel last night was Holly Richardson, a community organizer in Springfield affiliated with a number of groups, including the Statewide Harm Reduction Coalition, which is seeking to stop construction of the Chicopee jail. Among the organizations that sponsored the forum were the American Friends Service Committee of Western Massachusetts and Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty. The First Churches, located on Main Street, is the combined First Church of Christ and the First Baptist Church. (source: The Republican) ************************* 'Death penalty hurts us all----As opinions shift, church campaigns against capital punishment Chicago-area anti-death penalty advocates cheered the March 21 announcement of a new campaign by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to end the death penalty in the United States. "As we come into Holy Week, we pay more attention to life issues, and we pay more attention to the death penalty given to Jesus," said Deacon George Brooks, who works against the death penalty as part of Kolbe House, the Archdiocese of Chicagos prison ministry. Cardinal George also reflected on the timing when he spoke to reporters following Palm Sunday Mass at Holy Name Cathedral. "As we contemplate the way in which Christ died ... this is a moment to ask how it is that we administer death as a society and try to come to a better understanding that we dont need to kill people in order to protect ourselves," the cardinal told media. The U.S. bishops as a group have spoken out against the death penalty several times since the 1970s, including a comprehensive 1980 statement and a 1999 Good Friday appeal. Individual bishops and state or regional church organizations also have issued dozens of statements and pastoral letters on the topic. "But this campaign is new," said Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington at the press conference where the campaign was announced. "It brings greater urgency and unity, increased energy and advocacy and a renewed call to our people and to our leaders to end the use of the death penalty in our nation." The campaign comes in the wake of Supreme Court decisions barring the execution of mentally disabled people and those who were juveniles when they committed their crimes, a swing in public opinion against the death penalty and a series of exonerations of death row inmates. So far, 119 death row inmates in the United States since 1977, 18 of them in Illinois. That led several states to stop executions until they could be sure no innocent people would be put to death. Illinois led the movement for moratoriums with then-Gov. George Ryan's decision to stop executions five years ago. Brooks said he hopes to use the campaign to change the terms of the debate, and he plans to go to Springfield to push for the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois, instead of a temporary suspension of executions. He also hopes the announcement of the campaign will make his phone ring off the hook with requests from parishes, schools and other organizations for him to come and speak about why the Catholic Church opposes capital punishment and how individual Catholics can support the cause, he said. "We're going to have to educate in parishes, schools, in seminaries and universities," said Brooks, who often runs into misconceptions about the death penalty, despite growing support for its abolition. Indeed, the bishops touted increased opposition to the death penalty when they announced the Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty. Pollster John Zogby presented data from his two recent polls showing nearly half of Catholics now oppose capital punishment, a shift of about 20 % from polls as recent as 2001, when 68 % of Catholics polled by CBS supported the death penalty. He said he found the Catholics most likely to oppose the death penalty are those who go to church most frequently. 56 % of those who attend Mass at least weekly oppose the death penalty, compared to 50 % of less frequent churchgoers, he found. That finding was surprising to him, Zogby said, "because my impression and observation in the past has been that frequent Massgoers tended to be bedrock conservatives on a range of issues." A phone survey of more than 1,700 Catholics interviewed in November found 48 % of all Catholics supported the death penalty, and 47 % opposed it. A follow-up survey in March of about 1,000 Catholics found supporters and opponents split at 48.5 % and 48.2 %, respectively, Zogby said. Broader polls done by Gallup and Quinnipiac University last fall found Americans overall supported capital punishment by 66 percent and 62 %, respectively. Both the Gallup and Quinnipiac reports said those figures represented a decrease in support of several percentage points from the most recent previous polls. Gallup's all-time high point for support was in 1994, when 80 % of Americans said they supported the death penalty. Until recently, Catholics have tended to support capital punishment by about the same percentage rate as the general public. Zogby said the shift in opinion among Catholics seems to be that they are hearing and taking to heart the church's teaching that fundamental respect for human life includes even those guilty of crimes. Pope John Paul II and the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" say that while the state has the right to resort to capital punishment in order to protect society, in the modern world the death penalty is unnecessary because such circumstances are essentially nonexistent. "For us this is not about ideology but respect for life," said Cardinal McCarrick. "We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing. We cannot defend life by taking life." "The death penalty hurts all of us," Brooks said. "It doesn't provide healing and closure. By seeking the end of the death penalty, the church is really helping society and reaching out to victims and families." John Carr, director of the bishops' Department of Social Development and World Peace, which is coordinating the campaign, said one of the factors that seems to be changing people's support for the death penalty may be that "we've been executing a lot of people and we don't feel better." He said the shift in opinion among Catholics owes much to the work of bishops and priests who speak against it and Catholic activists such as Sister of St. Joseph Helen Prejean, author of the best-selling book, "Dead Man Walking"; Bud Welch, the father of a young woman killed in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995; and Kirk Bloodsworth, a former death-row inmate who was exonerated by DNA evidence. Welch and Bloodsworth both participated in the press conference. Capital punishment will eventually be gone from the United States, Carr said, but it won't be because of a single court ruling or law passed by Congress, but the combination of lots of smaller events. Information on the Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty can be found on the Internet at: www.ccedp.org. (source: Chicago Catholic New World) **************************************** Choose life, okay, but how? What "culture of life"? I believe the word "pro-life," used in the case of Terri Schiavo and in the anti-abortion movement, should be taken seriously. I don't think it is just part of a linguistic battle for political advantage: pro-life versus pro-choice. I think pro-lifers are preoccupied with life - but largely because they are obsessed by death. Not only, or chiefly, the deaths of the unborn or Terri Schiavo, but by a deathliness they sense all around, that leads to panic. I don't mean the certainty of death that everyone must face. I mean a sense of death engendered by one's own society, those you identify with and depend on - when they seem to embrace and encourage death even if it could be avoided or contested. Think about the U.S. in that light. It is the only developed country with capital punishment. In 1999, it ranked 5th in executions, after China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Those executions are celebrated in politics and at tailgate parties. It has the world's largest prison population - a kind of living death - absolutely and per capita. In 2003, one in 75 U.S. men were in jail. Even when violent crime dropped, incarceration rose. Then attorney-general John Ashcroft said it was because the killers were in jail. So there is never relief from the fear of death, just a need for more jail for some, and more guns and ongoing fear for the rest. There is the new terror, since 9/11, of death by terror. Now the U.S. is building, says The Guardian, an eerie, "global system of detention centres where prisoners are held incommunicado." They are shuttled around and called "ghost detainees" - more death in life. U.S. soldiers die in Iraq and are furtively transported home. They don't know why they are targeted and hated, but death haunts them. At home, millions lack medical insurance. In Canada, health care may be inadequate, but there is a commitment by the whole society, i.e., everyone around you, to provide care. In the United States, you live in a society with no commitment to aiding you when illness takes hold. You are on your own against death in a way you are not elsewhere. What do you do when you sense this kind of deathliness? You can try to confront and change it. But that may lead to frustration, along with a painful admission that many of your leaders are unworthy or ill-motivated. And it implies the wrenching admission that much of this death never needed to be. Or you decline to confront the pervasive deathliness in its many disturbing forms. Instead, you panic, focus on isolated symbols, and respond to them in anguish with vague slogans. You Choose Life and demand a tube be put back into Terri Schiavo. It's not surprising that the language of death pulses through this kind of "pro-Life" movement. On TV this week, Terri Schiavo's father referred to "this judge who's on a crusade to kill our daughter." The positive news from the U.S. is that a majority, according to polls, now rejects slogans and symbols as a way of reacting to the Schiavo situation. It is not surprising that politicians, from the President to Congress, went that route. They are the ones who sustain the morbidity through their foreign policy, militarism, a counterproductive penal system, inadequate health care. It is in their interest to view the general deathliness as normal and encourage symbolic responses. And there is that sizable minority praying and protesting. In my opinion, they are not choosing Life; they are worried about death and choosing rhetoric, but the source of their disturbance is real. I have been thinking, all week, about the death last Friday of a superb friend, Judge Lynn King, after a long, hideous battle with cancer. I could not possibly do justice to her unique combination of acerbic honesty and oceanic compassion, on the bench and off - and others have already paid tribute to it. But last time I saw her, on Boxing Day, I asked how she was. "You really want to know?" she said with, I swear, a smile. "It really sucks." Spitting with zest and humour in the face of a death that is inevitable - that is the true culture of life - and a legacy not just to her splendid young sons but to us all. (source: Column, Rick Salutin, Toronto Globe and Mail) OHIO: DEATH ROW SCOT RICHEY MOVED TO HELLHOLE JAIL Death Row Scot Kenny Richey is being moved to a brutal jail which houses America's most evil criminals. The 43-year-old's conviction for the 1986 fire death of Cynthia Collins, 2, in Ohio was overturned in January and he hoped to return to Scotland. But prosecutors lodged a legal objection preventing his immediate release. He is now due to be sent to the Youngstown 'supermax' facility. The jail only lets the 465 inmates out of their cells for an hour a day and denies them phone calls and contact visits. It is currently under investigation over the deaths of 2 prisoners. One was repeatedly hit by warders with stun guns when he went into a diabetic fit. Kenny's fiancee Karen Richey, of Glasgow, said: 'It's cruelty in the extreme to move him to this hellhole. I'm terrified he'll be killed.' Kenny's move is due to cost cuts. All death row inmates at his current jail, Mansfield Correctional Institute, will be transferred there in July.< (source: Glasgow Sunday Mail) CALIFORNIA: Peterson conviction cost taxpayers more than $2.64 million Taxpayers spent more than $2.64 million to convict Scott Peterson of the murders of his pregnant wife and the fetus she carried and put him on death row. The Stanislaus County district attorney's office reported Friday that it spent $672,507, not including the salaries of three prosecutors and other employees. Modesto police estimate they spent $1 million investigating the Christmas 2002 disappearance of Laci Peterson. Court costs totaled $742,000. And the county paid $229,000 for expert defense witnesses when Peterson ran out of money. County prosecutors disclosed Friday they spent $90,000 in an unsuccessful attempt to have Scott Peterson's double-murder case heard in a Stanislaus County court, including $61,600 to a public opinion research firm and $30,083 to a venue-change expert. When that didn't work and the case was moved to Redwood City south of San Francisco, it cost prosecutors more than $265,000 for hotel rooms and meals there. A judge affirmed Peterson's death sentence on March 16. The county hopes state lawmakers will reimburse much of the cost of the investigation and trial. Victim rights advocate Marc Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter, Polly, was murdered in 1993, said the prosecution cost about what it would take to buy 2 Modesto homes. "From that perspective," Klaas said, "it's money well-spent because they put a stone-cold killer behind bars for the rest of his life at worst, and at best, we'll see him get a lethal injection someday." Prosecutors paid a consultant $125,771 to help them pick jurors, and $14,600 to a criminal justice psychologist. They picked up hotel costs for many of their 174 witnesses, and provided reimbursements for other expenses like rental cars and air fare as well. Peterson's former girlfriend, Amber Frey, was reimbursed $580, for instance, and a professional fisherman who challenged Peterson's sturgeon-fishing alibi was reimbursed $529. Defense expert witnesses included tidal experts, DNA and forensic anthropology analysts, and experts in dog tracking, boating, fishing and cement. Defense lawyer Mark Geragos wouldn't say how much he was paid, but said his law firm is still spending money to free Peterson. His firm has set up a fund that accepts donations to help pay for investigators, though he wouldn't say how much has been collected. (source: Associated Press)
