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Billboards warn public about risk of cutting prison budgets

The billboards are in response to proposed budget cuts from the Federal Bureau of Prisons

By Marcia Moore
The Daily Item, Sunbury, Pa.

SUNBURY, Pa. — Billboards featuring a photograph of a coffin and decrying federal funding cuts at the Bureau of Prisons have been erected along Route 15 near the U.S. Penitentiary at Allenwood.

The signs, which also include a telephone number for Congress, were posted Wednesday and have been paid for by the American Federation of Government Employees Locals 148, 307 and 4047 representing staff at Allenwood and USP Lewisburg.

“We are focusing our efforts locally to educate the public on exactly what is happening inside our prisons, how it is affecting the local community and the severity of the staffing cuts decisions,” said Shane Fausey, president of Local 4047. “We know, supported with factual evidence, that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) leadership is not being honest to the American public and Congress.”

Fausey and Local 148 President Andy Kline joined other union representatives from federal prisons across the country at meetings with lawmakers in Washington, D.C., last month to push against proposed budget cuts that would keep the BOP from filling 7,100 now-vacant positions.

There are currently 23,369 staff members employed at the BOP which has 155,280 inmates in custody, according to the agency website.

With staffing levels on the decline and expected to continue to fall due to planned budget cuts, Fausey and Kline said, the safety of staff and inmates are at risk.

U.S. Rep. Tom Marino’s spokesman, Judd Smith, said staff has been hearing from residents about the billboards.

“We are aware that they are up,” said Smith, adding that Marino is also concerned about BOP’s funding of federal prisons. “We are doing everything we can to make sure staffing levels are where they need to be.”

U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta was not aware of the billboards, but supports the effort and in the past two months has urged Attorney General Jeff Sessions and BOP Director Mark Inch to reconsider eliminating thousands of positions and limit using non-correctional staff to fill in vacancies.

“In 2013, Eric Williams of Nanticoke was brutally murdered while on duty as a correctional officer at the United States Penitentiary Canaan. Already plagued with low officer-to-prisoner ratios, further cuts to these inadequate staffing levels will only intensify the dangerous work environment facing our corrections officers,” he said. “I will continue to fight for the safety of our corrections officers so that no family has to go through what the Williams family has suffered.”

Marino and Barletta have sponsored Eric’s Law, in the House, while U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey has done the same in the Senate, which would permit prosecutors to impanel a second jury for sentencing in federal death penalty cases if the first jury fails to reach a unanimous decision.

The law is named for Eric Williams, a 34-year-old USP Canaan corrections officer who was stabbed to death by an inmate, Jessie Con-ui in February 2013. A jury later convicted Con-ui but was unable to reach a unanimous decision regarding the death penalty and he was sentenced to life without parole.

©2018 The Daily Item (Sunbury, Pa.)

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