By SJ
Otto
Doing
things on the cheap has not worked out so well in Kansas where Governor Sam Brownback has cut
services, such as education, to the bone in order for the state to cut taxes for
businesses. It was one thing to let the schools in the state deteriorate and
let teachers leave due to bad treatment
and low pay. But that is pail compared to the state's prison system and the
various prisoner rebellions that have gone on for the last year.
First
there was a rebellion of prisoners
at the El Dorado Correctional Facility. Now the rebellions have spread. The
latest rebellion is at the Norton Correctional Facility, this past Tuesday.
Unlike the trouble in El Dorado ,
this rebellion was worse and has been described as an actual prison riot by
corrections officers who have spoken to The
Wichita Eagle on condition of anonymity. The Kansas Department
of Corrections has labelled it an "inmate disturbance."
"It
wasn’t just a simple mattress burning and a couple rocks being thrown,"
said Robert Choromanski, the Kansas Organization of State Employees, (KOSE) the
union that represents corrections officers, director said to The
Wichita Eagle. Samir Arif, an agency
spokesman, has said inmates set fire to a mattress, broke into a tool shed and
smashed several prison windows.
Prisons
across the state have had shortages of personnel and that has lead to guards
working more overtime and the man-power stretched thin.
Just
recently Brownback raised pay for officers at all prisons and gave officers at El Dorado an even greater
raise. But this is like building a fence after the live-stock have already
left. Stripping the state budget has left our prisons vulnerable to these kinds
of attacks.
And
one of the reasons for these disturbances is the rotten conditions the
prisoners have to go through day to day. Just as cutting the budget affects the
guards, it also affects those being housed in these facilities.
“Conditions
out there are deplorable,” said
Rick Gadbury of Topeka ,
a friend of an inmate in the facility. “No adequate showers, toilets or room
for that many people.”
Our
terrible prison conditions are one more example of the failure of Brownback and
his far-far-far right-wining policies. This particular failure provides Kansans
with an unsafe environment to live in.
Pix
by KSAL.com.
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