Days after a federal corrections officer in California died on Aug. 9 after handling suspected drug-soaked mail sent to an inmate, an officer at FCI Allenwood fell ill while working in the mail room at the Union County prison.
“We don’t know if he was exposed to fentanyl, but it acted like it,” Keith O’Neal, president of Council of Prisons Local 307, said of the suspected drug-laced mail the officer came in contact with while working at the low-security prison last month.
O’Neal said the unidentified employee, who was 10 days from retirement, was taken to the hospital with an elevated heart rate and blood pressure.
A few weeks earlier, a female officer in the medium-security facility at Allenwood was treated at the hospital after suspected exposure to drugs while searching an inmate, he said.
An increasing number of similar incidents in federal prisons across the U.S. has prompted local union representatives to call for the passage of a proposed bill to stop federal inmates from receiving physical mail. Since all inmates in the country’s 122 federal prisons have restricted access to the internet, proponents of the bill say, they can, and should, receive mail electronically.
“I’d love to never see another piece of mail come into the institution,” O’Neal said, citing its use to deliver contraband and secret messages to inmates as a safety issue. “That would keep us and the inmates safe.”
U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser co-sponsored a bill to implement electronic mail scanning in U.S. prisons.
“Digitizing mail will both help protect our corrections officers from harm and reduce inmate overdoses, which have risen by nearly 600 percent in recent years,” he said.
On Thursday, U.S. Sens. Bob Casey, D-PA, and Martin Heinrich, D-NM, introduced legislation to protect prison officers, staff, and inmates from fentanyl and other illicit substances entering the Federal Prison System through inmate mail.
“As we fight back against the fentanyl crisis, we must protect those who face an elevated risk of dangerous exposure,” Casey said. “I have long pushed for digital mail screening as an effective way to stop fentanyl from entering our prisons to protect officers, staff, and inmates.
“This legislation is a critical step to keep Pennsylvanians safe and I will continue fighting like hell to stop the fentanyl crisis.”
Matthew Barth, president of Local 148 representing corrections officers at FCI Lewisburg, and Matthew Citino, Local 3020 president at FCI Schuylkill, said the spike in drug exposure to prison employees highlights the deadly risks they face each day.
“The general public needs to be educated about what’s going on in prisons,” Barth said. “We need the public to be our advocate.”
Reducing exposure to potentially deadly contraband from inmate mail is only one issue Barth and Citino said needs to be addressed promptly.
They are calling on Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters to increase her funding request this year from $8.4 billion to $11.7 billion to address the pay disparity and boost recruitment at understaffed prisons.
FCI Lewisburg has 57 vacant officer positions, Barth said. FCI Schuylkill employs 67 officers, well below the 104 positions the BOP said it needs, according to Citino.
Recruiting officers is difficult, they say, since federal prisons can’t compete with the higher wages being paid by other agencies, such as TSA and ICE.
“We do a job no one else wants to do,” Citino said.
Despite the “inherent dangers” in corrections work, Barth said, “There are things the (BOP) can do, and with the public advocating for us, we can be safer. We’ll do what the bureau asks of us, but give us the tools and support we need.”
A co-sponsor of another bill to increase the pay of corrections officers, Meuser said he will “continue to stay on top of this important issue.”
Casey also cosponsors a measure to ensure prison employees are paid fairly — especially in rural areas.
“For as long as BOP workers in Pennsylvania suffer from low pay and staffing shortages, I will fight for the good pay and working conditions these hardworking officers deserve,” he said.
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