Free Republic

Six prison guards have been stabbed and left with broken bones after being attacked by 20 inmates in a recreational yard. The guards and two of the inmates were hospitalized following the incident.

Assaults by inmates linked to Islamic extremism prompted a second day of strikes by prison guards across France on Tuesday, casting a spotlight on the challenges of handling radicalized prisoners. The attacks come as French officials test a range of preventive measures after a string of jihadist attacks over the past two years that have left more than 240 people dead. Some of those responsible were involved in Islamist networks in jail. They include Cherif Kouachi, one of the gunmen who attacked satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, and his friend Amedy Coulibaly, who killed four at a Jewish...

Employees at federal prisons aren’t able to collect a paycheck during the government shutdown, even though the inmates they are overseeing are being paid. A group of 100 guards at a federal prison camp in Yankton, S.D., still have to work in order to “protect human life and property,” but will have to trust the government to make good on their promise to retroactively pay them. In a cruel twist, the criminals locked up in the facility are still receiving their money for services rendered while they are in custody because there is a different funding tier for the prisoners’...

You’ve heard that interest rates are low right? But how about a 0 % interest rate for a $4.5 million loan? Is it free money? California has reportedly agreed to give a state prison guard union an interest free loan to pay back money that it owes the state. Published reports say California's prison officers union is getting a multi-million dollar interest-free loan (from taxpayers) to ‘settle a multimillion-dollar debt it owes the state.’

Deep in the 200-page contract that Gov. Jerry Brown recently approved for state prison guards is a provision that could generate a cash windfall to the officers when they retire. The guards, who are among Brown's largest political benefactors, would be able to save an unlimited number of vacation days under their new deal. When they leave state service, those days could be exchanged for cash at their final pay rate, which would probably be higher than when they earned the time off. The governor is extending this benefit only to members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., a...

Prison guards at a Western Maryland correctional facility say a union boss berated and tried to intimidate them after they raised questions at a pre-shift meeting about how their fees are spent and the benefits of belonging to a union. The guards said the March 11 meeting at the Maryland Correctional Training Center started amicably enough when Steve Berger, their American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union representative, tried to rally opposition to proposed changes in the employee retirement plan. The meeting took an unexpected twist, they say, when Mr. Berger opened the floor to questions. When...

The 1st District Court of Appeal has sided with the governor. For now, Judge Frank Roesch's order to restore full pay to correctional officers for time worked is stayed pending more arguments. From the court's Web site: Appellant, the Governor of the State of California, has a filed a petition for writ of supersedeas and request for a temporary stay seeking the stay of a writ of mandate addressing his furlough of certain correctional officers. . . .

Tens Of Thousands Pennsylvania Prison Inmates ... ... will still be paid for the jobs they do at state correctional institutions even as the people who guard them and see to their welfare run the risk of going unpaid in the event of a budget impasse this summer, The Morning Call has learned. Concerns about public safety helped drive the decision to continue paying the 31,175 inmates who do everything from serve meals to sweep cell-blocks at the state’s 27 correctional institutions. They’re paid 19 cents to 42 cents an hour for their labors, spokespeople for Gov. Ed Rendell and...

In a state Capitol full of spin, hype and hooey, the Legislative Analyst's Office is a revered oasis of straight talk and honest analysis. For all the speculation about Senate President Don Perata's hidden motives, the best explanation for the Senate's recent rejection of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez's health reform measure is that the LAO said the plan's budget numbers just didn't add up. We hope lawmakers pay at least as much attention to the LAO's latest report, which describes Schwarzenegger's proposed one-year, 5 percent pay raise for state prison guards as unjustified and unnecessary. The...

Rarely does a government report come along that I recommend people read for themselves. Normally, it's my job to read these things so you don't have to. But a report delivered last week from the state's Legislative Analyst's Office on the labor situation in the prisons is so good, and so important, that I suggest anyone with even a passing interest in state government get on the Internet and take a look.You can find it at the analyst's Web site www.lao.ca.gov. ... The report looks at the current pay and benefits and the job market, and concludes that a 5...

SACRAMENTO, (AP) -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is imposing a new labor contract on the state's prison guard union for just one year, instead of the three years he intended, because of a ruling by the California Public Employment Relations Board. The board says imposing a multiyear contract would hurt future collective bargaining with the union representing more than 30,000 state prison guards.

Pay raise for prison guards dies, but not before a union ally is publicly humiliated. If you want to know what it means to accept $415,000 from the prison guards union, consider the sorry spectacle of Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, R-Cathedral City, carrying soiled water as a legislative lackey in the middle of the night.After leaders of the prison guards union circulated several versions of draft amendments, Garcia agreed to author a bill that would give the union a pay raise. The backdoor tactic showed a desperate union, unwilling or unable to work through the normal bargaining process with the state...

Defeated after midnight in a move to get a pay raise through the Legislature, California's correctional officers union suffered another setback Wednesday when state labor negotiators said they were prepared to unilaterally impose a new contract on the prison cops. If it is approved by the Legislature, the "last, best and final" offer by the Department of Personnel Administration would give the 31,000 members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association a 15 percent pay raise over three years. Other benefits and pay differentials would push the total compensation package up almost 20 percent. DPA Director David Gilb said the...

An effort by the state correctional officers union to short-circuit the collective bargaining process and get the Legislature to give them a pay raise failed early Wednesday in the final press of legislative business. Amid early-morning confusion over the contents of the bill, both houses adjourned after 3 a.m. without approving a newly crafted measure that sought to give the CCPOA's 31,000 members a 3.5 percent raise retroactive to April 1 and another 6.1 percent increase that goes back to July 1. CCPOA officials said the bill would have cost $327 million through July 2008. Schwarzenegger had vowed Tuesday to...

An arbitrator has ruled that the state's correctional officers are not entitled to a pay raise based on an increase the California Highway Patrol union negotiated for its members last year. In his Sept. 1 ruling, arbitrator Norman Brand found that the state did not violate its since-expired contract with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association it when rebuffed the union's claim that a raise must follow the increase awarded to the CHP. The CCPOA filed a grievance last September saying members should have gotten the raise based on the union's old contract. The expired agreement established a methodology that...

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association may be miles away from getting a new labor contract with the state, but its members appear to be in line for a pay raise sooner rather than later, thanks to the union's victory in a grievance it filed a year ago. In a decision dated Saturday, an arbitrator ruled that the CCPOA's 31,000 members are entitled to a pay raise based on compensation increases the state gave to the California Highway Patrol. The prison officers' pay is linked to the CHP's union contract, and the arbitrator ruled that health insurance and holiday leave-time...

SACRAMENTO - The state prison guards union unleashed a television attack against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday, harshly criticizing the governor's prison-reform plans. The union's action was notable because top Schwarzenegger administration officials have been trying to work with the union leadership on prison issues since the start of the year. The cooperation was widely seen as an attempt to keep the union and its campaign warchest on the sidelines as the governor seeks re-election. What appeared to be a warming relationship between the governor's office and the 30,000-member union is believed to have prompted two corrections secretaries to resign...

California's prison guards have given Democratic gubernatorial challenger Phil Angelides a maximum $22,300 donation, but representatives for the powerful union say the contribution does not constitute an endorsement. "While we continue to evaluate the direction we are going to take in the fall, we do recognize that candidates have to be able to reach out to the voting public and voice their vision for California," said Lance Corcoran, spokesman for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA). The union has not donated to Gov. Schwarzenegger's campaign. The well-heeled union is believed to be sitting on a $10 million--or larger--war chest...

Just six months ago it would have been almost inconceivable that the state's powerful prison-guards lobby would back Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's bid for re-election. The union had just finished spending $2.9 million to torpedo the governor's special-election agenda, lampooned Schwarzenegger's attempts at prison reform and was openly hostile to the state's top prison official, a Schwarzenegger appointee. "It was awful," says Ray McNally, the long-time political adviser of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA). But the union's icy relations with the Republican governor have slowly thawed. That's no accident. This year, Schwarzenegger has launched an ambitious election-year outreach effort....

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Driven by a rising inmate population, prison spending in California is scheduled to exceed $8 billion this year. But the real intrigue in the state's 2006-07 corrections budget is in what it's proposing for the near- and long-term future Spelled out in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's summary on the spending plan is a proposal "to pursue authority to secure additional inmate capacity through contracts with other providers." The wording is fleshed out in the actual budget bill, which calls for a virtual doubling in the number of private prison beds in California, from the current 8,500 to an...