Chairman Mollohan, ranking member Wolf and members of the subcommittee:
My name is Bryan Lowry, President of the AFGE Council of Prison Locals, and with me is our National
Legislative Coordinator Phil Glover. On behalf of all of the Federal Bureau of Prisons Bargaining Unit Staff, we want to thank
the committee for asking us to testify today on the challenges facing the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
We also want to thank the committee member’s for their effort to increase funding to the
Bureau of Prisons that would make a difference to health and safety in the Federal Prison System.
Last year, our Council through our Legislative Coordinator, Phil Glover, testified on the difficult
funding problems the Bureau of Prison’s was facing. He discussed the alarming assault and disturbance trends occurring
in the Federal Prison System. Not long after his testimony, on June 20, 2008, I received one of the most horrendous calls
I have ever received. We had an officer down. Not just injured this time, but murdered. A young new officer who had only worked
for the Bureau of Prisons for 10 months. His name was Jose Rivera. He was an Iraq War Veteran, and was 22 years of age. Because
of staffing issues mainly associated with budgetary cuts in the last few years and changes to Bureau policy associated to
funding problems, he was working in a high security housing unit alone. He was murdered by two inmates and had no equipment
to stop them. It is tragic and we in our Council think about his death everyday and the officers who face the same dangers
on a daily basis.
We are hoping to come to congress and change the circumstances we now face daily working in the
Federal Prison System. To get back to a time where our staffing ratios were sufficiently higher to accomplish our mission.
As you know, we are short almost 15 percent in the amount of staff working in our nation’s
prisons. Budgets always seem to be tight. While other law enforcement agency’s such as the FBI, Border Patrol, Ice and
others have grown, funding for the Bureau of Prison’s has stayed relatively flat in the amount of staff to handle the
increasing numbers of inmates.
While it may difficult, it must be done, we need full funding. We need to get back to reasonable
staffing levels. We need two officers in high security housing units, and at least one officer in every housing unit on every
shift in every medium and low security prisons. These are just examples of our minimum needs. We need the equipment necessary
to handle aggressive inmates in life and death situations which are becoming more and more common. Because the Bureau of Prison’s
will not change its policies or change what they call the "culture," we nee your help to do it.
The Administration of the Bureau of Prisons has in the last several years coined the cliche "isolated
incident," to include violent acts by inmates in almost every situation which now occurs. When the same institution has assault
after assault and lock-down after lock-down something is not working and changes have to be made.
Our prison system used to function very well, many of you have been on this committee for sometime.
You hardly heard from us and/or the Council Locals we represent. However, our people are crying out for change to our dysfunctional
and understaffed agency, which has placed staff and the inmates they are charged with protecting in a very vulnerable position.
On behalf of all of the employee’s of The Bureau of Prisons we are asking for the necessary funding increase that will
provide more staff and reasonable policy requirements to manage today’s increasing more aggressive inmate population.
In our testimony as well as the written summary overview which we have supplied contains a great
deal of information on our appropriations, on our crowding levels, on our safety. We are hopeful you will move energetically
to add staff and much needed safety equipment, while also providing much needed oversight to the BOP’s spending.
In our written testimony we discussed private prisons and their costs. We talk about the 2007
GAO report that shows BOP doesn’t even monitor the private companies in the right areas to compare public and private
costs. We believe funds can be found in this area which can be transferred back to BOP operational funding.
We think you should look at the revolving door of BOP management to the private sector when you
look at costs. We are becoming similar to the defense department revolving door.
When you look at the laws you are passing, the second chance act, the prison rape elimination
act, and the Adam Walsh act, these are important issues. However, the programs do not receive any additional funding mechanisms
regarding implementation, which forces the agency to absorb these costs when staffing and training requirements are necessary
for compliance. When they are not funded or don’t comply in essence, who suffers? The people that expected the acts
to work.
Again, we thank you for having us here today and hope we can answer your questions on operations
in the Bureau of Prisons and its major challenges, Thank you.
Bryan Lowry
Council of Prison Locals, President
American Federation of Government Employees
AFL/CIO
Phil Glover
Council of Prison Locals, Legislative Coordinator
American Federation of Government Employees
