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Protectors deserve more pay East Valley Tribune Editorial This is National Correctional Officers Week, when we should take some time to honor the public servants who keep prison inmates safe and protect the community at large. Arizona received a stark reminder Monday of how tough and dangerous this job is at a medium security unit of the Tucson state prison complex. New corrections officer Laurel Kennedy was taken hostage by inmate Timothy Monk, who is serving a 97-year sentence for a series of felonies including armed robbery, sexual assault and kidnapping. Fortunately, Kennedy was released physically unharmed after a six-hour standoff. It could be some time before prison officials understand clearly how Monk got a shank made of a razor and Plexiglas and was able to trap Kennedy. But we warned in January this type of crime could become a recurring problem for the state prisons because of a staffing crisis created by inadequate pay for corrections officers. State corrections director Dora Schriro said 14 of 42 positions on Kennedy ’s work shift are vacant and the prison unit was one person short of minimum standards Monday, even after calling in officers on overtime and from other units."One factor just compounds another," Schriro said Tuesday. "You don’t have enough people. Some of the people you do have are very junior officers and they don’t know each because they don’t work together." Statewide, one of every 5 positions for correction officers is vacant as people take better paying jobs at the federal and county levels, or in the private sector. The high number of unfilled jobs means the remaining officers must work mandatory overtime, at an average of 55 hours a week. With minds and bodies struggling to deal with the extreme workloads, correction officers are more vulnerable to treacherous inmates with unlimited time on their hands to plan mischief. Gov. Janet Napolitano has proposed a $39 million pay package to reverse this frightening trend, and there is some bipartisan support to make this funding a real priority of the Legislature. But lawmakers failed to include the issue in a broader plan to raise salaries for all state employees that became law earlier this year. Republican leaders still haven ’t put even a portion of Napolitano’s package into their unfinished budget proposal. Instead, they are weighing this issue against other requests for new spending, as well as plans for tax cuts.Lawmakers must act now, because the next corrections officer facing a hostage situation might not be as lucky as Laurel Kennedy. "It ’s time we show we care about what they are doing, Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, told the Tribune. We need to step up to that plate."
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