Union representatives for Texarkana Federal Correctional Institution are concerned job cuts and the process of "augmentation" within the Bureau of Prisons could result in safety issues for staff, inmates and the community.
The practice of making prison teachers, nurses, and other non-correctional staffers work as guards, called "augmentation," started more than a decade ago, said Robert Young, second vice president of Local 2459, a union of federal government employees.
Young is also a correctional officer at FCI in Liberty-Eylau and has been a corrections officer for 18 years.
FCI Texarkana is a minimum security prison for male offenders.
"We pride ourselves on that you don't hear much about us at FCI. We don't have many security issues," Young said.
But he and other union members are concerned that will change due to recent decisions made at the federal level.
Young said there have been 41 positions at FCI Texarkana this year. There are 241 positions at FCI Texarkana with about 1200 inmates.
"What the agency is doing is implementing augmentation, where it takes teachers and health care staff out of those positions and puts them in security positions," Young said.
He said these employees are all trained correctional officers but their primary jobs have been teaching GED classes or working in the health unit and security is not their primary job.
"They are qualified but it's not their primary position," he said.
He said augmentation used to happen sporadically, during emergencies or when correctional officers were away at training. Now, the practice has become a near-daily occurrence at some facilities. As a result, the wait lists for inmate medical care are growing and classes are being canceled.
In 2005 the Bureau of Prisons instituted the initiative "Mission Critical" in which staffing at federal prisons was reduced to the minimum amount to safely operate each facility.
"We feel people need to know this is happening because it affects those employed here but also those in the community and surrounding area," he said.
A statement from BOP said the safety of staff, inmates and the public is the highest priority for the agency.
"When an insufficient number of correctional officers are available to cover an institution's critical custody posts on any given shift, institutions rely on overtime and the reassignment of other institution staff, who are all professional law enforcement officers who receive law enforcement pay and other benefits that other federal employees do not regularly receive, to cover such posts. This is not a new practice," the statement said.
"We understand concerns regarding augmenting staff, particularly as it impacts our ability to provide programs and services to our inmate population. However, it is important to note that staff assigned to our institutions are professional law enforcement officers first, regardless of their occupation. All staff are trained accordingly and are expected to perform law enforcement functions during routine and non-routine situations," the statement said.