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Fewer guards sickened in Pa. prisons after new policies put in place by DOC

The Department of Corrections provided a 45-day progress update on Friday after new protocols and policies were put in place in September to protect staff, visitors and inmates at Pennsylvania correctional facilities.

The new policies came after an unprecedented number of inmates and staff members were sickened after being exposed to unknown substances.

RELATED: New safety, security measures for state prisons after workers sickened

The DOC gave the following update for the first month of the new policies:

  • Staff sent to the emergency room for drug exposure dropped from 48 visits in August to 8 in September
  • Drug finds dropped by 46 percent to the lowest level in more than a year
  • Positive drug tests from random inmate drug testing dropped in half to the lowest level in more than a year
  • Both inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-staff assaults declined
  • The number of inmate misconducts written for drug-related activity were cut in half

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“When we announced these policies, we intended full implementation to take 90 days, which implied further development of plans as we worked to interact with staff, inmates and visitors to fine tune, analyze and develop fair, complete, and most important, safe policies,” WDOC Secretary John Wetzel said.

The DOC also said they have trained staff on the use of Electronic Drug Detection Equipment (EDDE), which will be at all correctional facilities by early November.

“The new EDDE equipment will help in detecting more than 30 types of cannabinoids, while keeping our staff and inmates safe from possible exposure to these dangerous substances,” Wetzel said.

Body scanners will also be installed at all facilities within four weeks, according to the DOC. They said staff has already started training and will continue after installation.

“After an unprecedented number of staff and inmate exposures to dangerous substances and subsequent 14-day lockdown, we announced these drug interdiction plans, developed with the goal of making our prisons safe for inmates, visitors and staff,” Wetzel said. “We are pleased to announce progress, an expansion of our book policy, and the data that indicates our staff, inmates and visitors are safer today than they were 45 days ago.”

 

Cox Media Group

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