After the murder of Correctional Officer Eric Williams by an inmate, the federal Bureau of Prisons has agreed to expand a pilot program to allow correctional officers to carry pepper spray in some federal prisons, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey said in a statement.
Among the prisons included in the expanded list are the U.S. penitentiaries in Allenwood and Canaan, the Wayne County prison where Officer Williams was working when he was killed.
Officer Williams, 34, was beaten and stabbed repeatedly at U.S. Penitentiary at Canaan on Monday night as he was preparing to lock inmates in their cells for a nightly head count. Union officials say Officer Williams - equipped with only a radio, keys and handcuffs - was working alone in a unit housing about 130 inmates when he was attacked.
Mr. Casey said in a release that prior to Officer Williams' murder he had been pushing to expand a pilot program to allow correctional officers to have pepper for protection.
"Guards face thousands of assaults every year, so they deserve to have every tool possible to ensure their safety and lessen the risk of violence they face every day," Mr. Casey said. "The fact that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has responded to my legislation and chosen Allenwood and Canaan to study the effectiveness of this policy that has helped to reduce assaults at state institutions is an important development."
According to Mr. Casey, the Government Accountability Office released a report in 2011 finding that some state correctional facilities that allow guards to carry pepper spray saw reduced assault rates as a result of the policy. Until last year's pilot program was initiated, the Bureau of Prisons had barred all correctional officers from carrying pepper spray.
Mr. Casey introduced the Federal Correctional Officer Protective Equipment Act to carry out GAO's recommendation that the Bureau of Prisons hold a pilot program to determine the effectiveness of the policy. In June 2012, the federal prison in Lewisburg was chosen to participate in a limited pilot program.
Now, the Bureau of Prisons has said that guards at all high-security facilities will soon have access to pepper spray, Mr. Casey said.
A day before the Bureau of Prisons policy change, U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-17, Moosic, sent a letter to its director urging the expanded use of pepper spray.
"We shall never know whether or not Officer Williams would have been any safer if he had pepper spray at his side, rather than in a locker," Mr. Cartwright said. "We do, though, have a responsibility to ensure that the safety of our prison guards is not needlessly jeopardized."
Contact the writer: bkalinowski@citizensvoice.com, @cvbobkal on Twitter