LANSING, KS (KCTV) – A Lansing correctional facility is in prison at Sentinel Hospital after an inmate is assaulted.
Advocates for corrections officers say it could have been prevented if the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) had heeded their pleas for higher staffing numbers.
A KDOC spokesperson gave limited details about the attack, saying, “A corrections officer was injured by a resident, resulting in that officer being hospitalized…. The officer’s condition is stable.”
The president of the labor union, representing the prison guards of the state, further said, the lady guards, with many years of experience, ended up in the ICU.
“Very severely beaten up,” said Sarah LaFrange, president of the Kansas Organization of State Employees, of the corrections officer’s injuries.
She said that the guard was working alone in a pod of over 100 prisoners and it was the other prisoners who had come to her aid first.
“There were at least two other people who received the boy, turned away from the prisoner who was attacking him, and then called for alarm to alert the rest of the facility that this was happening,” said LaFrange. described.
A year and a half ago, prisoners were taken from Civil War-era Lansing Prison in A. was transferred to new feature, talking about better security systems and more efficient staffing, among other things.
NS Kansas Legislative Research Department reported That when taking steps for the 2017 legislative session, “KDOC said the new facility will reduce the staffing requirement, creating savings over time.”
When transfers started in 2020, KDOC shared a photo of one of the 15 128-person living units, sometimes called pod. LaFrenz said the guard who attacked on Wednesday was the only one working in the pod assigned to him.
“When you have one person working with 127 incarcerated individuals, as you can tell, statistically speaking, it’s a really bad prospect if something goes wrong,” LaFrange said. “One person is not enough. You need at least two to three.”
He said officials and unions have been demanding that change without any success.
Sure, like everywhere there can be staff shortages, and it’s clear they’re trying to get hired. A large billboard on the side of the highway near the prison advertises that they are hiring.
But LaFrenz says the KDOC has told him the new building was designed to accommodate the kind of staff-to-prisoner ratio that his union finds unacceptable.
“I don’t care how it was designed. That’s dangerous. It’s wrong. And it sets people up for failure and very bad outcomes as we saw yesterday,” she said.
KCTV5 contacted a KDOC spokesperson with a list of claims made by the union and sought a response. He declined and told us about the initial statement sent by him, which read as follows:
Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) investigators are investigating an incident at the Lansing Correctional Facility (LCF) that occurred on the evening of November 3, 2021. In this incident, a corrections officer was injured by a resident, resulting in hospitalization. of that officer.
This is an ongoing investigation, and its conclusion will be presented to the appropriate authorities for possible criminal prosecution.
The official is in stable condition and health privacy laws do not allow the release of additional health information to the media.
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