* The SJ-R reports on a protest yesterday in front of a state prison…

Shaun Dawson, AFSCME Local 2073 president for Logan Correctional Center, said that an average of 24 assaults on employees take place there each month and that some have resulted in employee hospitalization and long-term injuries.

Logan has a total population of 1,808 female inmates at minimum-, medium- and maximum-security levels.

The union claims that 340 attacks have taken place there in the last 20 months and that those incidents make the prison the second-most-dangerous corrections institution in the state. They attribute the violence to an increased number of inmates with severe mental illnesses housed there.

Correctional officer Chelsea Wilshusen, 25, of Springfield said that she has seen issues with inmate behavior worsen in the course of her two years at the prison. […]

Wilshusen added that disciplinary tickets issued in incidents involving inappropriate inmate behavior have often “disappeared” without resulting in corrective action.

The Department of Corrections denies claims that staff assaults aren’t taken seriously.

* A new AFSCME ad that I’ve seen on social media features an injured DoC employee talking about the problems at prisons and how inmates attacked her…

That video has over 200,000 views, and as we’ve discussed before, YouTube is far more reliable about tracking its video views than Facebook.

*** UPDATE ***  Provided on background by IDoC…

· The IDOC has graduated 1,536 new cadets since Governor Rauner entered office. There are an additional 135 in the Academy right now.
· The IDOC has hired 53 additional security staff and 20 additional mental health professionals at Logan CC since October 2015.
· When you account for attrition, from September 2015 to September 2016, the IDOC full time employee count is UP by 185 employees; and UP by 40 employees at Logan CC.
· While the staffing numbers are going up, the IDOC offender population is decreasing. There were 48,214 on January 12, 2015, the day Governor Rauner was sworn in. The offender population as of yesterday, October 17th, 2016 was 44,126.
· As for Alanea’s story, in the ad, please refer to the attached memo, which explains what prompted the staff assault at Pontiac CC, which she is referring to. It is protocol for staff to leave the shakedown slip on the offender’s bed when they remove contraband from his or her cell. This particular lieutenant decided to hand the offender his shakedown slips, identifying the items that were removed from his cell, face-to-face, while he was unrestrained.

The memo is here.