CONTRACT TARGETS DRUG USE BY PRISON GUARDS

Those Testing Positive For Drugs Will Be Fired Under Tentative Pact

Prison guards who test positive for drugs would be fired automatically
as part of a tentative state employee union contract scheduled for a
ratification vote in the next two weeks.

If approved, the contact would end a simmering debate over the proper
punishment for guards found to have drugs in their systems.

The guards' union had wanted accused correctional officers to get two
shots at rehabilitation. State officials countered that guards
shouldn't be treated more leniently than inmates.

The tougher stance comes on the heels of a report showing more guards
tested positive for drug use last year than did inmates at one-third
of the state's 27 prisons. That tally includes three out of the
state's four maximum-security prisons.

The current contract, which expires June 30, allows correctional
officers to be fired only if they've tested positive for drugs three
times. The first positive result carries a 15-day suspension with
treatment. The second positive result brings a 30-day suspension with
treatment.

The tentative pact would keep that policy until Jan. 1, after which
guards could be fired after testing positive the first time. In the
meantime, Corrections and union officials would rewrite the testing
procedures to ensure they are fair.

The deal, reached Saturday, came less than a week after the Illinois
Senate had tried to force such an arrangement on guards.

The Republican-controlled chamber passed a bill requiring automatic
dismissal of any guard who tested positive for drugs. The bill was not
called for a vote in the Democratic-controlled House after intense
lobbying by the guards' union, American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees Council 31.

Regardless, there was little support for AFSCME's position among
rank-and-file lawmakers of either party.

"If you're hired by the Department of Corrections to be a guard, and
you're guarding prisoners who are there because of drugs and you test
positive for drugs, something is wrong with that," said state Rep.
Lovana "Lou" Jones, D-Chicago.

Corrections statistics show that 2.5 percent of department employees -
88 out of 3,500 - tested positive for drugs in the fiscal year that
ended in June 1999. During that same period, 3.6 percent of the
inmates did.

But guards had a higher rate than inmates in several prisons,
including the Joliet Correctional Center. The biggest disparity was at
the minimum-security Taylorville Correctional Center, where three
guards out of 72, or 4.2 percent, tested positive, compared to four
out of 891 inmates, or four-tenths of 1 percent.

Rep. Cal Skinner, R-Crystal Lake, released those statistics earlier
this year in an effort to push a tougher drug policy for employees. He
said there were three ways for drugs to get into prisons: visitors,
vendors and employees.

"The department has certainly cracked down on visitors and vendors, so
in my opinion, this is the weak link," Skinner said.

AFSCME contends that most of the drugs in the prison system still come
in through visitors. Guards have become scapegoats for politicians,
said AFSCME executive director Henry Bayer.

Bayer said it makes much more sense to try to rehabilitate the guards,
noting that two-thirds of those who have tested positive a first time
haven't tested positive again. So a tougher policy will only cost the
state useful employees and boost the costs of training new ones, he
said.

"We've sent them to a training academy and now we're going to cast
them aside," Bayer said. "They (some lawmakers) don't stop and think
about those things because those things are too complicated for simple
minds to understand."