Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 4:36pm
Texas prisons to begin drug testing
Associated Press
6 Comments
POSTED: Friday, June 11, 2010 - 1:54pm
UPDATED: Monday, July 5, 2010 - 6:19pm
AUSTIN - The Texas prison system will unveil its first-ever drug testing policy for employees next week.
Most of its 41,000 workers, including prison guards and parole officers, will be subject to random tests.
Corrections officials say it's designed to improve security and stem the flow of contraband.
A union for thousands of prison workers is resisting.
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This is nothing but a bunch of grandstanding by all of the upper echelon people who will be conveniently immune from the drug testing policy which they want to implement. If they are going to commit to a random drug testing policy it should include everyone in the agency, from the new boot all the way up to the director. It should also include doctors, nurses and Wyndham School employees.
They need to do this, working in the system for 5 years, you see officers bringing in these items plus family's of the inmates sending in the items through mail or visitation. Gregg County has officers bringing contraband in and the ranking officers know this is going on. I tried to bring this to the attention of the news but nobody would talk to me. Its is about time they start doing something.
How is drug testing going to keep people from bringing in contraband? A person doesn't have to use an illegal substance to smuggle it onto a unit. This will do NOTHING to curtail contraband. All it does is dictate what employees can and can't do off-duty and in the privacy of their own homes, and it obviously won't stop offender's families from bringing in contraband. By this logic all COs who drink beer and smoke cigarettes MUST be smuggling in alcohol and tobacco. Right?
THAT WOULD HELP BALANCE THE 18 BILLION DOLLAR BUDGET SHORTFALL CREATED BY THE REPUBLICANS.
Lets take back the 15 to 20 thousand dollar anual raises that the DPS Texas rangers & Office of the Inspector General officers received over the past 16 years. I haven't seen any benefits that Texans have received as a result of these pay raises. They should be ranked 48th in pay compaired to other states troopers.Just like the Correctional Officers after all they only work with a criminal for about an hour then it is the Jailers and Correctional Officers who deal with these criminals for years.
They are not prison guards they are Correctional Officers. Correctional Officers and prison employees are not the only source that contraband is used to introduce contraband. Correctional Officers are drug tested as a pre employment requirement and have always been subject to drug testing if circumstances warranted it. There has always been a policy for that. The problem is that those being tested will not include administrative or supervisors, that is how TDCJ operates.
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