Pubdate: Tue, 09 Jan 2001
Source: Munster Times (IN)
Copyright: 2001 The Munster Times
Contact:  The Times, 601 45th Ave., Munster, IN 46321
Fax: (219) 933-3249
Website: http://www.thetimesonline.com/
Author: John O'Connor

DRUG USE AMONG PRISON INMATES AND GUARDS CONTINUES TO FALL

Tougher Policy On Employee Drug Testing Credited With Improvement.

SPRINGFIELD (AP) -- Drug use by Illinois prisoners and their guards 
continues to decline.

The percentage of inmates testing positive for drug use at traditional 
adult prisons has fallen to 2 percent, down from 9.5 percent in 1997, 
Corrections Department figures show.

Positive tests among prison employees fell to 2.2 percent last year, down 
from 3.4 percent since testing began in 1998.

Employee drug use has led to a legislative battle between prison guards and 
Senate President James "Pate" Philip, R-Wood Dale.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees last 
spring reluctantly agreed to a zero-tolerance drug policy for prison guards 
- -- one strike and you're fired.

Philip wants to write the policy into law so that it cannot be 
re-negotiated in future contracts. He said Monday that legislation 
approving pension improvements that are promised in the state's new 
contract, which already passed the House, won't pass the Senate until the 
drug-test law does.

"It's exactly the same thing that's in the contract. All we're saying is it 
should be the law," Philip said. "When you're caught with drugs in the 
state of Illinois, you're convicted of a felony. We should have felons 
watching felons? I don't think so."

Hundreds of AFSCME members rallied at the Capitol Monday to urge the 
Legislature to act on the bill -- without putting into law the 
zero-tolerance plan.

"I've always disagreed with the 'one strike.' A guy deserves at least one 
other chance on that. He deserves a chance to clean up," Randy Adams, 
correctional officer and union president at Shawnee Correctional Center, 
said before the rally. The percentage of positive drug tests among Shawnee 
guards fell from 4.7 percent in 1998 to 1 percent last year under the 
three-chances plan.

Philip and Gov. George Ryan say they don't understand why the union agreed 
to put the policy in the new contract but won't agree to make it law.

AFSCME executive director Henry Bayer counters that putting the policy into 
law ties everyone's hands and that Philip and the other legislative leaders 
agreed to the contract agreement last summer.

"A governor and a union couldn't ever negotiate over this issue, and that's 
not what we agreed to, not what he (Philip) agreed to," Bayer said. "It's 
not about one-strike, because we still have a one-strike policy."

Corrections Department spokesman Sergio Molina refused to say whether 
Director Donald Snyder, a friend of Philip's, backs the bill. "We support 
zero tolerance," he said.

Molina attributed the decline in inmate drug use to greater success in 
keeping drugs from entering prisons.

"Stepped-up security measures, increased searches, drug testing, visitor 
searches," Molina said. "We also do canine searches in all of our 
facilities. We have established canine searches and security searches when 
vehicles enter our grounds."

The percentage of testing positive jumps from 2 percent to 3.3 percent when 
the 17,000 inmates of the state's juvenile and work-release centers are 
included. Test results for them were not available before fiscal 2000.

The figures -- obtained from the Corrections Department under the Freedom 
of Information Act -- are even higher when inmates have more access to the 
outside world.

At the state's 12 adult transitional centers where inmates who are within 
two years of their release date participate in work-release programs, the 
number of positive drug tests in fiscal 2000 was 4.8 percent.

More than 18 percent of 2,500 juvenile center inmates tested positive for 
drugs in 2000. The numbers were disproportionately high at the two places 
where juvenile offenders are first received and tested, one reason the 
overall figures are so high, Molina said.

The Corrections Department has been criticized over the level of drug use 
by guards.

Rep. Cal Skinner, R-Crystal Lake, last winter criticized the union and 
Corrections because at a third of the adult institutions, the percentage of 
guards testing positive for drugs was greater than the percentage of inmates.

But Bayer argued that drug use is higher among people outside of prisons 
generally, so it makes sense that guards would test positive more often 
than inmates who have less access.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D