Click here to download the catalog as a PDF file. To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. CORRECTIONS BEHIND THE FENCE. BRIAN DAWE COpS OR NOT? tional officer will spend more time with convicted felons in two years than the average police officer will in a career — and 95 percent of us do it without any firearms. Correctional officers are outnumbered 60:1 — or worse — in most cases. Walk any tier, cellblock, chow hall or recreation yard and you’ll know very quickly just how badly we’re outnumbered. We maintain over 2.2 million people behind bars in the United States — some of whom are the most deviant criminals — yet many people still question the legitimacy of this profession. Are correctional officers law enforcement officers? Should they have the right to carry? Anyone who’s ever worked behind he walls of our nation’s prisons, jails and juvenile detention centers would find these questions unfathomable, and absurd. If we’re not law enforcement officers — what are we? B ad guys get locked up. Then who deals with them? We do — correctional officers, that is. But are they any less dangerous? We have powers of arrest while in the performance of our duties and are authorized to use deadly force. Forty thousand of us get assaulted, and nearly a dozen are killed in the line of duty every year. Police catch them, but we have to keep them. The average correc- Here Come Da Judge 95 percent of corrections officers are not armed. ccording to the U.S. Department of Justice — “Law enforcement officers include but are not limited to, police, corrections, probation, parole and judicial officers” (42 U.S.C. 3796). We’re now recognized and included on the Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Wall in Washington, DC. We’re covered under the nation’s benefit programs for law enforcement officers killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty and several states have enacted similar legislation recognizing the vital role we play in law enforcement. So, we are law enforcement officers, right? Uh, er, if only it were that uncomplicated, and why is it so important at this point in our history? Thanks to the diligent work by the Law Enforcement Alliance of America over the last decade, HR 218, known as the “Right to Carry” law was enacted in August 2004. This law allows for active and retired law enforcement officers to carry a concealed weapon across state lines while off duty as long as certain certification requirements are met. There’d been some questions about the law’s limitations; however a recent decision by the courts upheld the intent of the legislation as written. Yet, only 13 states convey some level of WWW.AMERICANCOPMAGAZINE.COM • MAY/JUNE 2009 A Brian Dawe is the Executive Director for The American Correctional Officer (www.americanco.org) and the American Correctional Officers Intelligence Network (www.COIntel.net). He can be reached at ACOIN1@aol.com or by calling him at 307-883-9707. 18