Thomson prison workers push for federal protections; inmate charged under new state law
Employees at Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Thomson push for changes to protect them from being abused by inmates.
Employees say a recent guilty plea from an inmate is a start, but they’re looking for more. Inmate Fred Smith pleaded guilty to exposing himself to a woman who works at the prison.
Prosecutors charged Smith under a new Illinois law that makes that activity in a prison illegal. However, there’s no federal law that does the same thing, and union leaders at the prison want that to change.
Union leaders at the prison want that to change. Our Quad Cities News spoke to a union representative about that.
“Senator Ernst has been great,” said Jon Zumkehr, president of Local 4070 representing employees at the United States Penitentiary Thomson in Illinois. “She reached out to the bureau (of prisons) and she said we need all the times that it happened at Thomson, and the bureau just refuses to give her the information, and it’s frustrating.”
More than 1,000 incidents were recorded in 2020 alone.
Smith’s conviction was the first at Thomson since the Illinois law took effect.
The incident in 2020
According to court documents dated Jan. 24, Smith says he was 34 in 2020. On Aug. 31, he was inside his assigned cell with the cell door closed when he exposed himself to an employee, who “told me to stop, but I refused,” Smith says in documents.
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