11-18-15 former correctional officer says changes in the system are needed

A former Wisconsin correctional officer injured by an inmate three years ago says she is still not giving up her fight against the state.  Carrie Seichter was beat unconscious and scarred psychologically when she was brutally attacked by an inmate at the Stanley Correctional facility in northwest Wisconsin.  Nine months after the brutal attack Seichter learned she would no longer receive payments to public safety workers hurt on the job.  Seichter says the job of a corrections officer is dangerous to begin with, and wants the public to know that the job is even more dangerous with a statewide officer shortage.  “The state, with all of the changes they have made, there is not enough staffing,”  Seichter told AM 1170 WFDL’s Between the Lines program.  “Enough is enough, I want my voice out there, I want my story to be told, and this is obviously happening more and more.”   Seichter  criticizes the Department of Corrections for disciplining a handful of officers at the Waupun prison for making some negative comments on Facebook last summer about a Department of Correction’s job fair in an effort to hire more officers.  All of the officers initially received written reprimands, one was fired and two of the officers who made the posts were transferred to different institutions last week.  “We shouldn’t be able to be fired because we talked or said something about a job fair.  That’s ridiculous.  Why should we be afraid of losing our jobs every day?”  Seichter says three corrections officers have been attacked by inmates in the last three weeks, at the Waupun and Columbia Correctional Institutions and Lincoln Hills School for Boys last week.