District 39 State Senator Kevin Kinney (D) of Oxford says inadequate funding for Iowa’s correctional system has gone on too long. 

House Republicans have proposed a $20 million increase in prison funding after the state’s correctional budget came under scrutiny in the wake of the killings of a guard and a nurse by two inmates trying to escape the Anamosa State Penitentiary on March 23rd. In his weekly legislative column, Kinney notes funding for the Anamosa prison alone is $800,000 lower today than it was in 2016 and the overall problem goes back to before he started serving in the legislature in 2015, “Ever since I’ve been in the legislature they’ve had status quo budgets. $20 million may not get them back to fully staffed. If you’ve ever worked with these individuals(inmates) in prison, they’re not the ‘Sunday school’’ type people. Some of these people are very dangerous and we need to fully staff our correctional facilities.”

Kinney says while an increase in prison funding is helpful, the tragedy in Anamosa should have never happened and was preventable. His list of warning signs for the state’s correctional system include rising violence against staff by inmates, prison overcrowding by 10% above capacity and over 600 jobs lost over the last decade.

Kinney says he supports legislation to fully fund prisons and fill all positions, improved staff training and restoring bargaining rights for prison workers and other public employees that were stripped in 2017.

*You can hear more from Kinney during today’s JJ Nichting Company In Touch with Southeast Iowa on-air and at KCIIradio.com.