BY KURT ERICKSON
A Southern Illinois prison guard has been released from a St. Louis hospital two days after being assaulted by an inmate.
The correctional officer suffered multiple facial fractures in the melee in the library of the Menard Correctional Center on Wednesday.
A spokeswoman said the incident remains under investigation and the maximum-security prison remains on lockdown. The in-mate was transferred to the state’s super-maximum security prison in Tamms.
In the wake of the incident, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union blamed the assault on un-derstaffing within the Illinois Department of Corrections.
Corrections spokeswoman Stacey Solano disagreed Friday.
“The safety of staff and the security of our prisons are the Department of Corrections top priorities,” Solano said in an email. “The DOC ensures that there is appropriate and adequate security staffing at all of our prisons around the state.”
The state’s prison population has boomed in recent months after Gov. Pat Quinn suspended a controversial early prisoner release program. But, a corresponding number of additional guards haven’t been hired. The agency also is grappling with a clothing short-age and has opened some non-cell areas at some prisons for temporary inmate sleeping quarters.
Solano said overcrowding and understaffing were not the cause of the attack.
“This incident at Menard was an unfortunate result of prisons being a difficult and unfortunately dangerous business,” she noted.
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