USA - Delaware. Warden Says Death Penalty Imposes "Immeasurable Burden" on Correctional Officers.

Warden Says Death Penalty Imposes "Immeasurable Burden" on Correctional Officers. Former prison warden, Frank Thompson, has urged repeal of Delaware's death penalty. In an op-ed for The News Journal of Delaware, the former warden, who has personally overseen two executions, describes "the immeasurable burden that the execution process places on correctional officers" and the trauma experienced by correctional officers who must carry out executions. Thompson says, "Many of us who have taken part in this process live with nightmares, especially those of us who have participated in executions that did not go smoothly. Correctional officers who carry out execution can suffer from post-traumatic stress, drug and alcohol addiction, and depression." He explains that capital punishment does nothing to "increase the safety of prison staff or inmates." "Every warden in America knows the established protocols that effectively keep prisons safe for corrections staff and inmates," he says. "These include programs to treat inmates with alcohol and drug dependency or mental illnesses, appropriate inmate-to-staff ratios for the proper supervision of prisoners, adequate activities and work programs, and effective classification systems that provide guidance on how to properly house and program inmates...I am not aware of and have not heard of a single prison administrator who would trade any of these programs or resources in order to keep the death penalty." Thompson concludes by calling on the Delaware legislature to "repeal its death penalty and lead the way on smarter crime prevention policy by reinvesting the millions of dollars that the state currently spends on capital punishment into programs that will actually improve public safety."