It shouldn’t take a death to honor our jail officers
It shouldn’t have taken his death for us to properly honor law enforcement professionals like Gene Lee.
But, sadly, it did.
Gov. Doug Ducey ordered flags lowered to half-staff in honor of Maricopa County Detention Officer Lee, who died from injuries after being attacked by an inmate.
It was a good thing for the governor to do.
But even with the shock and sense of loss in Lee’s death, I’m not sure the law enforcement professionals who work in our jails and our prisons are getting the respect they deserve.
In the late 1990s then-director of the Department of Corrections, Terry L. Stewart, wrote a long, angry letter to the editor of The Arizona Republic.
He said in part, “The only group that fails to recognize and embrace the professional function of correctional officers, that seems to believe there is some difference between law enforcement officers and correctional officers,
is the media, which insist on referring to correctional officers as guards.”
He said the men and women who work in prisons “are the first line of defense between dangerous convicted felons and law-abiding citizens.”
He was right. And, over time, we in the media got better at how we referred to the officers who work in our jails and prisons. But that doesn’t mean everyone’s perceptions have changed.
If there’s such a thing in this country as a “law-enforcement family,” corrections officers and detention officers are the black sheep.
They don’t get the same respect as other officers. They don’t get the attention. They don’t get the glory. They don’t get the salary.
Even though they’re surrounded by criminals all day, every day. Even though we count on them to keep us protected from the most dangerous people in society. Even though most of them do their jobs unarmed.
To help Officer Lee’s family, Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone, along with the Maricopa County Law Enforcement Association, the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association and the Arizona Police Association will have a barbeque at the PLEA Office, 1102 W. Adams St., Phoenix, on Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Gov. Doug Ducey honored Officer Lee in a tweet reading: “Maricopa County Detention Officer Gene Lee put his life on the line to keep his fellow citizens and officers safe. His loss is felt by all Arizonans. My sincere condolences go out to his family and loved ones.”
Meantime, more than 20 years after that admonition from the director of the Department of Corrections, Sheriff Penzone felt the need — correctly — to remind us of the dangers faced by officers under his supervision.
He said, “We see what happens in the streets with our deputies and with the officers and the challenges that they face every day and the threats that they face. But it is not spoken of often enough that the men and women who work inside the jail system face similar threats on a daily basis.”
He’s right. It is not spoken of often enough. And it shouldn’t take the death of an officer to remind us.
But for now, sadly, it still does.