Members of the NJ State Corrections Committee participating in the Cumberland County tour included (counter-clockwise from left) Cumberland
County Corrections Local 231 State Delegate Victor Bermudez, Mercer County
Corrections Officers Local 167 State Delegate Winslow Land, Bergan County
Sheriff’s Officers Local 134 State Delegate Andy Pacucci, Middlesex County
Corrections Officers Local 152 President Ted Grabowski, Camden County Correction Local 351 State Delegate Michael Turner, Local 152 State Delegate
Mike Kaniuk, Salem County Corrections Local 400 State Delegate Brian Pio
and Ocean County Corrections Local 258 State Delegate Frank Gordon.
WORTH THE CHANCE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 41
personal history.
“They have to earn their way in,” Bermudez added. “It’s not a giveme.”
The stop in Cumberland County was part of the regular tour of
facilities the State PBA Corrections Committee has been conducting
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the past few years. But the impact Last Chance made was significantly
more than the crab cakes served at the post-tour lunch meeting.
“It keeps the inmates out of the halfway houses and private facilities,” confirmed Andy Pacucci, the Bergen County Sheriff’s Department Local 134 State Delegate and co-chair of the Corrections
Committee.
Pacucci joined Mercer County Corrections Officers Local 167 State
Delegate Winslow Land, Middlesex County Corrections Officers Local
152 State Delegate Mike Kaniuk, Salem County Corrections Local 400
State Delegate Brian Pio, Ocean County Corrections Local 258 State
Delegate Frank Gordon, Camden County Correction Local 351 State
Delegate Michael Turner and Local 152 President Theodore
Grabowski in representing the State Corrections Committee. They
shared a similar feeling after this tour stop.
“It’s a more professional atmosphere in general in the county corrections facility,” Pacucci said. “If you’re trying to help somebody and
get them back into society, they would rather have a professional than
somebody with no training who got hired yesterday and is working a
facility today. Remember, when you are paying a guy $10 an hour, you
get $10 an hour out of them.”
Certainly, a county corrections facility provides officers worth 10
times $10 an hour – and more. And another great attribute of Last
Chance is its cost to Cumberland County. Much of it has been
financed by a federal grant NAACP New Jersey State Conference President Richard Smith went to Washington, D.C. to help secure.
“It’s great to have the State PBA behind this program,” Bermudez
commented. “It helps keep our Civil Service employees employed,
and it gives us different avenues outside the private sector that we
never really explored.” d