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State v. Rhode Island Brotherhood of Correctional Officers4/15/2003
plinary sanction. Specifically, this Court stated that " he Legislature could not have intended to make the paramount disciplinary function of the director subject to the caprice of an arbitrator." State DOC, 725 A.2d at 299. Rather, the director of corrections had the "non-delegable authority to maintain security, safety, and order at all state correctional facilities[,]" and his or her disciplinary powers pursuant to § 42-56-10 could not be bargained away within a collective bargaining agreement. State DOC, 725 A.2d at 298. See Rhode Island Laborers' District Council, 592 A.2d at 146 (holding that the arbitrator's award reducing to suspension the chief judge's discharge of a deputy court clerk was irrational); see also Vose v. Rhode Island Brotherhood of Correctional Officers, 587 A.2d 913, 915-16 (R.I. 1991) (the DOC policy requiring correctional officer to work mandatory involuntary overtime was valid and the issue was not arbitrable).
After careful review of the record in this case, we conclude that the arbitrator did not have the authority to alter the discipline imposed by the director. We are mindful that the core function of the DOC is to ensure that prison inmates do not escape and threaten the safety of the community. Consequently, correctional officers must be held to a higher standard of behavior, and the responsibility of a correctional officer cannot be compromised by an illicit relationship with a prison inmate. To excuse this conduct with a mere sixty-day suspension is an irrational result.
For the reasons set forth herein, the defendant's appeal is denied and dismissed and the judgment is affirmed. The papers in this case may be remanded to the Superior Court.
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