Gary Pullings knows what he wants as a correctional officer at U.S. Penitentiary Atwater.

"I want to carry the damn pepper spray," Pullings said Wednesday.

The 30-year-old former Marine, an Atwater guard since 2006, said he and his fellow officers remain dangerously exposed at the maximum security prison. He contends that staffing is too low and incarceration policies are imperfect…

The Bureau of Prisons will bring a new warden to a federal institution beset by a rash of inmate stabbings that followed the murder of a corrections officer in June.

The warden of a high-security prison in Kentucky, Hector Rios Jr. of the USP Big Sandy, will become U.S. Penitentiary Atwater's fourth warden since it opened in 2001.

The Bureau announced Tuesday that Atwater warden Dennis Smith will be transferred to a medium-security prison in Illinois…

Correctional officers at U.S. Penitentiary Atwater will have stab-resistant vests within six weeks — but officers and union officials are warning the vests aren't enough.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons, which oversees USP Atwater, signed a contract last week to buy stab-resistant vests for all federal correctional officers who want them. The company that sells the vests, Armor Express, began measuring Atwater officers for the custom-fit gear Thursday, with the vests to be delivered within six weeks.

Union officials began demanding the vests, among other safety reforms, after USP Atwater correctional officer Jose Rivera was stabbed to death by inmates at the high-security prison in June…

It was 3:30 in the afternoon — count time on housing unit 5A at U.S. Penitentiary Atwater. Jose Rivera was a half-hour short of finishing his shift.

He had just announced the count, ordering the inmates under his charge — all 110 or so — to return to their cells. He began locking them down one by one, as he did every time he worked the eight-to-four. It would be the last inmate count he'd conduct.

The two prisoners moved in, at least one of them clutching a sharp handmade shank. Rivera, a 22-year-old Navy veteran who'd started at USP Atwater less than 11 months earlier, hit the panic button on his radio…

Officer Jose Rivera had been a federal correctional officer for less than a year, starting just last August. He was killed by two inmates Friday afternoon while working at Atwater Federal Penitentiary, according to prison officials.

Extra security was posted outside the prison gates and all was quiet on Saturday afternoon, the only reminder to visitors that a correctional officer was killed there on Friday.

"It's kind of close to home, you get a little worried and are aware to lock your doors a little more than usual," said Tim Baker…