Editorial: Public safety a priority

Friday, Jan. 19, 2007 | 6:56 a.m.

I f t he 2007 Legislature does its job, and if the budget presented by Gov. Jim Gibbons reflects reality, the issue of public safety will command a lot of attention in the coming months.

The state's primary responsibility toward public safety is to fund its 10 prisons, the Nevada Highway Patrol and the Parole and Probation Department.

While the Highway Patrol budget has improved over the past two years, funding shortfalls - resulting in staffing shortfalls - are still a major problem in all three areas, especially in the prison system.

An internal audit released in October revealed that guard posts at the state's seven largest prisons were staffed only 83 percent of the time. This is critical, because even when the state's prisons are fully staffed on paper, they are in reality still understaffed given the growth of the inmate population, which exceeds 12,000 when also counting the state's 10 conservation camps. There are about 600 more prison inmates than were budgeted for in 2005.

The audit cited the dangers of such understaffing. In one instance, an inmate escaped through an understaffed gate and committed robbery, auto theft and kidnapping before being captured.

Without serious planning for the future, Nevada stands to face a severe crisis in this area of public safety. Last month the Las Vegas Sun's Carson City Bureau chief, Cy Ryan, reported that to ensure better safety for inmates, guards and the general public, the state would have to increase its yearly prison budget by $14 million.

But that is the least of the problem. Projections show a doubling of the inmate population over the next decade, owing in no small part to the growing use of methamphetamine.

Last summer Glen Whorton, director of the state Corrections Department, said the state will need 3,000 more prison beds by 2012, which would mean at least two new prisons and expansions of others. Then-Gov. Kenny Guinn estimated just the construction cost at $200 million. Incoming Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, called that amount "staggering."

And it is. But what will the cost be if the state waits until 2009 or 2011 to address this problem? Nevada should never again get into the position in which it found itself in 2003, when it was forced to impose the largest tax increase in state history because it had failed to pass necessary incremental tax increases for the previous 12 years.

Gibbons, a conservative Republican, has said he will not support any tax increases. Yet certain state obligations, public safety among them, require governors and legislatures to make responsible decisions, as opposed to decisions they feel are politically popular.

Additionally in the area of public safety, the Sun reported last summer that there are just 160 full-time parole and probation officers working in Southern Nevada. But on any given week, there are about 1,500 parolees, many of them with violent pasts who are considered "high risk."

And that's just parolees. There are also, at any given time, about 6,700 people on probation who need monitoring, and among that number are more than 160 sex offenders who have been sentenced to "lifetime" supervision.

A state audit last year, not surprisingly, found that the Parole and Probation Department was not providing adequate supervision. Department managers responded by reconfiguring the schedules and duties of their officers, and by giving higher priority to those ex-felons considered to be the most dangerous.

Still, the math does not work out. The public is not served well when so few officers are monitoring so many offenders. The problem could get worse if the state decides an alternative to a prison expansion program would be to release more inmates on parole.

The governor and Legislature need to begin budgeting more money for more parole and probation officers.

Although advanced from where it was two years ago, also understaffed is the Nevada Highway Patrol. In 2004 its Southern Command, which covers Clark County, had fewer than 100 sworn officers (troopers and their supervisors). Today the Southern Command is budgeted for 200 sworn-officer positions, and 183 are filled.

A new salary schedule that renders the starting pay for troopers much more competitive with the starting pay of Metro Police officers is one reason for the improvement. The Highway Patrol also reallocated its manpower, assigning more troopers and officers to the Southern Command.

Still, fewer than 200 troopers to patrol and supervise roads and highways in fast-growing Clark County on a 24/7 basis is not enough. According to Highway Patrol records for 2004, 2005 and 2006, the average time over those years that it took for troopers to reach accident scenes was 16 minutes, 25 seconds.

Statewide, its budget authorizes 420 sworn-officer positions, of which 379 are filled. The Highway Patrol will ask the Legislature to authorize 60 more positions, which we consider to be a modest request.

In addition to more staffing, the Legislature will need to consider other increases in the area of public safety, such as better health care in prisons and greater budgets for fuel and other supplies.

We ask the governor and Legislature to begin short- and long-range funding plans for these priorities during this coming legislative session, which begins Feb. 5. Unless our public-safety network keeps up with growth, we will all be less safe in the coming years.