SUN EDITORIAL:

A temporary solution

There won’t be furloughs for prison guards, but staffing crisis is not over

Friday, Nov. 13, 2009 | 2:06 a.m.

State prisons should always have a sufficient number of guards to protect public safety and ensure that all armed personnel are alert and well rested. The Nevada Corrections Department is already dangerously close to falling below those standards because the prisons it runs have the money to operate at only 85 percent of recommended staffing levels.

Imagine how much more strain would have been placed on the department had it been forced to schedule its guards for one-day-a-month unpaid furloughs. That is what other state employees are required to take over the next two years in a budget-cutting move.

And that is why it was prudent Tuesday for the state Board of Examiners, which consists of Gov. Jim Gibbons, Secretary of State Ross Miller and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, to exempt guards from furloughs through June.

The Las Vegas Sun’s David McGrath Schwartz quoted Corrections Department Director Howard Skolnik as saying that furloughs would have endangered guards and inmates by increasing the likelihood of injury or death.

The fact that it took some shuffling of state money to give guards this reprieve is of little relief, though. Skolnik should not have to beg for funding when it comes to guard staffing. What Nevadans should demand is for Gibbons and the Nevada Legislature to find new ways to generate sufficient revenue so that staffing levels do not become an issue.

Instead, lawmakers rely on the Band-Aid approach to budgeting. That explains why Skolnik is counting on a possible $2.5 million-a-year lease of the shuttered Southern Nevada Correctional Center in Jean to a private company to help defray the cost of furlough exemptions for guards in the future.

Prison guards are too vital to be used for short-term budgetary relief. Nevadans and their prison system deserve better.

Discussion: 8 comments so far…

By dwms

11/13/09 at 5:40 a.m.

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This article does not address the 29 terminated guards for committing crimes.
By LarryVegas

11/13/09 at 7:10 a.m.

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What happened to all that there stimulus money to keep jobs that the White House is always talking about?

How about getting some of those long term unemployed on unemployment compensation to lend a hand?
By geezelouise

11/13/09 at 7:22 a.m.

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Perhaps it is time for our society to find a better solution than incarceration. We keep stuffing our prisons full of low level offenders at an average cost of 25K per year. It is much less costly to use house arrest or alternative programs such as drug court, mental health court, etc...

Yes there are those who are in prison who belong there, but that is a small percentage compared to those doing time for non voilent crimes or those who are substance abusers who could be given alternative sentences at a much lower cost to the taxpayer.

Try factoring in not just the cost of the incarceration, but the cost to the state for welfare and/or DFS services to the families of those incarcerated and you might get a bigger picture of the problem and the effect it has on our society as a whole.

let's get smart on crime. Tough on crime just wastes our tax dollars and there isn't a benefit. Crime rates have been dropping for years, but our prison population keeps rising.
By nednougat

11/13/09 at 8:49 a.m.

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Louise, Geez you gave me room for thought. Yes, the welfare and support costs for helping the mother and children of an incarcerated inmate are a burden to the state and society. So we should let out the criminals with petty crimes. Right?

But wait, there's more. If the criminal is incarcerated, he can't make more dependent children! Let him out, he's back breeding, and then he's hit with child support. Which he can't pay. So he's back in the slammer. But he's not breeding! So it goes, kinda' like a carousel. What a country...
By mywallet700

11/13/09 at 12:18 p.m.

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The Sun editorials are such a joke. The answer to everything is to raise taxes and make the Governor do it. Guess what Las Vegas Sun! No one has enough money to pay for all the public trough programs you guys spew out. I pay enough already. Let prisoners work and pay their own way. Let college kids pay for their schooling. Get the slackers off unemployment, so there is money for those who really got laid off. The Sun's answer to everything is MAKE ME PAY MORE. I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY!
By dwms

11/13/09 at 5:15 p.m.

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Work programs exist in the prisons. The casinos have prisoners making decks of cards handed out as souvenirs.

What about putting the fathers to work and the wages they earn go to child support.
By jlb101

11/13/09 at 7:24 p.m.

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Pull the guards from the interior of the prison and hand out knives to the inmates. A week later send in heavily armed guards to collect the remaining knives. Overcrowding solved.
By C_castillo36

11/14/09 at 8:43 a.m.

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This is just another ploy from Skolnick...If the Board of Examiners Knew that the entire prison is locked down they would see that there over staffed...But Skolnick from what i understand showed the board a video of what the tiers looked like years ago when the yards were open..The public should know that there has not been open yards in the prisons in Nevada for YEARS now, so the lives of his guards and security of inmates has not been an issue for years, trust me the guards are secure while they play video games in there bubble. The inmates are on lock down 23 hours a day they come out one at a time and that is the entire prison...Skolnick just wants to keep the furloughs from happening just because he likes to have power this is his way of telling the state what HE is going to do not the state telling him what to do..The furloughs would be one day a month Im sure once a month in each department someone calls off sick It would be the same loss, I am sure they manage..Think about it??

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