Maintain a line of defense

Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009 | 2:09 a.m.

When a prison riot broke out last month at the California Institution for Men in Chino, a melee that injured 175 inmates, it came at a particularly bad time for the financially strapped state. As part of California’s belt tightening, its corrections officers are required to take time off without pay, which reduces the security that can be provided at state prisons.

This dilemma was not lost on Nevada Corrections Department Director Howard Skolnik on Tuesday when he appeared before the State Board of Examiners to argue against forced furloughs for his own corrections officers.

As reported by the Associated Press, Skolnik told the board that on the day of the Chino riot, 15 percent of the prison guards there were on furlough. Though Skolnik said the incident still probably would have occurred had those officers been present, he aptly concluded that having more guards on hand “could have significantly reduced the time and amount of damage that was done.”

We hope the state board, whose members are Gov. Jim Gibbons, Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller, received the message loud and clear that prison guard furloughs in Nevada could pose an unnecessary safety risk to corrections officers and the public.

Skolnik has succeeded in exempting corrections officers from mandatory one-day-a-month furloughs for state employees that began in July as a result of Nevada’s bare-bones budget. But that exemption expires at the end of this month.

The Corrections Department isn’t getting off scot-free, as its medical staff and high ranking department personnel are taking time off without pay. The medical staff furloughs are particularly difficult because inadequate medical care is often cited as a reason why inmates riot.

Extending furloughs to corrections officers in a prison system that is staffed at only 85 percent of recommended levels would be even worse because they represent the only human line of defense between dangerous inmates and the public.

That’s why the state board should extend the furlough exemption for those guards indefinitely.