Corrections officers say cuts raise safety issues

NORCO - Less than a year after Chino's destructive prison riot, state corrections officers say cost-cutting could contribute to another just like it.

The safety of the public and of prison officers is imperiled by a 3 percent to 5 percent reduction in staffing levels statewide, according to dozens of local corrections officers who protested the decreases on Tuesday at the California Rehabilitation Center.

The officers said inmates receive less supervision, which encourages them to take advantage of less-secure situations.

"My main concern is knowing the troops are being denied proper coverage," said James Howell, a corrections officer at the CRC.

"We're already outnumbered from the get-go. This is about safety. Somebody is gonna get hurt."

Eric Martinez, a corrections officer at the California Institution for Men in Chino, called the situation "volatile."

"They're taking positions away from the institution and that jeopardizes everybody - the officers working there, the inmates, the non-custody staff, and it's a bad situation," Martinez said. "You can't do this on behalf of dollar signs. Safety comes first in an institutional setting."

Protesters said the Schwarzenegger administration began implementing the staffing reductions for state prisons last month without a corresponding decrease in the inmate population. The reductions have put staff, inmates and the surrounding community at significant risk, they claim.

Brian Davis, corrections spokesman, said any staff redirection is always of great concern, but "given California's budget crisis we are being asked to do more with less.

"We are hopeful with the upcoming new fiscal year we will be able to discontinue staff redirection."

Corrections officials have begun redirecting staff to fill vacant positions, leaving reduced inmate coverage for corrections officers at posts throughout the state prison system, protesters said.

"Recently, (the corrections agency) directed each institution to implement a staff diversion plan which will operate on a daily basis," said Fred Stevens, the CIM chapter president for California Correctional Peace Officers Association. "This plan amounts to the daily abandoning (leaving vacant) of up to 33 correctional officer posts at CIM."

Further anger has been caused, protesters said, by cost overruns created by the state spending $700 million in a no-bid contract with the Corrections Corp. of America, a private corrections firm that houses inmates in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma.

"Fewer correctional peace officers put(s) the remaining staff, inmates and surrounding communities at significant risk, while Gov. Schwarzenegger uses our tax dollars to stimulate the economies and create jobs in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma, at the time that this state's unemployment rate reaches a historical high of 12.6 percent," said Joe Baumann, chapter president of the CCPOA at Norco.

Chuck Alexander, the union's state vice president, flew down from Sacramento to attend the protest.

"We recognize the state's fiscal crisis and the fiscal issues going on, but at the same time, the population we are charged with overseeing has not been reduced whatsoever," Alexander said. "We're concerned we're going to have another episode like the riot at CIM."

Alexander said the Norco rally was the first of its kind and more may be on the way statewide.