Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Nevada prison system needs 100 more officers to properly fill posts, report says

Nevada’s prisons are not adequately filling the custody posts and guard towers because of a shortage of staff, a report says.

The yearlong study says 100 additional officers are needed to fill vacant posts when correctional staff are on sick leave, training or off for other reasons. It would cost an additional $7.7 million over the next two years.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” says Gene Columbus, head of the Nevada Corrections Association, the group that represents officers.

“You should never draw the line between money and the security of prisons,” Columbus said.

The study was compiled by the Association of State Correctional Administrators to assess how many officers were needed to fill the vacant posts when other workers were off.

For instance, it says 27 additional officers are needed during the next two fiscal years to adequately fill the posts at the High Desert State Prison near Indian Springs. That would cost more than $3 million.

The report was presented to the state Prison Board at its Sept. 16 meeting. Asked for comment Tuesday, the public information office of the state Corrections Department said Director Greg Cox briefed the board on the study.

The study on the need for correctional officers said that when an assigned employee is not at his or her post, “additional staff time must be allocated to that post to ensure the duties assigned to that post are completed.”

Officers from the Lovelock Correctional Center complained at least twice to the prison board in 2012 that a lack of staff was endangering the security of that prison.

The report suggests that 13 additional officers are needed over the next biennium to make sure the posts and towers are maintained at Lovelock.

Columbus said the lack of staff threatens officers and the public at large.

The study said that the prisons do factor in the time for replacements when officers are on unpaid furlough and holiday leave.

It said the shift relief factor used by the department has not been changed since 1979. And that factor does not take into account the addition of two holidays authorized by the 1987 Legislature.

The study said 15 additional correctional officers are needed at the Ely State Prison during the next two years; six officers at the Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center in North Las Vegas; 13 at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center near Carson City; 12 at the Southern Desert Correctional Center and five at the Warm Springs Correctional Center in Carson City.

Columbus said it won’t be known until December when Gov. Brian Sandoval reveals his budget how many extra officers will be recommended.

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