Report recommends eliminating birdshot as prisoner-control tool

By Cy Ryan

Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2015 | 6:14 p.m.

A study recommends state prison system employees stop firing birdshot into the ground during inmate fights and other disturbances.

A report by the Association of State Correctional Administrators on use of force in the prison system also suggests a number of other steps, such as more training for officers and clarifying some regulations.

E.K. McDaniel, interim director of the state Corrections Department, said he agrees with some of the recommendations; that some of the findings are wrong; and that he disagrees with some of the proposals in the 22-page report, released Tuesday.

The prison has instituted an interim measure of using rubber bullets to break up disturbances, McDaniel said.

Officers fire birdshot from shotguns in prison towers, and it can hit inmates not involved in the disturbances, the report found.

“Within the last year, one inmate died in a shooting incident; and in another incident, an uninvolved inmate was blinded as a result of birdshot wounds,” it states. Over the past three years, three staff members and several other inmates who were not involved in fighting were hit, the report found.

It also states that blank shots and birdshots were fired 208 times at state’s the six prisons from 2012 to 2014. It showed 70 percent of the firings were at High Desert State Prison near Las Vegas, where most of the disturbances occur.

All staff members who have contact with inmates should be equipped with handcuffs, the report states. Handcuffs are given to every officer, McDaniel countered.

When inmates fight, officers first deliver a verbal warning, McDaniel said, adding that if that doesn’t work, a blank round is fired. Then a rubber bullet is skipped into the ground. Another verbal warning is issued. If that doesn’t work, birdshot is skipped into the ground near the fighting inmates.

The rubber-bullets strategy began four months ago at some prisons, and McDaniel called it a “good stop measure” to quell disturbances. But it’s too early to tell whether it is fully effective, he said.

The 2015 Legislature approved hiring 100 officers in the next two years to fill in for employees who are sick or absent for other reasons.

Some of the recommendations will be included in policy changes delivered to the Board of State Prison Commissioners at its mid-December meeting, McDaniel said.