CAMARILLO : Prison Guards Protest Budget Cuts

A small group of area correctional officers picketed the California Youth Authority’s detention center in Camarillo on Friday as part of a statewide push to protest budget cuts in the state’s Department of Corrections.

Organized by the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., the picket was a protest against personnel cuts and workload increases, said Stephen Cathcart, Ventura chapter president.

“We feel the public safety is being jeopardized by the drastic cuts,” said Cathcart, a youth counselor and one of 203 peace officers employed at the CYA facility for juvenile offenders.

Simultaneous demonstrations were held at 34 other correctional facilities in the state.

Cathcart said that 1,500 peace officer positions have been eliminated from the state prison system during the last four years, while at the same time educational and recreation programs for inmates have been enhanced.

Although the California Youth Authority has fared better than the rest of the state’s penal system, Cathcart said the loss of about 12 permanent positions at the CYA’s Ventura School in Camarillo in the last two years has affected operations.

“The school used to send an officer along with the fire camp’s work crews, but management took that away,” Cathcart said, adding that the crews are only accompanied now by a fire captain.

Cathcart blamed the change in policy implemented in April, 1991, for some recent inmate escapes from work crews. “Management says, ‘No,’ that the change has not led to escapes, but we say adamantly ‘Yes, it has,’ ” he said.

Ventura School administrators could not be reached for comment Friday evening.

Statewide, there are 107,000 inmates in the California penal facilities--twice the planned maximum--and another 8,000 juvenile felons in Youth Authority institutions, Cathcart said.

Each year, about 34,000 convicted felons are released on parole, but a cut of 230 parole officers has increased the average agent’s caseload from about 50 to 100, Cathcart said.

“That means there is minimal supervision of felons on parole,” Cathcart said.

The reductions in staff, combined with prisoner overcrowding, has led to a near-tripling of injuries to correctional staff in the last five years, he said.