State Prison, Plagued by Escapes, Will Install Electrified Fence : Corrections: Lethal barrier is expected to save money by replacing watchtower guards as well as improve security at the facility.

Workers on Wednesday will begin surrounding the state prison in Lancaster with a lethal electrified fence that should make escapes less likely at an institution that had four during its first year of operation.

Interim Warden John M. Ratelle said Monday that the electrified fence will allow the prison to save money by removing armed officers from 10 watchtowers. At the same time, he said, it will discourage inmates from trying to escape by climbing the perimeter fences, as convicted murderer Eric Rene Johnson did in October.

Tower officers apparently did not see Johnson scale the two 12-foot chain-link fences surrounding the prison. When an electrified barrier is activated between these fences, the tower officers will no longer be needed, the warden said.

“You have human beings in the gun towers,” Ratelle said. “What the fence does is take out the human-error part. The fence never goes to sleep. It doesn’t go to the bathroom. It doesn’t do any of those things. It’s always working.”

In an hourlong interview, his first since assuming control six weeks ago when Warden Otis Thurman was removed by the state, Ratelle added that within a month, punishment will be handed down against officers whose actions are believed to have contributed to separate escapes by Johnson and another maximum-security inmate.

“The investigations (are) completed, and there will be some disciplinary actions taken,” he said.

Despite the widespread concerns over these escapes, Ratelle urged the community to see the prison in a more positive light.

He pointed to the public clean-up work done by minimum-security prison crews and the charity work done by prison staff members who have helped combat child abuse and provided meals to the needy.

The warden added that the prison, with its annual budget of $78 million and nearly 1,000 employees, is making a significant economic contribution to the Antelope Valley.

“That money goes back into the local community,” Ratelle said. “I think sometimes that gets lost because of a couple of setbacks the institution had.”

California State Prison-Los Angeles County, which was built despite objections from the community, opened in February, 1993. During its first year, two minimum-security inmates walked away from a barracks outside the prison fences, maximum-security inmate Johnson scaled the fences to escape, and another, Steven Charles Brigida, got out by hiding in a garbage truck.

Although all four prisoners were recaptured, the incidents angered and alarmed residents. In late February of this year, state corrections officials told the first warden, Thurman, to retire or accept another post elsewhere. Ratelle said he had not been told whether Thurman has made a decision.

Ratelle, 53, warden at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego, was asked to take the helm at Lancaster for three or four months until the governor appoints a new permanent warden.

Since his arrival at Lancaster, which houses almost 4,000 inmates, Ratelle said he has made sure inmates are counted eight times a day. He also has ordered stricter supervision of “close custody” inmates, who are serving long sentences and are considered more likely to try to escape.

Lax supervision was one reason for the two maximum-security escapes, Ratelle said. “People sometimes tend to become complacent,” he said. “If it was anything, it was just a little complacency.”

But since his arrival, the warden added, “the staff at the institution has responded marvelously. They really have rallied around all of these procedural changes.”

The new electrified fence is expected to be a further deterrent to escapes over the chain-link fences that surround the buildings where medium- and maximum-security inmates are confined.

The electrified fence, which should be finished by December, will carry a charge of 650 milliamperes. For the average person, 70 milliamperes is enough to cause immediate death, said Bill Gengler, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections.

The first such fence was activated late last year at Calipatria State Prison in Imperial County. No inmate has ignored the warning signs and tried to escape over the fence since it was turned on, prison officials said.

Lancaster is one of 15 other California prisons slated to get an electrified fence over the next year. The fence, expected to cost up to $1 million, will save money because staffing a gun tower around the clock costs $225,000 annually, prison officials say.

By removing officers from 10 of Lancaster’s 12 towers, the institution will save more than $2 million annually, Ratelle said. These tower officers will be reassigned to vacant jobs at the prison.

Inmate-rights groups have criticized the so-called “death fences” as a cruel form of punishment. But Ratelle responded: “You’re not going to touch the fence accidentally. You have to have a clear (intent) to get over the fence. If you die because of that, you made a choice.”

The warden hopes the electric fence and other security improvements will restore the community’s confidence in the prison.

“I wouldn’t sit here and promise that we’d never have another escape,” he said. “I can say, though, that with the things that we’re doing now, and with the staff’s attentiveness in doing their jobs, the likelihood of an escape is minimal.”