Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : New Warden Named to Head Lancaster Prison : Corrections: Ernest Roe was chief deputy warden in Tehachapi. He replaces Otis Thurman, who came under heavy criticism after two escapes.

Ernest C. Roe, a chief deputy warden at the state prison in Tehachapi, was named the new warden at the state prison at Lancaster, the governor’s office announced Wednesday.

Roe, 41, has worked for the state Department of Corrections since 1985, said J.P. Tremblay, a spokesman for the state Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, which oversees the Corrections Department.

He replaces Otis Thurman, the prison’s first warden who was forced to resign in February under heavy criticism from the public and state officials after two escapes by maximum-security prisoners.

Thurman’s temporary replacement, John Ratelle, an interim warden for five months, cited a “lack of attentiveness” by the prison’s staff as the leading factor in the escapes.

When Thurman submitted a report suggesting that construction flaws at the 18-month-old prison may have been partly to blame, that report was corrected on several points by department officials in Sacramento.

Donald R. Hill, warden at the Tehachapi prison, replaced Ratelle and served as interim warden since the beginning of the month.

The governor’s office informed Roe of his appointment by telephone Wednesday. He later attended a meeting of the Lancaster Citizens Prison Advisory Committee later in the day to introduce himself to committee members and the public, said Roger Skaggs, a spokesman at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi.

Roe is a former deputy sheriff in San Joaquin County who began his career with the state Department of Corrections in 1985 as supervisor of its training academy at the Sierra Conservation Center in Jamestown.

In 1987, he took another supervisory position at the Deuel Vocational Institute in Tracy, where he later became the assistant chief of education and an associate warden.

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He moved to the 5,700-inmate Tehachapi facility in 1989, where he rose to deputy chief warden and took charge of the operations of the minimum-, medium- and maximum-security facilities, as well as the reception area, Tremblay said.

Roe’s duties at Tehachapi included overseeing the prison’s medical services, housing and recreation programs, classification and discipline of prisoners and its records department, Tremblay added.

Tip Kindel, a spokesman for the state Corrections Department, said he hoped Roe’s appointment coupled with increased security measures will help alleviate the community’s “justifiable concerns about the escapes and security at the institution.”

“It’s something that the community has every right to demand from us, and we demand it from our administrators,” Kindel said. “We’re hoping with all the steps that have been taken, we can earn the confidence of the public in that community, but we will have to re-earn that trust.”

Lancaster Mayor Frank Roberts, who serves on the advisory committee and met Roe on Wednesday, said Roe’s appointment was a step in the right direction.

“He is soft-spoken and a well- educated guy, and I think things are going to be OK,” Roberts said.

Next month, the Antelope Valley Transit Authority will begin using the prison’s minimum-security inmates to help maintain the transportation agency’s bus fleet, Roberts said.