2 Prison Reform Plans Seek to Boost Guard Training

In the wake of hearings detailing the climate of violence in state prisons, the incoming Davis administration is being asked to support a significant increase in training for correctional officers, from the current six weeks to as many as 24 weeks.

A major goal of two proposals being pushed in the Capitol is to ensure that guards no longer shoot at inmates engaged in fistfights and melees.

Sen. Richard K. Rainey (R-Walnut Creek), who sat on one of the legislative committees that last summer heard testimony on brutality at Corcoran State Prison, has introduced a bill to expand training by 18 weeks.

Rainey, a former Contra Costa County sheriff, said “the hearings taught us that much of what is wrong in our prisons” can be addressed by guards being held to training standards that parallel those of police officers.

The lawmaker says that additional training could have prevented many of the 50 serious and fatal shootings that took place at Corcoran from 1989 to 1994.

“When McDonald’s takes more time to train a kid how to flip a burger than California takes to train its correctional officers to run a prison full of violent felons, you end up with situations like Corcoran,” Rainey said. “It is high time we stop collecting dead bodies, and start providing correctional officers with professional training.”

David Quintana, an aide to Rainey, said Thursday that the Department of Corrections is making a separate budget request to add as many as 18 weeks of training.

Cal Terhune, the corrections director, confirmed that he is seeking additional funds in the next budget to expand training, but he has not discussed his proposal with the Davis transition team.

The cost of adding training is estimated at $500,000 per week at the department’s academy in Galt, south of Sacramento. Terhune, who recently revised the department’s shooting policy, is seeking more training to focus on the way officers use force and the ethics of being a peace officer.

‘I’m pushing to increase the academy. At this point I do not have the money in my budget to do any increase,” said Terhune, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson.

It is unclear how the proposals will fare with the new Democratic administration, which faces a $1-billion budget shortfall. A Davis spokesman could not be reached for comment.

Still, it could be costly not to revise the training too, at least for sergeants and lieutenants who oversee line officers.

Last week, for example, a federal jury awarded more than $2.3 million in damages--most of it against Terhune’s predecessor--for the fatal shooting of an inmate by a San Quentin guard.

And last month, the state agreed to a pretrial settlement of $825,000 in the 1994 shooting death of inmate Preston Tate, who was mistakenly killed by a guard’s bullet intended for his rival during a yard fight at Corcoran.

The Corcoran hearings, prompted by stories of brutality at the prison in The Times, were originally scheduled for two days, but lawmakers were overwhelmed by former officers who wanted to provide evidence.

From 1989 to 1994, seven inmates were shot to death by prison guards in exercise yards at Corcoran and 43 others were wounded, making the San Joaquin Valley lockup the deadliest prison in the nation.

Last month, The Times reported, an independent state panel concluded that two dozen fatal and serious shootings of inmates at Corcoran were not justified and the state’s system for investigating and prosecuting prison shootings has broken down.

On Thursday, Jeff Thompson, a lobbyist for the state prison guard union, welcomed the proposals to boost training. “We’ve been hammering on this door since 1983,” Thompson said.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. backed Davis in the November election and Thompson predicts the new governor will look favorably on expanding training.

“It’s penny wise and pound foolish to skimp on training in our area and they have been skimping for years,” Thompson said.