Training for Prison Guards

State Sen. Richard Rainey’s “Asking for Trouble in Our Prisons” (Commentary, Feb. 8) presents many valid points concerning the appalling lack of training given California’s correctional officers. He emphasizes that the officers’ substandard weapons training has led to unnecessary deaths and millions of dollars in legal settlements and judgments. The senator’s call for the Legislature’s attention to this problem is to be commended. However, his response appears to assume that the incredible level of weaponry and resort to firearms in California’s prisons are appropriate and only the training needs to improve.

Having litigated a number of officer-involved prison shooting deaths, I firmly believe that no matter how well trained or how clearly the policies are written, as long as California stands alone among other states in arming correctional officers with deadly firepower, California will continue to lead all the other states combined in prisoners killed by bullets.

We must take the guns away. All the recent revelations concerning prison shootings establish that the resort to lethal force was entirely inappropriate. If Californians are content with one of the highest incarceration rates in the world and a continually burgeoning inmate population, we should be willing to pay for more officers who could employ less-than-lethal force to control our prisons. Killing prisoners for a cost saving is not acceptable.

BOB NAVARRO

Co-counsel on Estate

of Preston Tate vs. Gomez

Cloverdale

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Rainey writes that guards need more training because “during this era of prison overcrowding, only the most dangerous and violent of all convicted felons will actually do any time in prison.”

Medicinal marijuana activist Martin Chavez, recently sentenced to six years, is totally nonviolent, as are almost all prisoners who serve time in connection with the war on drugs. Statements such as Rainey’s propagate the misconception that only violent criminals go to prison, which is completely untrue. In fact, people convicted for violations of the drug laws frequently draw longer sentences than violent criminals.

HARRY D. FISHER

Woodland Hills