Romero Irate Over Defeat of Bill on Guards

Using unusually critical language, a state senator lashed out at the Assembly on Wednesday for rejecting a bill to aid prison officials investigating guards for alleged criminal activity.

Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) accused 49 lawmakers of caving in to pressure from the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., the guards’ powerful union, and either voting no or abstaining when her bill was voted on Tuesday.

“We will never correct the many problems at our state prisons until legislators develop a spine and do what is good for California, not what is good for their special interests,” said Romero, who chairs a Senate special committee on prisons.

Her bill would overturn a controversial provision in the guards’ contract that requires prison officials to immediately give to the targets of internal prison investigations any confidential statements received from victims and witnesses.

Matthew Cate, the prison system’s inspector general, said that contract provision creates a “significant barrier to the fair and effective prosecution of crimes committed by guards.”