Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano wants to spend $4.2 million next fiscal year to protect employees at Arizona's prisons by buying better radios for corrections officers and creating special squads to conduct unannounced searches for makeshift weapons and other forbidden items.
The governor's budget proposal also includes buying high-resolution cameras for part of a prison where a year ago this week two inmates overpowered employees and began a 15-day standoff, the country's longest prison hostage situation in decades.
The proposal stems from recommendations made by a blue-ribbon panel appointed by Napolitano to examine the standoff at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Lewis near Buckeye.
Two inmates who overpowered an officer and food service worker inside the kitchen area took control of a watchtower and held two other officers hostage. One officer was raped, the other struck with an oversized serving paddle from the kitchen.
Corrections officers also were injured at three Arizona prisons this week. One was stabbed during at confrontation at the prison in Winslow. Another was injured at the Lewis prison. Three others were injured trying to break up a brawl in a dining area at the prison in Tucson.
Napolitano has proposed buying cameras for the Lewis kitchen to determine whether such surveillance equipment would be helpful and cost-effective for monitoring inmates at other prisons, said Corrections Director Dora Schriro.
The plan would provide better radios at all Arizona prisons to protect officers who sometimes encounter "dead zones" where radio reception is poor, Schriro said.
Two proposed six-person "contraband squads" would travel unannounced to the state's prisons to search housing areas, yards, kitchens and maintenance shops for shanks and other hidden items.
Joe Masella, president of the Arizona Correctional Peace Officers Association, a union representing about 2,000 prison employees, said he welcomed those changes and a $1,170 pay raise that Napolitano has proposed for corrections officers.
Still, Masella said he was skeptical about whether the Republican-led Legislature will approve the Democratic governor's changes.
In a related development, the House Appropriations Committee endorsed an $8.3 million bill (HB2387) for the Department of Corrections for overtime pay due to employees.
The department routinely requires corrections officers to work many hours of overtime in short-staffed prisons, but the department hasn't had the money to pay the officers for the extra work or enough staff to allow officers to take compensatory time off instead.
Schriro said her department has put 55 of the panel's 69 recommendations in place, either with no additional costs or by reallocating current resources.At the Lewis prison, for instance, more employees have been put in the kitchen area, until the camera pilot program is approved by the Legislature and governor.--- On the Net:Gov. Janet Napolitano's Blue Ribbon Panel: www.blueribbon.az.gov