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| State guarding inmate who may be brain-dead |
| By Mercury News |
| Published: 01/31/2005 |
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California taxpayers are paying more than $1,000 a day in overtime for round-the-clock guarding of an inmate who was shot in the head by a correctional officer Jan. 16. Yet the felon's relatives say they have been told the prisoner is brain-dead. The mounting cost of guarding incapacitated or comatose inmates was disclosed last Sunday in a Mercury News special report. In the latest example, injected into a Capitol hearing last Thursday, the tab of having at least one officer watch convicted felon Daniel Provencio 24 hours a day while he is restrained in the intensive-care unit of a Bakersfield hospital has run up to more than $11,000, according to Department of Corrections officials. The case provides another stark example of what critics say is an inflexible policy that sometimes leads to overstaffing in the care of dying inmates. Provencio's distraught relatives say they are seeking a ``compassionate release'' for the 28-year-old Oxnard man but have met resistance from the Department of Corrections, which is spending $1,056 a day to watch over him. After his mother interrupted the hearing to complain about a state prison policy, corrections officials said late last Thursday that they are looking at options, including asking the Board of Prison Terms to parole Provencio. Under a longstanding state policy, all sick or injured inmates who are treated outside prison walls are required to be escorted and guarded by two officers. Over the past six years escort and guarding costs have jumped 61 percent to more than $30 million annually. To protect public safety, the inmates are also restrained in hand or leg shackles. Authorities cite anecdotes of even inmates in wheelchairs jeopardizing security. |
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