New Drive To Boost Employee Safety After Guard’s Slaying

Sacramento, CA — Four months after severe security lapses led to the first inmate murder of an employee since 1996, correctional officials will begin trying to make sure it doesn´t happen again.

A 10-member steering committee will develop the first-in-the-nation procedures.

The state Board of Corrections approved the committee today, along with a nine-member panel to review employee safety at all 40 adult and youth prisons within 28 months.

Today´s action comes a month after national experts and the prison system´s inspector general each cited leadership and procedural failings at the prison that helped lead to the January stabbing death of the first guard at an adult prison to die since 1985.

The last employee to die was a counselor killed in 1996 by a youth offender.