The Nevada Department of Corrections is making some changes that are beginning to get some notice.
The prison systems’ HIV policy has changed, the use of birdshot by corrections officers is on hold, and you might have seen this name a time or two in the media.
James Dzurenda: He’s the common denominator for change in the prison system, who took over as director in April 2016.
Nevada’s prisons haven’t had the best reputation. Dzurenda says he aims to change that.
Dzurenda views his job differently than most people might. He doesn't see himself as someone who keeps people who broke the law locked up until their sentence is over. Instead, he sees his role as somewhat of a crime fighter.
"If I know that I did one thing that stopped a crime in a community...It's like a drive in me that makes me feel really good about what I do," he said.
Changing the way an offender acts when he or she returns to society is vital to that effort. To make that change, Dzurenda believes programs have to be in place to help those inmates have a successful return to society.
"No matter what you think of an offender. What they did to your community. Whether they harassed you, victimized you," he said, "We have to do something when the offenders are incarcerated because they are going to be going home."
He said programs to deal with addictions, mental health issues and behavior modification will all help. Dzurenda gave an example of New York state and Florida. New York decided to put more money into those types of programs a few years ago to reduce the number of repeat offenders. While Florida decided to add more staffing and cut back on programming.
He said over a 10-year period, Florida has since increased its prison population, while New York is seeing a drop.
In Nevada, it costs about $22 million a year to house 1,000 inmates.
"Can you imagine if we keep going up in population every year, building new 1,000 bed facilities?" he said, "We'll go broke."
Besides working on reducing the number of inmates who are released and then commit another crime, Dzurenda said he would like to improve staffing levels at Nevada prisons and improve their pay and benefit package. But to do that, he'll need approval from the Legislature.
Dzurenda wants to prioritize getting cameras in prisons. Unlike other states, Nevada has a very small number of cameras to monitor inmates.
Another issue he plans on taking up with the Legislature is volunteers. Currently, he has to pay for a year of worker's compensation benefits for anyone who wants to volunteer. At about $5,000 per person, he doesn't have the budget to pay for that.
"I'm looking at trying to get some of the laws changed that will exempt corrections so that I could have volunteers to be able to do programs, services all that."
In Connecticut, where he used to work, about 13,000 people volunteered in the prison system.
Dzurenda said he can't do anything about how someone is arrested, charged or sentenced, but he can do something about how they leave the prison.
"I'm going to do a better job with trying to prepare them for better when they go out in the community so they don't put themselves in those positions," he said.
James Dzurenda, director, Nevada Department of Corrections