California's new corrections chief plans to add training on diversity and leadership for prison employees and to examine what has been effective in other states to change employees' attitudes as he tries to alter a culture that often pits prison guards against inmates and outsiders.
"They (guards) have worked under very difficult situations and we have to figure a way to get them engaged in the rehabilitation process and not just be somebody counting heads," Scott Kernan told The Associated Press in an interview.
He took over as secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation last month after starting as a correctional officer himself in 1983. Kernan worked his way up through management at a time when California prisons were so crowded that federal judges eventually set a limit on the inmate population.
Crowded conditions meant a violent atmosphere, few rehabilitation programs and an us-against-them attitude from guards, Kernan said.
"It's just emotional survival. You tend to paint, for example, all inmates with a broad brush of negativity, and I think we've got to change that," he said.
To continue reading this article by Associated Press reporter Don Thompson, go to: http://www.sfgate.com/news/art...o-change-6819757.php
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