Oregon Public Broadcasting

Some Oregon prison guards are objecting to a plan to de-centralize training for new recruits.  Supporters say the move will save more than $8 million and won’t harm safety.  Salem correspondent Chris Lehman reports.

Right now 300 new prison guards a year undergo a five-week training course at the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training in Salem.  

They learn things like how to search an inmate and how to defend themselves.  Under this proposal, recruits would instead learn those things at the prison where they’re hired.  

That makes current guards like Amanda Rasmussen uneasy.  Rasmussen questions the quality of what the new guards will learn when compared to the intense state level training she received.

Amanda Rasmussen:  “We don’t know what that training is going to look like.  And I can’t depend that the person to my right and the person to my left who has little to no public safety experience outside of the department is going to react in the same way.”

Corrections Department officials insist quality would not be compromised under the proposal.

One budget committee has now approved part of the plan, as lawmakers work to plug a $4 billion budget deficit.