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DOC has 26 new corrections officers
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Posted on Nov 30 2005
Twenty-six cadets who completed yesterday the 3rd Cycle Corrections Academy will augment the understaffed Department of Corrections in preparation for the opening by of the new prison facility in Susupe next year.
DOC Chief Operating Officer Michael A. O’Toole in an interview with the Saipan Tribune said the new graduates bring the department up to full strength for now.
“We have enough people now so that we can safely operate the existing facility and take people out of rotation and train them with the operation of the new facility,” O’Toole said.
“We simply cannot walk in to that new facility without training and in order to have that training we have to have staff to run the old facility and free up people…so we have that now. So we can move on with the transition. We can move in to the staff training phase,” he said.
The new graduates will be a great help to DOC since it has only over 60 staffers.
“We were short. We have approval for 76. We have a lot of vacancies. A lot of these staff filled the existing vacancies,” he said.
The COO explained that actually they would have only five new staff from the 3rd Cycle program because all the other cadets are simply filling up the existing vacancies.
“These are not the additional staff to open a new facility. These were the fill vacancies and just give us a few extra staff so that we could do the training,” he said.
O’Toole said with extra people, they can start to rotate the staff out of the shift and train them in the operation of the new facility.
The target date for the opening of the new facility is the end of February and beginning of March 2006. About 112 staff members are reportedly needed to fully operate the new facility.
Meanwhile, Lianna Boyer Peters emerged as the 3rd Cycle’s valedictorian. Jesus Ngirchechol Castro was adjudged as the top gun and most physically fit.
“It’s really good. It paid off,” said Peters on her award. She said the training was really hard.
“But if you’re motivated and you want to do something…” Peters said.
Castro also expressed the same feeling.
“I feel good. I feel good. The training was hard. The instructors taught us how to approach and how to do it and then we have to do it,” Castro said.
