DRUG TESTS FOR PRISON WORKERS

Applicants for jobs in Arizona's prisons are now being drug-tested
before they're hired and will be randomly tested once they start work.

The testing is the latest attempt to stem 2,700 reported drug
incidents among the Department of Correction's 26,000 inmates during
the past year.

Four prison employees were turned over to prosecutors in the past year
in connection with suspected smuggling of drugs into prisons, and
another resigned in March before a Perryville prison informer's tip
could be turned into a sting.

Two of the employees were found with drugs or related devices in their
cars as they arrived in prison parking lots, officials said. One was
caught with marijuana inside the Florence prison, and another was
accused by a Winslow inmate of failing to deliver marijuana and
methamphetamine as promised.

"Once in awhile, there's a bad apple," said Chuck Ryan, deputy
corrections director.

The department started testing job applicants in April and will phase
in testing of prison workers through the year, Ryan said.

Job applicants were not tested earlier, he said, because "it was not a
statutory requirement."

The Legislature changed that last year, when the Department of
Corrections asked for $l million for drug dogs to check visitors.
Lawmakers insisted that the department's l0,000 workers be screened as
well.

Sen. Tom Freestone, R-Mesa, was a sponsor of the drug-testing bill. A
veteran of four years on the Board of Executive Clemency, he visited
prisons daily.

"They always checked our briefcases," Freestone said. "I never, ever
saw an officer being checked."

Prisoners and visitors have long been tested for drugs.

Donna Hamm, head of the Middle Ground prison reform group, is a
longtime advocate of staff testing.

"I wonder what's taken them so long," she said.

The prison workers union helped develop the random testing program for
employees, said Carl Williams, state president of the American
Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

"I haven't talked to anybody who is real negative," Williams
said.

The crackdown could, however, hurt already flagging efforts to recruit
correctional officers. The department is struggling to staff the new
state prison south of Buckeye, where just over half the guard jobs
have been filled.

Out of 15,000 people who showed interest in becoming correctional
officers last year, 1,959 were hired. Most applicants washed out when
asked about their drug use.

"It's an automatic disqualifier," department personnel chief Meg
Savage said.