The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services is costing tax payers money because of poor management. The N.D.C.S. current management has ignored countless warning signs, grievances and petitions for better living conditions. This has increased the cost of incarceration. As a tax payer, you deserve to know how much money it takes to keep people in prison. Warden Diane Sabatka-Rine at the Nebraska State Penitentiary, has caused many correctional officers with senority status to quit their prison jobs. Some have taken pay cuts at non-correctional positions just to get out from under her tyrannical management. This turn-over in correctional staff has created an unsafe and hostile environment for both staff and inmates. The work force is filled by people that have less than 6 months on the job. That means that most are untrained and ill-equipped for the stresses that come with being a prison worker. The decrease in seasoned staff has lowered the total number of employees which has triggered mandatory overtime for all three shifts. This mandatory overtime is costing tax payers a huge amount of money that should not be required to pay for the already high cost of incarceration. You deserve to know how much overtime pay is handed out each year and why mandatory overtime is the norm rather than the exception in the Nebraska prison system.

Would you really want your son or daughter to work at a place where the employer creates a hostile work environment and forces them to deal with Nikko Jenkins all day? Better yet, would you want your son or daughter to work mandatory overtime for a boss that is leaving them under-staffed, under-trained and without proper supervision while they deal with Nikko Jenkins? After all the complaints and petitions go unnoticed, the boss of your son or daughter throws them further in harms way by requiring them to enter the prison in full riot team gear to contain a protest by inmates that are tired of not being heard. Doesn't sound like the past 20 years from the state prison system. The state offered a safe work environment by treating prisoners more humanely, and giving correctional officers proper senior staffing to learn from and work with to keep the prison in good working order. Now-a-days, staff at the prison are frustrated because of tyrannical management and mandatory overtime. Inmates are frustrated because they have been striped of almost all recreation time, program opportunities and positive activities.

Under the current lockdown conditions, living in the general population of all maximum/medium and some minimum security prisons in Nebraska, is very similar to living in segregation under the current management of N.D.C.S. These types of living conditions have been said to have affected or created Nikko Jenkins' homicidal rampage. Not only are inmates being punished in segregation, for misconduct, they are being punished in general population even when they follow the rules. Privileges in general population have been striped to a point where being in segregation is almost a better living condition. Tax payers shouldn't pay for N.D.C.S management to make the prison less safe, creating more Nikko Jenkins and add expense by poor management decisions. The fewer recreation opportunities that inmates have decreases the development of proper social skills through interactions on a daily basis. this also prevents development of team work skills through group sports like softball, flag football and soccer, which were all removed this past May.

Tax payers are also paying to all multiple fences inside the prison. Not for public safety but to place inmates in smaller and smaller exercise areas. You also deserve to know why the Department of Corrections has been tearing out internal fences that are in perfect condition, only to buy more fences and razor wire. Ask the questions: 1. How much money has been spent on construction at the Nebraska prisons in the last 3 years? Compare that to the past 5 years. 2. what was the money used for? 3. How much overtime pay was needed to run the prisons in Nebraska in the last 3 years? Compare that to the past 5 years.

You hear about the cost of incarceration all the time. Why are tax payers allowing poor management to treat inmates in a cruel manner and then send them back into society? Think about a dog that gets kicked all the time. It's only natural that he will bite someone sooner or later. The current management of the Department of Correctional Services in Nebraska are breeding what may be considered "kicked dogs".

Don't let the bad decisions of these people cost the community anymore than they already have. Demand the resignation of Warden Diane Sabatka-Rine and Director Mike Kenney before they mistreat someone returning to your neighborhood. Their resignation will also prevent your tax dollars from being wasted and give your son or daughter a safe place to work.