Public Safety chair says prison is in a state of emergency

It's no secret -- there are just not enough officers at the Guam Police Department and the Department of Corrections to tackle the increase in crime reported on island.

Sen. Chris Barnett, legislative chair of Public Safety thinks it's beyond a chronic problem. 

"I think it is in a state of an emergency," he told KUAM News. 

He said you can ask the police chief and prison director for yourself.

"They're singing the same song, they need to help recruiting new officers, they need help retaining officers that they already had. So yeah, I think it's an emergency," he said. 

Committee vice chair, Sen. Chris Duenas echoed the concern that Guam’s drug problem outweighs what authorities can handle.

"So I think from all perspectives it is very difficult for anyone to say that public safety is not in a state of emergency for and I think the biggest reason why is not just because of the manpower, but the severe methamphetamine epidemic," he said. 

Barnett has since written to the department of administration about the manpower woes. He specifically points out that DOC went over budget by $80,000 in part due to overtime, adding the prison just didn’t have the money to process new hires.

"And so again, I think we just need to take the politics often, as you know, the elections over the campaigns are over," he said. "I believe that public safety is in a state of emergency and this committee in this legislature is dedicated and committed again, to see these issues through. It's all hands on deck."

"But public safety, when it gets behind like this, it really starts to snowball," Duenas said. "And so the major issue is, are we setting an alarm? Well, maybe, but what we're really trying to do is say we in order to focus on this, you need to be able to have this power to marshal the resources and say, it's a true priority."

DOC Director Bob Camacho says while recruiting is a struggle, he is aware staffing problems also exist at the Department of Administration. 

"We're doing our best, you know, to work with the system to ensure that, as many people as possible to apply and have a better understanding yet," he said. "If we can have more personnel, you know, maybe two people assigned to each department and process those applications much quicker. I think that would solve the thing, because even if even we have the state of emergency, what would that encompass? Right?"

As for the senators' calls for that emergency, the governor's office has yet to respond.