LAS VEGAS ( KLAS ) — A high-profile inmate escape, the resignation of the prisons director , and reports that fences, doors and windows were vulnerable. It all added up to a spotlight on the Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC) in 2022.
NDOC Director James Dzurenda took as 2023 started, his second stint leading the state’s prison system (previously, 2016-2019), and told 8 News Now then that the biggest problems boiled down to one thing: staffing.
Dzurenda gave Nevada lawmakers an update on Tuesday morning, telling the Assembly Judiciary Committee that construction has started on a new four-mile-long fence around the High Desert State Prison, about 40 miles northwest of Las Vegas on U.S. 95. The new fence extends four feet underground and will shore up security that was scrutinized after convicted killer Porfirio Duarte-Herrera’s escape in September 2022.
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The “lethal/nonlethal fence” wasn’t identified as the reason Duarte-Herrera escaped. In fact, he climbed three fences, including two topped with razor wire, before walking to Las Vegas, eluding capture for five days before he was arrested trying to board a bus for Mexico .
But the discovery of holes carved under a fence by water running off the mountains became a focus…