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Prison Inmate Escapes

Posted on: Tuesday, 28 February 2006, 12:00 CST

By George B. Sanchez, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.

Feb. 28--A Salinas Valley State Prison inmate who escaped from prison Saturday night was still at large late Monday afternoon.

Ricardo Rodriguez Vasquez, 28, was discovered missing about 10 p.m. by correctional officers. He was classified as the lowest-security risk (or level one) inmate and lived with about 344 other men in two low-security dorms.

Unlike the heavily guarded quarters of maximum-security inmates, which are surrounded by a razor-wire fence, the dorms of lower-level inmates are surrounded only by a 6-foot chain-link fence.

Level-one inmates work on the prison's dairy farm as well as in its warehouse, said prison spokesman Lt. Bill Muniz. They are also in charge of ground maintenance for the prison and work in the administration building.

"Basically, they're all over the prison," Muniz said.

Officials are unsure what Vasquez may be wearing. When he worked in the dairy farm, he wore a fluorescent yellow jumpsuit, but since Vasquez escaped after work hours, he was likely wearing prison-issued blue jeans. But he could have arranged for a change of clothes so as to not give away his identity, Muniz said.

Authorities describe Vasquez as 5-feet-6 inches tall, weighing around 180 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes.

Though inmates have been interviewed, Muniz said there were no witnesses.

Vasquez was present during a 6 p.m. inmate count. Correctional officers realized he was missing after another count about three hours later. Prison officials believe Vasquez jumped the chain-link fence.

Escapes are rare among level-one inmates, Muniz said, because they're usually serving short sentences.

"What keeps the inmates in is that they have something to lose if they escape," Muniz said. "They don't have much to gain from escaping from a short sentence."

In this case, Vasquez could almost double his prison sentence for escaping.

Vasquez would be up for parole in November, Muniz said. He was serving a three-year sentence on an assault conviction.

"There's not a lot of wisdom and logic in this escape but we don't know his motivation," Muniz said.

The announcement of an escaped inmate comes at rocky time for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

On Sunday, Corrections Secretary Roderick Q. Hickman resigned after two years as head of the state's prison system. Hickman told the Los Angeles Times that he quit because he didn't have the political support to carry out the reforms he was expected to bring to the prison system.

In January, a federal judge ordered a receiver to take over medical care of California's prisons after reform demands could not be met.

That same month, race riots in Los Angeles County jails prompted a lockdown and brought criticism over the practice of racial segregation.

A month earlier, the execution of Crips street gang founder Stanley "Tookie" Williams brought worldwide attention to and criticism of the death penalty. And now the state has informally halted executions after physicians refused to aid in last week's scheduled execution of 46-year-old Michael Morales.

There are more than 307,00 men and women either on parole or in one of California's 33 prisons.

With more than 55,000 employees, the CDCR's $7.4 billion budget is more than 5 percent of California's 2005-06 general state budget.

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To see more of the Monterey County Herald, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.montereyherald.com.

Copyright (c) 2006, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Monterey County Herald (Monterey, Calif.)

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