Insider to head state prison system
Scott Kernan, 55, retired as corrections department’s No. 2 in 2011 and returned to same job this spring.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown has tapped an insider to lead the state’s sprawling prison system, retired Undersecretary Scott Kernan.
Brown’s announcement was made Monday. Kernan, 55, retired as second-incharge of the agency in late 2011 and returned this spring in the same capacity. He replaces Jeffrey Beard, who had retired as Pennsylvania corrections chief when Brown appointed him to run the California system in early 2011. Beard departs Friday.
The $243,360 post is not a easy one. California’s prison system remains under federal control and oversight, subject to class actions over inmate healthcare, mental health services and solitary confinement.
The agency is crafting a new execution protocol while its death row is filled to capacity. This month it was sharply criticized in an inspector general’s report that found overt racism and mistreatment of inmates at a remote Northern California prison.
From 2011 to 2015, Kernan ran a corrections consulting company from his home in West Sacramento. Corrections spokesman Jeffrey Callison said that during that time, Kernan worked as a subcontractor for others who held contracts with the state corrections agency.
Those companies have held some of the biggest contracts with the state prison system. They include Satellite Tracking of People, or STOP, whose GPS devices are used by the state to monitor sex offenders on parole. During Kernan’s previous tenure with the agency, the company acquired the entire state contract from the corrections department after a controversial internal testing program found that its competitor’s GPS devices were faulty.
Callison said Kernan also did work for private prison contractor Corrections Corp. of America, which California pays to house some 8,000 inmates in out-of-state prisons as well as in a private prison in California City.
Kernan was unavailable for comment Monday, Callison said.
Before stepping into administrative roles in Sacramento, Kernan was a warden at California State Prison-Sacramento, a high-security prison near Folsom, and at Mule Creek State Prison near Ione. He began working as a guard in the corrections department in 1983 after three years in the U.S. Navy.
“He has the experience and the know-how to do what needs to be done,” Brown said in a statement released by his office.
The appointment requires confirmation by the state Senate.