The inspector general’s investigation found the department directed some correction officers to take a firearms training course on a new date that would still allow the prison to comply with accreditation requirements (which calls for officers to be trained once a year on guns) while also making sure some officers weren’t in training during a time of year where a lot of workers are away on vacation or taking time off.
To adjust this training cycle, the prison offered an additional firearms training session for officers, even though they had already met the requirements earlier in the year. The training session was not required by the accreditation agency.
The investigation did find that some officers were credited with more training during that session than they had actually earned but that wasn’t a purposeful mistake, the report said.
“The error was found to be a misunderstanding of how to document the training hours, and was not intentional,” according to the report. “The manner in which this firearms training session was conducted and the hours credited to the corrections officers had no impact on the standing of the agency’s accreditation status.”