Former Connecticut, New York prisons chief takes Nevada job

A former prisons official in Connecticut and New York City has been named to head the Nevada Department of Corrections.

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval announced Wednesday James Dzurenda will begin his new job April 4.

Sandoval dismissed former Nevada prisons chief Greg Cox in September after Cox failed to produce a report on time about shootings of inmates by guards at facilities around the state.

E.K. McDaniel has been serving as interim director.

Dzurenda started as a prison guard in Connecticut in 1987, and became commissioner of that state’s prisons in 2013.

He became deputy commissioner of the New York Department of Correction in August 2014, overseeing nine facilities and some 9,000 inmates at jails including Rikers Island.

Nevada has about 13,500 inmates in 18 prison facilities statewide.