After six weeks as Deuel Vocational Institution’s interim prison warden, Jerome Price says he hopes to keep the job on a permanent basis.

“This is something that you dream about, something you plan,” Price said Wednesday, Jan. 30. “When I came into the department (of corrections), my aspiration was to become a warden.”

Since he started working in corrections at the age of 29, Price, now 55, has worked his way up the correctional ladder.

Price first worked at DVI in 1987 alongside former warden Ron Rackley when they were both officers, and he returned to the prison in December 2011 to become Rackley’s chief deputy.

A year later, Price was promoted to interim warden when Rackley became interim warden of the California Health Care Facility under construction in Stockton.

Price’s background also includes stints as the lieutenant of the investigative services unit at the Northern California Women’s Facility in Stockton and as business services manager at Sierra Conservation Center in Jamestown.

Price said there is no designated time frame as to how long he could remain interim warden at DVI, but he said past practices show it shouldn't be more than a year.

Price said someone is usually an interim warden for three months before they are given the opportunity to apply for the permanent job, but the governor has the final say on all appointments.

If Price performs well during his interim time, he said the associate director of corrections will approach him for an interview. There’s no guarantee he would receive a position at DVI, however, because other candidates also get to apply, he said.

If he is made warden, Price said he is eager to restore DVI’s inmate vocational programs, which were discontinued as the prison became a crowded reception and holding facility for the state corrections system.

Since Assembly Bill 109 shunted many nonviolent offenders from prisons to local jails, the number of inmates at DVI has decreased, and Price said it will transition in March into a general-population prison for long-term housing.

“We’re trying to get back to where we used to be,” he said.

• Contact Denise Ellen Rizzo at 830-4225 or drizzo@tracypress.com.