Is the prison scandal at High Desert or Carson City?

Take a moment and see if you can spot the scandal smoldering at High Desert State Prison.

Authorities from Gov. Brian Sandoval on down are promising a full investigation of the Nov. 12 shooting death of inmate Carlos Perez at the penitentiary located near Indian Springs. With the state Legislature in session, the political hand-wringing is getting intense.

Perez became involved in a fight with fellow inmate Andrew Arevalo on the way back to his cell following a segregated shower. In prison vernacular the technique is called a “pitch and catch.” A corrections officer “pitches” a handcuffed inmate toward his cell, where a second officer “catches” him and secures him in the cell.

During the incident, relatively inexperienced prison corrections officers lost control of the two men, who were handcuffed but posed a life threat to each other. (Inmates practice a form of street fighting with their hands behind their backs in preparation for just such occasions, prison sources say.)

During the fight, one inmate was knocked to the ground and was being kicked in the face when the corrections officers fired shotguns loaded with No. 7.5 bird shot from a distance of approximately 40 feet. Perez was killed, Arevalo injured.

Although it appears an incident report was made, the death never surfaced publicly until enterprising Review-Journal reporters picked it up and began asking questions. There are still plenty of questions left unanswered.

On the street, Perez was affiliated with the Surenos, a violent group that pledges loyalty to the Mexican Mafia, says an informed High Desert source speaking on the condition of anonymity. As an inmate, Perez was a member of the Nevada Trece prison gang, another Mexican Mafia subset. Arevalo, who has lawyered up in the wake of the shooting, is also a gang member, according to prison sources.

Perez, one source confirms, had made clear his intentions of leaving the Surenos. Arevalo, prison officials believe, was trying to remind him that it’s not so easy to lose the gang life.

The men were handcuffed in accordance with the rules of the prison’s “seg” unit, where inmates segregated from the rest of the prison population are housed. But it was against prison procedure to have two inmates walking at the same time.

Mistakes were made, an experienced prison corrections source says.

But before you pass judgment, consider:

High Desert has seen more than 120 corrections officers come and go in each of the past two years. The pay is poor — after insurance, a new hire clears a little more than $800 every two weeks. New hires aren’t given gasoline stipends. And to add to the insult, officers are still being furloughed in the wake of the state’s recession-time austerity measures.

“The average level of experience for officers on the yard is under two years,” one High Desert source says.

The working conditions are worse. Not only are officers responsible for keeping secure some of society’s most dangerous and dysfunctional members, but they’re often short-staffed.

Then there’s the training officers receive. It’s a shortened version of the Peace Officer Standards and Training (P.O.S.T.) certification that Metro cops earn. And the follow-up training is woefully inadequate, High Desert sources report.

Spot the scandal yet?

Did inexperienced corrections officers overreact?

Did the Department of Corrections err in failing to make the death public? (Makes you wonder what else they think is unworthy of public scrutiny.)

Or is the real scandal the fact Nevada’s politicians, with the Legislature in session, are stammering for creative ways to show concern for what goes on behind those prison walls?

But that’s no scandal. That’s business as usual in the Silver State.

John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Email him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 702-383-0295. Follow him on Twitter: @jlnevadasmith