Pubdate: Fri, 13 Feb 2004
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2004 San Jose Mercury News
Contact:  http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Author: Don Thompson, Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)

SCHWARZENEGGER DEALS WITH PRISON CRISIS

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - While prison guards allegedly watched the Super
Bowl and ignored his screams for hours, an inmate on dialysis died as
most of his blood drained from his body.

The death last month was just the latest horror story to come out of
the California prison system and confront Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
with one of the biggest crises of his new administration.

Among other things, two teenagers hanged themselves last month at a
juvenile prison. And in a recent series of scathing reports and
hearings, legislators, outside experts and whistleblowers have charged
that the nation's biggest prison system is plagued by out-of-control
spending, inhumane discliplinary practices, and outright brutality on
the part of guards.

"Most people in California aren't sent to prisons on death sentences,"
said state Sen. Gloria Romero, a Democrat from Los Angeles who is
co-chairing legislative hearings now under way on the 160,000-inmate
prison system. "Yes, we want to be tough on crime. We don't want to be
torture chambers."

Peter Siggins, Schwarzenegger's legal secretary, said: "He's very
concerned about this department. He's concerned about the way it does
its business, serves its mission, and he wants to fix it."

Last month, sobbing witnesses at Senate hearings told of a systemwide
"code of silence" among guards and accused top Folsom State Prison
officials of covering up their mishandling of a 2002 riot.

The riot broke out when two rival gangs were released together into an
exercise yard; officials later deleted a guard's objections from the
audio portion of videotapes of the riot. Twenty-five inmates and one
guard were injured, and a second guard committed suicide months later,
complaining of his treatment by prison officials in the riot's aftermath.

In recent weeks, a federal monitor said the state's former corrections
director and chief investigator should be charged with contempt for
blocking a probe of whether Pelican Bay State Prison guards lied to
protect co-workers convicted of soliciting inmates to attack child
molesters and others they disliked. A federal judge appointed the
monitor to investigate.

The California Youth Authority, which is responsible for 4,600
juvenile offenders, came under fire recently from state-funded experts
who said authorities overuse Mace, drugs, physical restraints and
wire-mesh cages on misbehaving youths while ignoring or delaying
mental or physical health treatment.

Last month, Deon Whitfield, 17, and Durrell Tadon Feaster, 18, used
bed sheets to hang themselves in their cells at a juvenile prison in
Ione. Their parents have accused officials of providing inadequate
mental health care.

In what Romero called "a Super Bowl horror," 60-year-old Ronald
Herrera pulled the dialysis shunt from his arm and bled to death Jan.
25 in his cell at Corcoran State Prison. The Los Angeles Times quoted
unidentified prison officials as saying guards were busy watching the
game and ignored his cries for help. No one has been charged.

It was only the latest in bizarre allegations at Corcoran, where eight
guards accused of staging gladiator-style fights among inmates were
acquitted of civil rights violations in 2000. Last fall, jurors
rejected a lawsuit by an 118-pound inmate who said he was repeatedly
raped after guards intentionally housed him with a 220-pound aggressor
known as the "Booty Bandit." The guards were acquitted of criminal
charges as well.

In a confidential report obtained by The Associated Press, state
investigators said guards at Salinas Valley State Prison formed a
gang-like organization, called the Green Wall, to intimidate inmates
and fellow employees, and even devised gang-style hand signals and
codes.

Former internal affairs officer Donald J. Vodicka, a hulking man with
a shaved head, was so frightened after he blew the whistle on the
Green Wall that he wore a bulletproof vest and repeatedly burst into
tears while testifying at a Senate hearing.

Schwarzenegger has readily acknowledged the failures. Last week, he
asked a federal prosecutor to probe the Folsom riot; ended the youth
authority's use of wire-mesh cages; and admitted his mistake in
seeking to merge the watchdog inspector general into the very prison
agency it is supposed to oversee.

Pledges of reform have echoed every few years, but even
Schwarzenegger's political opponents believe things might be different
this time.

The problem is too huge - and too costly - to ignore, said Frank
Zimring, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley
who has studied California prisons for 20 years.

An adult system that held 24,000 inmates two decades ago has grown
sevenfold with a budget of more than $5 billion - and still overspent
by $500 million last year. Since 1999, the department has overspent by
nearly $1.6 billion, an AP analysis found, much of it going for guard
overtime and sick leave.

In a possible sign of his independence, the governor has refused
political contributions from the powerful guards union, which received
a contract in 2001 that gave officers a 37 percent raise over five
years and the chance to make more than $100,000 a year with overtime.

If Schwarzenegger does not follow through, court oversight will, said
Donald Spector, director of the Prison Law Office, a nonprofit group
that provides legal services to inmates. The Pelican Bay prison is
already under federal monitoring, and Spector and some legislators
said California's system is just a court order away from a federal
takeover.

"It's just one unconstitutional practice after the next," Spector
said. "It's so big, it's nearly impossible to manage."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin