Pubdate: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Copyright: 1998 Mercury Center Contact: http://www.sjmercury.com/ Author: John Vasconcellos CORCORAN SHOWS THAT CALIFORNIA'S PRISON SYSTEM MUST CHANGE WE have concluded six days of hearings on the abuses which occurred at California's Corcoran State Prison. They served to blow the cover off an awful situation and to generate public awareness and changes such that the system will never again be the same. The power and authority to incarcerate persons is one of the most profound responsibilities our society gives to any public agency. So we have a right to expect, and an obligation to assure, that this power is exercised always with absolute openness and integrity, always in the promotion of public safety. The Department of Corrections' abject failure to exercise this power responsibly has been a failure of leadership that has allowed a culture to grow and operate which tolerates prison brutality. That leadership cannot be allowed to continue. The vast majority of prison inmates will serve their time and then be released back into our communities. Promoting public safety demands the Department of Corrections does not cause inmates to return into our midst more dangerous than when first incarcerated. The hearings uncovered the fact that the California Department of Corrections has used lethal force in an unnecessary, unjustified manner unprecedented in American corrections. During the same five years (1989-94) California -- with 100,000 inmates -- shot and killed more than 30 inmates, the other 49 states plus the Federal Bureau of Prisons -- 700,000 inmates -- killed a total of six. Of those six, five were killed trying to escape; of our 30, none was killed trying to escape. The department's top administrators failed to stop the abuses which were ongoing, seemingly endemic throughout the department. We cannot abide the fact that not one of these corrections professionals had the integrity and courage to come forward to say, ``Stop the killing.'' Prison employees who had the courage to formally object to what was going on at Corcoran were harassed, threatened and investigated until their lives were made hellish. They were forced to leave the department. The fatal third strike here is the pattern of inaction and cover-up which is now bared for all to recognize. Many persons in the department knew and did nothing about these situations -- whether fatal shootings, setting up of fights, using an inmate rapist as enforcer or open harassment of whistle-blowers. Such a pattern of killings and brutality is the manifestation of a sick organization. The state of California must recognize that what is wrong with our prison system has to do with its very culture: its values, beliefs, expectations, practices. We have a long difficult task ahead of us, for we're dealing here with a deeply ingrained culture, a culture that does not readily admit change. Yet change it we must, as a matter of public concern for safety. I propose this comprehensive agenda for reform of our California prison system: The Legislature must continue, even increase, its oversight of the department. The Legislature and governor must undertake a concerted, comprehensive commitment to change the culture of our prison system. Our state and people should consider the emerging belief that violence is a learned rather than innate behavior. The Legislature and administration should convene a summit of national leaders of correctional systems, to review our prison operations. New leadership (apart from the current director of the corrections department) is needed, persons with fine vision and values, who can provide effective leadership to change the culture and reform the system accordingly. We must open our prison system to public scrutiny, with the current restriction on access by public media to be revoked immediately. We must implement an effective interdependent tripartite system of assessment and accountability (enacted in legislation this session) including an internal affairs operation responsible to the Director of Corrections, a series of prison ombudspersons, and an independent inspector general. We must immediately change the department's lethal force policy to forbid its use except as the last resort. We must also prohibit integration of prisoners from warring factions. We must upgrade psychological testing and educational preparation for personnel employed in our prison system. We must enact far more assured protections for whistle-blowers. We ought to require the corrections department to report within 30 days to the Legislature on the status of each of the many consent decrees and judgments. We should provide public apology and acknowledge the debt of gratitude owed to the staff persons at Corcoran Prison who had the integrity and courage to bring these problems forward. The department should initiate programs of collaboration with inmates and their families, such that inmates are enabled to lead constructive lives on the outside. We must re-examine public policies that have led to the explosive, expensive growth of our prison system. We must provide time for better management of the growth of the population of our prison system. This is an abridged version of closing statements made by State Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose, following four months of legislative hearings which concluded in October. The hearings were held by the select committee on prison management and public safety. Since then, the corrections department has revised its policy on use of deadly force, saying it will be allowed only if an armed inmate is inflicting serious injury on another prisoner or prison employee. - --- Checked-by: Patrick Henry