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Thursday, August 20, 2009
Email from a state employee - Hold back your tears!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Behind the Prison RIot in California
Pat Nolan
Vice President of Prison Fellowship
Posted: August 12, 2009 11:38 PM
The bloody riot at California's prison at Chino raged for 4 long hours, injuring 175 inmates, with 55 with such serious wounds that they were rushed to local hospitals. 16 inmates were still hospitalized on Monday. Inmates suffered vicious stab and head wounds as prisoners attacked each other with makeshift weapons including shards of glass and broken water pipes. Sixteen inmates remained hospitalized Monday.
This violence was predicted in 2007 by the former director of the Texas Prisons, Wayne Scott, based on his evaluation of the prison at Chino. "If the prisoners wanted to take over the dorm they could do so in a second and no one would know," Scott reported after he visited Cleveland Hall located in Chino's West Facility, where Saturday's riot occurred. The dorms were built in the 40's during World War II. They house 198 inmates, guarded by only two officers, one of them separated from the living area in an office. The bunks are so close together that there is no way that the officers can observe the entire dorm at once.
Inmates arrive at Chino to be assessed as to the danger they pose to staff. After they are classified, they are bused to one of the 33 prisons in California sprawling corrections system. Inside the prison at Chino the inmates range from low level offenders doing time for check kiting or technical parole violations to murderers and rapists returning to prison after multiple prior stays. Violent prisoners are mixed with vulnerable offenders in dorms where there are no cells and no place to hide. The prison, originally designed to hold 3,000 prisoners is now bulging at almost double that number - 5,900.
Imagine the conditions in which these prisoners are held. The prison is in a hot, desert with the Sun baking the compound and its inhabitants. Packed inside are twice as many inmates as it was designed for. A constant flow of bodies jostle through the narrow aisles between the sea of bunk beds. The inmates hassle over toilets and wash basins because there are only half as many as are needed. With the men stacked like cords of wood, the noise, heat and smell of sweat is overwhelming.
In this roiling cauldron of tension add the twin curses of loneliness and boredom: the inmates spend hour after hour liked rats in a cage with nothing productive to occupy their time. The budget cuts have eliminated the educational and addiction treatment programs that used to fill their hours and give them hope. Then add in the racial tensions that permeate our inner cities and our prisons and you have an extremely volatile mixture.
This was the atmosphere in Chino's Cleveland Dorm when it exploded in violence last weekend. When the officers finally took back control, many inmates had been permanently maimed.
Don't blame the corrections officers for these conditions. They are merely carrying out the policies adopted by the legislature and the governor. Unfortunately, meting out long sentences gets more adoring headlines than appropriating the money to pay for them. Corrections leaders have warned of the dangers of crowded prisons for years, but the legislature and the governor haven't responded with enough money to solve the problem.
Comments on several news sites suggest that we shouldn't care about these inmates. Some writers said that the guards should have held back and let the inmates fight until they had all killed each other. My hunch is these attitudes would be very different if one of their sons or brothers were housed in Chino.
When the government incarcerates an inmate it strips him of all control over his life, even the ability to defend himself. The inmate has no choice over where he sleeps, whom he lives next to, when he gets up, where he goes, where and what he eats. If the lights are out in the shower room - a very dangerous situation - he can't shower somewhere else and can't fix the light. He is prohibited from arming himself. He is vulnerable. When the government takes away all ability of an inmate to defend himself, it assumes responsibility to keep him safe. In many cases, the government has failed in this responsibility. It certainly failed at Chino last weekend.
And some in government don't seem to care. The local Assemblyman for the Chino area, Curt Hagman, commented, "By nature prisons are violent". With a shrug he accepted the stabbings and broken bones, the eyes gouged out and the heads cracked open that occurred over the weekend. Assemblyman Hagman's remark reminds me of a similar callous remark by a Massachusetts Corrections Official who, when asked about prison rape, said, "What can I say. It's prison."
Actually there are prisons where violence is not a problem and where beatings and rapes do not occur. Rather than shrugging off the violence, leaders like Assemblyman Hagman should be supporting corrections leaders who are trying to make prisons safe and restore the programs that allow prisoners to prepare to live contributing and law-abiding lives after they are released.
Prisons can be safe. In Louisiana, Angola State Prison is the largest maximum security prison in the US. Until a few years ago it was also America's most violent prison. The inmates slept with metal plates or phone books on their chests to prevent stabbings to their chests.
Under the leadership of Warden Burl Cain, all that has changed. Angola is now the safest prison in the US. Cain shows the men respect. Although 98% of the inmates will die in that prison, he promises them good food, good medicine, good fun and good praying. I have visited Angola and have seen the difference in the prisoners. They look you in the eye. Most inmates in maximum security avoid your eyes out of fear. At Angola, the inmates are taught how to prepare delicious food for their fellow prisoners by New Orleans chefs. There is a seminary in the prison, training men to become pastors for their fellow prisoners. The inmates have a great time at the annual rodeo, which draws thousands of local residents who get a chance to see that the inmates are human just like them.
As a member of the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission and also a member of the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's prisons, I had the chance to learn from corrections professionals what steps can be taken to make prisons safe rather than descending into violence. Leadership is a critical element in establishing a safe environment for staff, inmates and volunteers. But good leaders have a harder time if the inmates are packed liked sardines in a can. Both commissions identified prison crowding as one of the key factors leading to physical assaults and rapes in prisons.
All of us should care what happens to inmates while they are incarcerated because 95% will serve their time and be released back to our communities. When they are released, what kind of neighbors will they be? The skills the inmates develop to survive violent prisons like Chino make them dangerous when they are released. You can't cage men like animals and then expect them to be model citizens when they return home.
The next time a politician promises to lengthen sentences, ask him if he is willing to support more money to house the increase in inmates caused by the longer sentences. Hold your representatives' feet to the fire. If they aren't willing to spend the dime, they should not be voting for more time.
Here are more resources on the impact of violence in our prisons and ways to stop it:
Prison Violence
Prison Rape
Warden Burl Cain
Vice President of Prison Fellowship
Posted: August 12, 2009 11:38 PM
The bloody riot at California's prison at Chino raged for 4 long hours, injuring 175 inmates, with 55 with such serious wounds that they were rushed to local hospitals. 16 inmates were still hospitalized on Monday. Inmates suffered vicious stab and head wounds as prisoners attacked each other with makeshift weapons including shards of glass and broken water pipes. Sixteen inmates remained hospitalized Monday.
This violence was predicted in 2007 by the former director of the Texas Prisons, Wayne Scott, based on his evaluation of the prison at Chino. "If the prisoners wanted to take over the dorm they could do so in a second and no one would know," Scott reported after he visited Cleveland Hall located in Chino's West Facility, where Saturday's riot occurred. The dorms were built in the 40's during World War II. They house 198 inmates, guarded by only two officers, one of them separated from the living area in an office. The bunks are so close together that there is no way that the officers can observe the entire dorm at once.
Inmates arrive at Chino to be assessed as to the danger they pose to staff. After they are classified, they are bused to one of the 33 prisons in California sprawling corrections system. Inside the prison at Chino the inmates range from low level offenders doing time for check kiting or technical parole violations to murderers and rapists returning to prison after multiple prior stays. Violent prisoners are mixed with vulnerable offenders in dorms where there are no cells and no place to hide. The prison, originally designed to hold 3,000 prisoners is now bulging at almost double that number - 5,900.
Imagine the conditions in which these prisoners are held. The prison is in a hot, desert with the Sun baking the compound and its inhabitants. Packed inside are twice as many inmates as it was designed for. A constant flow of bodies jostle through the narrow aisles between the sea of bunk beds. The inmates hassle over toilets and wash basins because there are only half as many as are needed. With the men stacked like cords of wood, the noise, heat and smell of sweat is overwhelming.
In this roiling cauldron of tension add the twin curses of loneliness and boredom: the inmates spend hour after hour liked rats in a cage with nothing productive to occupy their time. The budget cuts have eliminated the educational and addiction treatment programs that used to fill their hours and give them hope. Then add in the racial tensions that permeate our inner cities and our prisons and you have an extremely volatile mixture.
This was the atmosphere in Chino's Cleveland Dorm when it exploded in violence last weekend. When the officers finally took back control, many inmates had been permanently maimed.
Don't blame the corrections officers for these conditions. They are merely carrying out the policies adopted by the legislature and the governor. Unfortunately, meting out long sentences gets more adoring headlines than appropriating the money to pay for them. Corrections leaders have warned of the dangers of crowded prisons for years, but the legislature and the governor haven't responded with enough money to solve the problem.
Comments on several news sites suggest that we shouldn't care about these inmates. Some writers said that the guards should have held back and let the inmates fight until they had all killed each other. My hunch is these attitudes would be very different if one of their sons or brothers were housed in Chino.
When the government incarcerates an inmate it strips him of all control over his life, even the ability to defend himself. The inmate has no choice over where he sleeps, whom he lives next to, when he gets up, where he goes, where and what he eats. If the lights are out in the shower room - a very dangerous situation - he can't shower somewhere else and can't fix the light. He is prohibited from arming himself. He is vulnerable. When the government takes away all ability of an inmate to defend himself, it assumes responsibility to keep him safe. In many cases, the government has failed in this responsibility. It certainly failed at Chino last weekend.
And some in government don't seem to care. The local Assemblyman for the Chino area, Curt Hagman, commented, "By nature prisons are violent". With a shrug he accepted the stabbings and broken bones, the eyes gouged out and the heads cracked open that occurred over the weekend. Assemblyman Hagman's remark reminds me of a similar callous remark by a Massachusetts Corrections Official who, when asked about prison rape, said, "What can I say. It's prison."
Actually there are prisons where violence is not a problem and where beatings and rapes do not occur. Rather than shrugging off the violence, leaders like Assemblyman Hagman should be supporting corrections leaders who are trying to make prisons safe and restore the programs that allow prisoners to prepare to live contributing and law-abiding lives after they are released.
Prisons can be safe. In Louisiana, Angola State Prison is the largest maximum security prison in the US. Until a few years ago it was also America's most violent prison. The inmates slept with metal plates or phone books on their chests to prevent stabbings to their chests.
Under the leadership of Warden Burl Cain, all that has changed. Angola is now the safest prison in the US. Cain shows the men respect. Although 98% of the inmates will die in that prison, he promises them good food, good medicine, good fun and good praying. I have visited Angola and have seen the difference in the prisoners. They look you in the eye. Most inmates in maximum security avoid your eyes out of fear. At Angola, the inmates are taught how to prepare delicious food for their fellow prisoners by New Orleans chefs. There is a seminary in the prison, training men to become pastors for their fellow prisoners. The inmates have a great time at the annual rodeo, which draws thousands of local residents who get a chance to see that the inmates are human just like them.
As a member of the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission and also a member of the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's prisons, I had the chance to learn from corrections professionals what steps can be taken to make prisons safe rather than descending into violence. Leadership is a critical element in establishing a safe environment for staff, inmates and volunteers. But good leaders have a harder time if the inmates are packed liked sardines in a can. Both commissions identified prison crowding as one of the key factors leading to physical assaults and rapes in prisons.
All of us should care what happens to inmates while they are incarcerated because 95% will serve their time and be released back to our communities. When they are released, what kind of neighbors will they be? The skills the inmates develop to survive violent prisons like Chino make them dangerous when they are released. You can't cage men like animals and then expect them to be model citizens when they return home.
The next time a politician promises to lengthen sentences, ask him if he is willing to support more money to house the increase in inmates caused by the longer sentences. Hold your representatives' feet to the fire. If they aren't willing to spend the dime, they should not be voting for more time.
Here are more resources on the impact of violence in our prisons and ways to stop it:
Prison Violence
Prison Rape
Warden Burl Cain
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
States Can't Afford Prison System Boom
NEAL PEIRCE
August 12, 2009
In a season of deep deficits and alarming program cuts, why aren't states more seriously focused on reducing their swelling prison populations? The Vera Institute of Justice reports unusual progress — 22 states, pressed by the recession, are reluctantly starting cutbacks. But with a world-leading 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States has a long, long way to go. California's case is extreme, but illustrative.
In the mid-1970s, it had about 20,000 offenders behind bars. Today the total is 168,000 inmates — an increase of 740 percent. In 1999, its prison system cost an already massive $4 billion to operate. Now, with more prisoners, more penitentiaries, more guards and more health costs, the budget figure has topped $10 billion — a big contributor to the $26 billion state budget shortfall. And the money is producing more horrors than cures.
After 14 years of lawsuits by inmates alleging cruel and unusual punishment, a three-judge federal court panel on Aug. 4 ordered California to reduce its prisoner rolls by 43,000 inmates over the next two years. The state, the judges wrote shortly before a major riot at a prison in Chino, has created a "criminogenic" system that pushes prisoners and parolees to more crimes through "appalling," "horrific" prison conditions:
"Some institutions have populations approaching 300 percent of their intended capacity. In these overcrowded conditions, inmate-on-inmate violence is almost impossible to prevent, infectious diseases spread more easily, and lockdowns are sometimes the only means by which to maintain control. In short, California's prisons are bursting at the seams and are impossible to manage."
Mentally ill inmates are left without access to health care, said the judges, noting that in the past four years "a California inmate was dying needlessly every six or seven days." California's fiscal crisis has already led Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders to agree to cut $1.2 billion from the prison budget.
They haven't agreed how, though discussion includes reducing prison rolls by up to 37,000 through early releases and revised parole practices. Already, California's increasingly ideological Republicans are opposed. Assembly Leader Sam Blakeslee talks darkly of "letting out some very dangerous criminals onto our streets and into our neighborhoods."
And it isn't just Republicans who resist significant reform — it's California's powerful "prison-industrial complex." Last autumn, the reformist Drug Policy Alliance Network and its allies put a Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act on the ballot.
Supported by a wide range of treatment officials and former high-ranking corrections officials, it focused on non-prison treatment for nonviolent drug offenders plus "good time" credits for inmates and fewer arrests of parolees for technical violations. California's high recidivism rates would be curbed and billions in new prison construction forestalled
But California's prison guards union (with 2,000-plus members earning more than $100,000 a year) didn't like the idea of fewer inmates (and jobs). So with other pro-prison forces, it mounted a $3.5 million television campaign in opposition. California's political establishment fell into line, including Schwarzenegger and former governors such as present Attorney General Jerry Brown (a likely 2010 gubernatorial candidate). The measure lost resoundingly.
In contrast to California's folly, New York state has actually reduced its prison rolls by 10,000 in the past decade. How? By relying heavily on the types of alternative treatment for nonviolent offenders that California spurns. And just this year, New York finally repealed the infamous "Rockefeller drug laws" that helped swell its prisons with minor offenders serving long terms.
Now California reformers are pushing a "People's Budget Fix" formula they say would save at least $12 billion over the next five years. It includes a claimed $5.5 billion savings through community-based addiction treatment for minor drug offenses. Another $1 billion a year could be saved by limiting three-strikes penalties to violent crimes (not just shoplifting or simple drug possession).
Such rational reforms — increasingly echoed in states nationally as the fiscal grinder minces budgets — were needed long before the current recession. They'll be important long afterward. When, as a society, we take these rational steps, we'll not just save dollars. We'll also start to spare the horrendous human waste and harm to families of knee-jerk law-and-orderism that can't discern between deep and serious criminal behavior and the missteps, usually in youthful years, that most societies deal with far more calmly — and effectively.
• Neal Peirce is a syndicated writer in Washington.
August 12, 2009
In a season of deep deficits and alarming program cuts, why aren't states more seriously focused on reducing their swelling prison populations? The Vera Institute of Justice reports unusual progress — 22 states, pressed by the recession, are reluctantly starting cutbacks. But with a world-leading 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States has a long, long way to go. California's case is extreme, but illustrative.
In the mid-1970s, it had about 20,000 offenders behind bars. Today the total is 168,000 inmates — an increase of 740 percent. In 1999, its prison system cost an already massive $4 billion to operate. Now, with more prisoners, more penitentiaries, more guards and more health costs, the budget figure has topped $10 billion — a big contributor to the $26 billion state budget shortfall. And the money is producing more horrors than cures.
After 14 years of lawsuits by inmates alleging cruel and unusual punishment, a three-judge federal court panel on Aug. 4 ordered California to reduce its prisoner rolls by 43,000 inmates over the next two years. The state, the judges wrote shortly before a major riot at a prison in Chino, has created a "criminogenic" system that pushes prisoners and parolees to more crimes through "appalling," "horrific" prison conditions:
"Some institutions have populations approaching 300 percent of their intended capacity. In these overcrowded conditions, inmate-on-inmate violence is almost impossible to prevent, infectious diseases spread more easily, and lockdowns are sometimes the only means by which to maintain control. In short, California's prisons are bursting at the seams and are impossible to manage."
Mentally ill inmates are left without access to health care, said the judges, noting that in the past four years "a California inmate was dying needlessly every six or seven days." California's fiscal crisis has already led Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders to agree to cut $1.2 billion from the prison budget.
They haven't agreed how, though discussion includes reducing prison rolls by up to 37,000 through early releases and revised parole practices. Already, California's increasingly ideological Republicans are opposed. Assembly Leader Sam Blakeslee talks darkly of "letting out some very dangerous criminals onto our streets and into our neighborhoods."
And it isn't just Republicans who resist significant reform — it's California's powerful "prison-industrial complex." Last autumn, the reformist Drug Policy Alliance Network and its allies put a Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act on the ballot.
Supported by a wide range of treatment officials and former high-ranking corrections officials, it focused on non-prison treatment for nonviolent drug offenders plus "good time" credits for inmates and fewer arrests of parolees for technical violations. California's high recidivism rates would be curbed and billions in new prison construction forestalled
But California's prison guards union (with 2,000-plus members earning more than $100,000 a year) didn't like the idea of fewer inmates (and jobs). So with other pro-prison forces, it mounted a $3.5 million television campaign in opposition. California's political establishment fell into line, including Schwarzenegger and former governors such as present Attorney General Jerry Brown (a likely 2010 gubernatorial candidate). The measure lost resoundingly.
In contrast to California's folly, New York state has actually reduced its prison rolls by 10,000 in the past decade. How? By relying heavily on the types of alternative treatment for nonviolent offenders that California spurns. And just this year, New York finally repealed the infamous "Rockefeller drug laws" that helped swell its prisons with minor offenders serving long terms.
Now California reformers are pushing a "People's Budget Fix" formula they say would save at least $12 billion over the next five years. It includes a claimed $5.5 billion savings through community-based addiction treatment for minor drug offenses. Another $1 billion a year could be saved by limiting three-strikes penalties to violent crimes (not just shoplifting or simple drug possession).
Such rational reforms — increasingly echoed in states nationally as the fiscal grinder minces budgets — were needed long before the current recession. They'll be important long afterward. When, as a society, we take these rational steps, we'll not just save dollars. We'll also start to spare the horrendous human waste and harm to families of knee-jerk law-and-orderism that can't discern between deep and serious criminal behavior and the missteps, usually in youthful years, that most societies deal with far more calmly — and effectively.
• Neal Peirce is a syndicated writer in Washington.
Bloody aftermath of prison riot
See Photos: Chino Valley Now blog
CHINO - Among the traces of mayhem from the weekend's violent prison riot, the blood on rags and mattresses at the California Institution for Men spoke volumes Tuesday.
The acrid stench of burned wood and scorched building materials still hung in the air at the prison on Tuesday when reporters were able to tour Reception Center West, where the racially divided riot on Saturday night injured 175 prisoners.
Six of the center's eight long wooden dorm buildings, that each house about 200 inmates and encircle a sprawling recreation yard, are uninhabitable after extensive damage caused by the melee.
"They literally tore the buildings apart," said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation.
The entire reception center, which houses about 1,300 incoming prisoners for an evaluation period of about 45 days, is empty, officials said.
Hundreds of items of prisoner belongings lay strewn throughout the dorm area, a scene reminiscent of tornado damage footage from the Midwest. A mattress lying among tossed belongings had words written in large letters: "CIM RCW (Reception Center West) 8-8-09 History!"
Swastikas were scrawled across one burned-out dorm, street gang graffiti tags lined the wall of another, and gaping holes could be seen in the roof and walls of the burned unit. Shoes and orange jumpsuits, even prisoner information cards with photos on them, lay everywhere.
Corrections officers Tuesday made a line side-by-side to comb through the recreation yard in search of additional weapons. Many makeshift weapons could be seen surrounding the damaged dorms.
The weapons were pieces broken from bed frames, glass, and anything potentially harmful that inmates could get their hands on, said Lt. Mark Hargrove, CIM spokesman. Local fire officials who responded to the incident said there were numerous stabbings, and multiple lacerations and bruised inmates.
Officials said about 10 inmates still were being treated at local hospitals for serious injuries.
The inmates at Reception Center West were housed in units that according to law are not racially segregated, though each double-bunk inside the dorms was assigned to two inmates by race. The dorms had been on lockdown since Thursday after prison officials got wind of possible impending violence at the prison.
The riot began at around 8:20 p.m. - a time when some inmates where being fed and the majority were locked away inside their dorms. Rioters who began fighting in their dorms eventually forced their way out of the locked buildings, prompting dorm guards to flee for safety and to regroup, said Hargrove.
The riot was quelled after four hours when corrections officers used tear gas and pepper spray to put down the uprising, Hargrove said. The reception center was finally secured at around 7 a.m. on Sunday. A Department of Corrections investigation into the causes of the riot is ongoing.
"Hopefully the (ringleaders) will be prosecuted and get additional time and be housed in a more appropriate security level," he said.
Thornton said about 1,155 inmates from Reception Center West were sent to other prisons including 735 sent to a separate housing unit at the nearby Heman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility.
Critics of CIM infrastructure, including Chino Valley city officials, have said they were not surprised by the riot considering the deteriorating and overcrowded conditions at CIM. Thornton said overcrowding did not lead to the riot, though she said it did hamper efforts to quell the incident.
"There were about 1,300 inmates in (RCW), and it's a lot easier to deal with half that amount," Thornton said. "Overcrowding didn't cause the incident but it's no secret that overcrowded inmates impacts every single thing we do."
The sides of the 1940s-era dorms are made of block and the roofs are made of wood. There is no sprinkler system inside the buildings. CIM holds 5,900 men but was designed for 3,160.
CHINO - Among the traces of mayhem from the weekend's violent prison riot, the blood on rags and mattresses at the California Institution for Men spoke volumes Tuesday.
The acrid stench of burned wood and scorched building materials still hung in the air at the prison on Tuesday when reporters were able to tour Reception Center West, where the racially divided riot on Saturday night injured 175 prisoners.
Six of the center's eight long wooden dorm buildings, that each house about 200 inmates and encircle a sprawling recreation yard, are uninhabitable after extensive damage caused by the melee.
"They literally tore the buildings apart," said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation.
The entire reception center, which houses about 1,300 incoming prisoners for an evaluation period of about 45 days, is empty, officials said.
Hundreds of items of prisoner belongings lay strewn throughout the dorm area, a scene reminiscent of tornado damage footage from the Midwest. A mattress lying among tossed belongings had words written in large letters: "CIM RCW (Reception Center West) 8-8-09 History!"
Swastikas were scrawled across one burned-out dorm, street gang graffiti tags lined the wall of another, and gaping holes could be seen in the roof and walls of the burned unit. Shoes and orange jumpsuits, even prisoner information cards with photos on them, lay everywhere.
Corrections officers Tuesday made a line side-by-side to comb through the recreation yard in search of additional weapons. Many makeshift weapons could be seen surrounding the damaged dorms.
The weapons were pieces broken from bed frames, glass, and anything potentially harmful that inmates could get their hands on, said Lt. Mark Hargrove, CIM spokesman. Local fire officials who responded to the incident said there were numerous stabbings, and multiple lacerations and bruised inmates.
Officials said about 10 inmates still were being treated at local hospitals for serious injuries.
The inmates at Reception Center West were housed in units that according to law are not racially segregated, though each double-bunk inside the dorms was assigned to two inmates by race. The dorms had been on lockdown since Thursday after prison officials got wind of possible impending violence at the prison.
The riot began at around 8:20 p.m. - a time when some inmates where being fed and the majority were locked away inside their dorms. Rioters who began fighting in their dorms eventually forced their way out of the locked buildings, prompting dorm guards to flee for safety and to regroup, said Hargrove.
The riot was quelled after four hours when corrections officers used tear gas and pepper spray to put down the uprising, Hargrove said. The reception center was finally secured at around 7 a.m. on Sunday. A Department of Corrections investigation into the causes of the riot is ongoing.
"Hopefully the (ringleaders) will be prosecuted and get additional time and be housed in a more appropriate security level," he said.
Thornton said about 1,155 inmates from Reception Center West were sent to other prisons including 735 sent to a separate housing unit at the nearby Heman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility.
Critics of CIM infrastructure, including Chino Valley city officials, have said they were not surprised by the riot considering the deteriorating and overcrowded conditions at CIM. Thornton said overcrowding did not lead to the riot, though she said it did hamper efforts to quell the incident.
"There were about 1,300 inmates in (RCW), and it's a lot easier to deal with half that amount," Thornton said. "Overcrowding didn't cause the incident but it's no secret that overcrowded inmates impacts every single thing we do."
The sides of the 1940s-era dorms are made of block and the roofs are made of wood. There is no sprinkler system inside the buildings. CIM holds 5,900 men but was designed for 3,160.
Prison guards try to incite riots to keep their jobs
Nevada State Prison, is one of the nation’s oldest prisons, dating from 1862.
Editor’s note: The Bay View has been hearing from prisoners around the country that guards, fearing the loss of their jobs, are enraged by budget cuts and plans to release prisoners and close prisons. In some cases they are intensifying their harassment and torture of prisoners and in others they are trying to incite them to riot. That may be a factor in the Chino State Prison “race riot” and fire on Sunday, Aug. 9, just outside Los Angeles that injured more than 250 prisoners, destroyed one dorm and made most of the others uninhabitable. The Nevada prisons are generally considered some of the worst in the country. Here’s what’s happening there:
by Raymond Watison
Prisoners at Nevada State Prison are pleading for help. We truly believe that the administration is intentionally inflaming conflict. Not only are tensions between inmates rising, but those between correctional officers and inmates are at an all-time high.
Most importantly, we are starting to become angry because of an ugly rumor that is circulating in this institution. Word is we are deliberately being used for political gain due to the budget cuts.
We are starting to believe that we are, against our own will, being pushed to the edge so that the administration can make their case for more funds.
I have no choice but to reach out with this letter because other attempts to find assistance have been spoiled by what we call abuse of authority. The prison administration is abusing the disciplinary system that is designed for the safety and security of inmates’ rights.
The administration is trying to quiet our questions about their aggressive behavior. Not only the correctional officers but the administrators too are participants.
There is a grievance complaint system in place that we can no longer trust. This administration has given correctional officers the authority to either approve or deny inmate rights by doing away with the grievance procedure and to punish us for exercising our rights.
This is causing correctional officers to become very aggressive toward inmates. They refuse to obey their own rules and regulations without fear of consequences from any of the administrators.
We here at Nevada State Prison, like so many other prisoners around the globe, learn among ourselves that we are brothers in a never ending struggle. Seeking not to cause violence, we are trying hard to remain brothers because we recognize the administration’s motives in pushing us to cause destruction.
So I ask – no, I beg – you to intervene. You are our only hope. Is there any help for a widow’s son?
How you can help
Nevada State Prison is in Carson City, the state capital. Call, email, fax or write a letter today to Nevada Corrections Director Howard Skolnik, Nevada Department of Corrections, P.O. Box 7011, Carson City, NV 89702, phone (775) 887-3216, fax (775) 887-3253, email hskolnik@doc.nv.gov. He has responded before to pressure, and he will again.
Calls directly to the prison may also help. Call Warden Gregory Smith at (775) 882-8588.
Send our brother some love and light: Raymond Watison, 1031835, Nevada State Prison, P.O. Box 607, Carson City NV 89702.
Editor’s note: The Bay View has been hearing from prisoners around the country that guards, fearing the loss of their jobs, are enraged by budget cuts and plans to release prisoners and close prisons. In some cases they are intensifying their harassment and torture of prisoners and in others they are trying to incite them to riot. That may be a factor in the Chino State Prison “race riot” and fire on Sunday, Aug. 9, just outside Los Angeles that injured more than 250 prisoners, destroyed one dorm and made most of the others uninhabitable. The Nevada prisons are generally considered some of the worst in the country. Here’s what’s happening there:
by Raymond Watison
Prisoners at Nevada State Prison are pleading for help. We truly believe that the administration is intentionally inflaming conflict. Not only are tensions between inmates rising, but those between correctional officers and inmates are at an all-time high.
Most importantly, we are starting to become angry because of an ugly rumor that is circulating in this institution. Word is we are deliberately being used for political gain due to the budget cuts.
We are starting to believe that we are, against our own will, being pushed to the edge so that the administration can make their case for more funds.
I have no choice but to reach out with this letter because other attempts to find assistance have been spoiled by what we call abuse of authority. The prison administration is abusing the disciplinary system that is designed for the safety and security of inmates’ rights.
The administration is trying to quiet our questions about their aggressive behavior. Not only the correctional officers but the administrators too are participants.
There is a grievance complaint system in place that we can no longer trust. This administration has given correctional officers the authority to either approve or deny inmate rights by doing away with the grievance procedure and to punish us for exercising our rights.
This is causing correctional officers to become very aggressive toward inmates. They refuse to obey their own rules and regulations without fear of consequences from any of the administrators.
We here at Nevada State Prison, like so many other prisoners around the globe, learn among ourselves that we are brothers in a never ending struggle. Seeking not to cause violence, we are trying hard to remain brothers because we recognize the administration’s motives in pushing us to cause destruction.
So I ask – no, I beg – you to intervene. You are our only hope. Is there any help for a widow’s son?
How you can help
Nevada State Prison is in Carson City, the state capital. Call, email, fax or write a letter today to Nevada Corrections Director Howard Skolnik, Nevada Department of Corrections, P.O. Box 7011, Carson City, NV 89702, phone (775) 887-3216, fax (775) 887-3253, email hskolnik@doc.nv.gov. He has responded before to pressure, and he will again.
Calls directly to the prison may also help. Call Warden Gregory Smith at (775) 882-8588.
Send our brother some love and light: Raymond Watison, 1031835, Nevada State Prison, P.O. Box 607, Carson City NV 89702.
The big prison duck
California incarcerates 170,000 people in facilities designed for less than half that number.
Guardian Editorial
EDITORIAL A panel of federal judges has ordered the release of 44,000 California prisoners, sending politicians of both parties scrambling for cover and throwing a crucial issue into the heart of the Democratic campaign for governor.
And so far, both major candidates are ducking, badly.
The state prison system is a mess; any sane person knows that. California incarcerates 170,000 people in facilities designed for less than half that number. Sick inmates don't get to see doctors; mentally ill or drug-addicted inmates often get no treatment at all. It's so bad that a federal monitor appointed by the courts has demanded that the state spend $8 billion building new medical facilities for prisoners.
Meanwhile, inmates are crowded into makeshift bunks in gymnasiums and dayrooms. The few modest rehabilitative programs California offers are stretched so thin that many inmates get no job training or violence-prevention skills at all. The parole system is overburdened and focuses far too heavily on people with minor, nonviolent offenses.
And politicians wonder why the state has a recidivism rate of 70 percent.
The solutions aren't rocket science, either. There's a clear reason why incarceration rates have jumped so high: harsh sentencing laws, passed by the Legislature and the voters with no concern for the costs of implementation. The state's three-strikes law is so draconian that thousands of people are serving 25 years to life for nonviolent felonies that typically would carry a sentence of a few years. So the first thing the Legislature and the governor need to do is change the sentencing laws (and give back discretion to judges).
Then there's a drug problem. California prisons are packed with people serving sentences for drug possession — and most of these people, and society in general, would be better served, at less than half the cost, with treatment programs.
And frankly it wouldn't be hard to release 44,000 inmates without any new threats to public safety. The vast majority of the inmates in California prisons are going to be released at some point anyway; in fact, the state now releases about 10,000 people a month. The early releases envisioned by the federal courts could simply mean allowing people who have served, say, three years of a four-year sentence to leave prison and shift to the custody of the parole system a few months earlier than scheduled. Many of those people are nonviolent offenders, particularly drug offenders.
With the state in a catastrophic fiscal condition, the cost of corrections ought to be a huge issue for the candidates for governor, particularly the Democrats. Mayor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Jerry Brown ought to be promoting a plan that would end the insanity of "three strikes," offer alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders and drug addicts, and allow early releases to bring down the current unsustainable incarcerated population.
So what are these candidates, supposedly alternatives to the Republican agenda, saying?
Here's Brown, quoted in the Los Angeles Times: "Government is established to protect the safety and security of its citizens, and these wholesale releases are totally incompatible with that." Where's Newsom? We called his campaign press office for comment, and haven't heard back.
This is unacceptable.
It's typical for Republicans to use scare tactics and talk about crime as a cheap way to win votes. But Newsom and Brown ought to know better. This is no time for demagoguery — the prison crisis is serious, festering, and a major factor in the state's financial mess. If the two leading Democrats can't come up with honest answers, it's time for someone else to enter the race. *
Tuesday August 11, 2009
Guardian Editorial
EDITORIAL A panel of federal judges has ordered the release of 44,000 California prisoners, sending politicians of both parties scrambling for cover and throwing a crucial issue into the heart of the Democratic campaign for governor.
And so far, both major candidates are ducking, badly.
The state prison system is a mess; any sane person knows that. California incarcerates 170,000 people in facilities designed for less than half that number. Sick inmates don't get to see doctors; mentally ill or drug-addicted inmates often get no treatment at all. It's so bad that a federal monitor appointed by the courts has demanded that the state spend $8 billion building new medical facilities for prisoners.
Meanwhile, inmates are crowded into makeshift bunks in gymnasiums and dayrooms. The few modest rehabilitative programs California offers are stretched so thin that many inmates get no job training or violence-prevention skills at all. The parole system is overburdened and focuses far too heavily on people with minor, nonviolent offenses.
And politicians wonder why the state has a recidivism rate of 70 percent.
The solutions aren't rocket science, either. There's a clear reason why incarceration rates have jumped so high: harsh sentencing laws, passed by the Legislature and the voters with no concern for the costs of implementation. The state's three-strikes law is so draconian that thousands of people are serving 25 years to life for nonviolent felonies that typically would carry a sentence of a few years. So the first thing the Legislature and the governor need to do is change the sentencing laws (and give back discretion to judges).
Then there's a drug problem. California prisons are packed with people serving sentences for drug possession — and most of these people, and society in general, would be better served, at less than half the cost, with treatment programs.
And frankly it wouldn't be hard to release 44,000 inmates without any new threats to public safety. The vast majority of the inmates in California prisons are going to be released at some point anyway; in fact, the state now releases about 10,000 people a month. The early releases envisioned by the federal courts could simply mean allowing people who have served, say, three years of a four-year sentence to leave prison and shift to the custody of the parole system a few months earlier than scheduled. Many of those people are nonviolent offenders, particularly drug offenders.
With the state in a catastrophic fiscal condition, the cost of corrections ought to be a huge issue for the candidates for governor, particularly the Democrats. Mayor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Jerry Brown ought to be promoting a plan that would end the insanity of "three strikes," offer alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders and drug addicts, and allow early releases to bring down the current unsustainable incarcerated population.
So what are these candidates, supposedly alternatives to the Republican agenda, saying?
Here's Brown, quoted in the Los Angeles Times: "Government is established to protect the safety and security of its citizens, and these wholesale releases are totally incompatible with that." Where's Newsom? We called his campaign press office for comment, and haven't heard back.
This is unacceptable.
It's typical for Republicans to use scare tactics and talk about crime as a cheap way to win votes. But Newsom and Brown ought to know better. This is no time for demagoguery — the prison crisis is serious, festering, and a major factor in the state's financial mess. If the two leading Democrats can't come up with honest answers, it's time for someone else to enter the race. *
Tuesday August 11, 2009
A crooked sheriff is off to prison
Many, no doubt, will view the sentencing of Charlie Morris as the culmination of a great tragedy. A three-term sheriff being packed off to prison, they’ll say, is profoundly embarrassing for Okaloosa County. It brings shame upon the Sheriff’s Office. It is ruinous for his family.
Chin up, folks. The Morris mess is bad news all around, but it’s not a tragedy.
It’s not a tragedy when a crooked sheriff is removed from office and taken off the streets.
It’s not a tragedy when the bleeding of taxpayers’ money in a sleazy kickback scheme is finally stopped.
It’s not a tragedy when voters confront the abuse and lawlessness that reigned in a local government agency and swear they won’t let it happen again.
It’s not a tragedy when a community’s residents, even its youngest, see that a community’s leaders, even its most powerful, will be punished for breaking the law.
From those perspectives, Tuesday’s sentencing — indeed, the entire long, graceless fall of Charlie Morris, from his Feb. 27 arrest in Las Vegas onward — is a positive development. It is the righting of several years’ worth of wrongs.
Exactly how many years is unclear. But the modest 71-month sentence handed down in federal court roughly parallels the length of time Mr. Morris handed out ridiculously huge “performance bonuses” and then pocketed some of the cash as kickbacks. He is thought to have run this racket for five or six years.
Thus, the sentence provides a kind of closure.
Not everyone will see it that way. For some, Tuesday’s sentencing will be followed only by more grief.
Among the aggrieved, of course, will be the former Sheriff’s Office paper-pushers Mr. Morris is taking down with him. The latest count is four ex-administrators and, apparently, a fifth person the sheriff installed in a mostly imaginary “job.” They’re facing charges and possible jail time of their own.
There are also the Sheriff’s Office employees who accepted bonuses from Mr. Morris but who aren’t being charged. They’re still at work. If they’re unhappy with the way things have turned out, who can blame them? Some citizens now view them with suspicion for their roles, however innocent, in the kickback machine. And the Morris money spigot has been turned off.
As for members of the ex-sheriff’s family, our hearts and prayers are with them. But their problems with Charlie didn’t begin with Tuesday’s sentencing or even with his February arrest. Before the Sheriff’s Office scandal broke, according to investigators, Charlie Morris had a romantic relationship with a woman who wasn’t his wife. He gave her gifts bought with taxpayers’ money. He got her a high-paying, taxpayer-funded job with the county that didn’t require any real work.
Evidently, Mr. Morris’ commitment to his marriage was no firmer than his commitment to voters who had placed their trust in him.
Mr. Morris pleaded guilty to six federal charges back in May and could have been sentenced to 85 years. A pre-sentencing report recommended five to six. U.S. District Judge Lacey Collier gave him five years, 11 months, and told him to pay $212,000 in restitution.
Sure, we would rather have seen Mr. Morris receive a sentence closer to the max. But he still faces trial on state charges. More years may be added.
Today we’ll settle for the 71-month term. At least, for the duration, it’ll keep him away from money he could squander, voters he could hornswoggle, an office he could disgrace and taxpayers he could take to the cleaners. We hope he serves every day of it.
Chin up, folks. The Morris mess is bad news all around, but it’s not a tragedy.
It’s not a tragedy when a crooked sheriff is removed from office and taken off the streets.
It’s not a tragedy when the bleeding of taxpayers’ money in a sleazy kickback scheme is finally stopped.
It’s not a tragedy when voters confront the abuse and lawlessness that reigned in a local government agency and swear they won’t let it happen again.
It’s not a tragedy when a community’s residents, even its youngest, see that a community’s leaders, even its most powerful, will be punished for breaking the law.
From those perspectives, Tuesday’s sentencing — indeed, the entire long, graceless fall of Charlie Morris, from his Feb. 27 arrest in Las Vegas onward — is a positive development. It is the righting of several years’ worth of wrongs.
Exactly how many years is unclear. But the modest 71-month sentence handed down in federal court roughly parallels the length of time Mr. Morris handed out ridiculously huge “performance bonuses” and then pocketed some of the cash as kickbacks. He is thought to have run this racket for five or six years.
Thus, the sentence provides a kind of closure.
Not everyone will see it that way. For some, Tuesday’s sentencing will be followed only by more grief.
Among the aggrieved, of course, will be the former Sheriff’s Office paper-pushers Mr. Morris is taking down with him. The latest count is four ex-administrators and, apparently, a fifth person the sheriff installed in a mostly imaginary “job.” They’re facing charges and possible jail time of their own.
There are also the Sheriff’s Office employees who accepted bonuses from Mr. Morris but who aren’t being charged. They’re still at work. If they’re unhappy with the way things have turned out, who can blame them? Some citizens now view them with suspicion for their roles, however innocent, in the kickback machine. And the Morris money spigot has been turned off.
As for members of the ex-sheriff’s family, our hearts and prayers are with them. But their problems with Charlie didn’t begin with Tuesday’s sentencing or even with his February arrest. Before the Sheriff’s Office scandal broke, according to investigators, Charlie Morris had a romantic relationship with a woman who wasn’t his wife. He gave her gifts bought with taxpayers’ money. He got her a high-paying, taxpayer-funded job with the county that didn’t require any real work.
Evidently, Mr. Morris’ commitment to his marriage was no firmer than his commitment to voters who had placed their trust in him.
Mr. Morris pleaded guilty to six federal charges back in May and could have been sentenced to 85 years. A pre-sentencing report recommended five to six. U.S. District Judge Lacey Collier gave him five years, 11 months, and told him to pay $212,000 in restitution.
Sure, we would rather have seen Mr. Morris receive a sentence closer to the max. But he still faces trial on state charges. More years may be added.
Today we’ll settle for the 71-month term. At least, for the duration, it’ll keep him away from money he could squander, voters he could hornswoggle, an office he could disgrace and taxpayers he could take to the cleaners. We hope he serves every day of it.
Revisiting Three-Strikes Laws
The pendulum is swinging on mass incarceration, and the notorious and ineffective three-strikes laws could fall across the country in the months and years ahead. States are broke, and they're looking at their corrections budgets (see the absurd spending numbers in yesterday's post) and realizing that locking people up for life for smoking crack might not have been the best idea.
Prosecutors in Washington State are bringing clemency petitions for people who served a decade or more under three-strikes laws and have never committed a violent crime. At least 100 people were sentenced to life without parole in the 1990s in Washington for three nonviolent crimes.
The L.A. Times reports today on the unusual steps being taken by Washington prosecutors, and highlights the case of Stevan Dozier (above), who was the first non-violent lifer in the nation granted clemency when he was freed in May.Today, Dozier is married and works at a Seattle nonprofit.
Twenty-four states still have three-strikes laws, despite a move toward judicial discretion over the last decade. These laws are applied more cautiously now than they were during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, but they need to be fully erased to guarantee that defendants are sentenced based on their crime and not outdated legislation.
Earlier this year, Washington three-strikes lifer Al-Kareem Shadeed wrote on Washblog about his life sentence for three street robberies, all without weapons.
Hopefully, one day I can be a contributor to society and make a difference in someone's life. Hopefully, someday I wall be able to see my mother and bothers and sisters again and hold them in my arms. My life s salvageable! I can make a difference. People always speak of accountability. Well, hold me accountable. I can and will be a productive contributor to society, and no longer will such unlawful behavior be magnified and reflected by me again. You can trust in that!
The state's board of pardons and parole has recommended freeing Shadeed.
Prosecutors in Washington State are bringing clemency petitions for people who served a decade or more under three-strikes laws and have never committed a violent crime. At least 100 people were sentenced to life without parole in the 1990s in Washington for three nonviolent crimes.
The L.A. Times reports today on the unusual steps being taken by Washington prosecutors, and highlights the case of Stevan Dozier (above), who was the first non-violent lifer in the nation granted clemency when he was freed in May.Today, Dozier is married and works at a Seattle nonprofit.
Twenty-four states still have three-strikes laws, despite a move toward judicial discretion over the last decade. These laws are applied more cautiously now than they were during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, but they need to be fully erased to guarantee that defendants are sentenced based on their crime and not outdated legislation.
Earlier this year, Washington three-strikes lifer Al-Kareem Shadeed wrote on Washblog about his life sentence for three street robberies, all without weapons.
Hopefully, one day I can be a contributor to society and make a difference in someone's life. Hopefully, someday I wall be able to see my mother and bothers and sisters again and hold them in my arms. My life s salvageable! I can make a difference. People always speak of accountability. Well, hold me accountable. I can and will be a productive contributor to society, and no longer will such unlawful behavior be magnified and reflected by me again. You can trust in that!
The state's board of pardons and parole has recommended freeing Shadeed.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Devastation marks scene of California prison riot
CHINO, Calif. — Blood-soaked mattresses, singed bedding and abandoned medical supplies littered the campus of a Southern California prison Tuesday, a testament to the mayhem and violence of a weekend riot that shut down part of the institution and injured about 175 inmates, some critically.
Prison officials staged a tour of the devastation at the California Institution for Men in Chino to reveal the extent of the racially motivated riot that broke out Saturday evening and raged for four hours before guards could bring it under control.
Seven of the eight units in the prison's Reception Center West, one of several housing areas, were left uninhabitable, and more than 1,100 inmates have been moved to other facilities. One of the dorms was completely gutted by flames.
Eleven inmates remained hospitalized Tuesday, state prisons spokesman Terry Thornton said.
The area where the riot broke out was eerily empty and silent, with only a skeleton staff of corrections officers staffing checkpoints. A half-dozen officers scanned the exercise yard with metal detectors, searching for homemade weapons that inmates might have buried.
The riot began in a dorm during dinner hour and quickly spread, temporarily overwhelming staff, said Lt. Mark Hargrove, a prison spokesman.
Prisoners pried heavy metal grates from windows to escape and scrambled up and over the dorm roofs to get around 10-foot-tall hurricane fencing intended to keep them from the main exercise yard. The fence was installed after a previous riot in 2006.
"Hundreds were out of the units. Once they began rioting and breaking out, once they left, they created a situation where ... telling them to remain in the dorms was no longer in effect," Hargrove said. "They had decided not to follow that rule."
The prison was built in 1941 to house 3,000 inmates but held 5,900 men at the time of the riot. Each dorm holds 198 inmates and is assigned two guards, with a third guard who roams between every two dorms.
The prison serves as a reception and triage center for inmates from the four-counties around Los Angeles. About 95 percent of the prisoners are parole violators. Most are released or reassigned to another prison within 90 days, with exceptions for those who require special protection, such as sexual predators and gang dropouts.
The prison had been on a modified lockdown since Thursday after receiving reports that inmates were planning some violence, but none of the information indicated the problem would be in Reception Center West, Hargrove said.
Even in lockdown, the medium-security inmates can mingle freely in their dorms, where they are separated by race in two-man bunks. That puts men of different races in bunks next to each other, with just a few feet between them.
Outside the dorms, a narrow strip of grass separating the long, barracks-style housing units and an asphalt entrance area was still littered with debris. The chaotic tapestry featured discarded alcohol swabs, plastic handcuffs and latex medical gloves, filthy, bloodstained bedding and piles of abandoned clothes.
Two emergency plastic stretchers sat where they were left by paramedics who had treated inmates. One metal bunk had been ripped from its bolts and thrown into the yard.
An inmate had scrawled "8-08-09 HISTORY" on one mattress in black ink to mark the date of the riot.
Dominoes, cards, religious books, packs of crushed instant noodles and dozens of inmate identification cards fluttered in a warm breeze that still smelled of smoke next to the dorm gutted by fire.
Nearly every window was shattered inside the dorms that didn't burn. In one, the metal legs of a dismantled bunk had been used to pry large pieces of wood from the walls to use as weapons. Gang graffiti covered the beams and walls.
Amid the chaos, were signs of personal lives interrupted.
A black-and-white photo from an ultrasound of a fetus — age 21 weeks — lay at the foot of a bunk draped with a mattress coated in dried blood.
Next to bunk No. 193, a prisoner had left behind reminders of life on the outside: a magazine photo of a fawn standing in a snowy forest, pinned next to a religious card labeled "Path to Salvation."
By another bunk, an inmate had pinned a calendar with the days of August crossed out until the date of the riot.
Prison officials staged a tour of the devastation at the California Institution for Men in Chino to reveal the extent of the racially motivated riot that broke out Saturday evening and raged for four hours before guards could bring it under control.
Seven of the eight units in the prison's Reception Center West, one of several housing areas, were left uninhabitable, and more than 1,100 inmates have been moved to other facilities. One of the dorms was completely gutted by flames.
Eleven inmates remained hospitalized Tuesday, state prisons spokesman Terry Thornton said.
The area where the riot broke out was eerily empty and silent, with only a skeleton staff of corrections officers staffing checkpoints. A half-dozen officers scanned the exercise yard with metal detectors, searching for homemade weapons that inmates might have buried.
The riot began in a dorm during dinner hour and quickly spread, temporarily overwhelming staff, said Lt. Mark Hargrove, a prison spokesman.
Prisoners pried heavy metal grates from windows to escape and scrambled up and over the dorm roofs to get around 10-foot-tall hurricane fencing intended to keep them from the main exercise yard. The fence was installed after a previous riot in 2006.
"Hundreds were out of the units. Once they began rioting and breaking out, once they left, they created a situation where ... telling them to remain in the dorms was no longer in effect," Hargrove said. "They had decided not to follow that rule."
The prison was built in 1941 to house 3,000 inmates but held 5,900 men at the time of the riot. Each dorm holds 198 inmates and is assigned two guards, with a third guard who roams between every two dorms.
The prison serves as a reception and triage center for inmates from the four-counties around Los Angeles. About 95 percent of the prisoners are parole violators. Most are released or reassigned to another prison within 90 days, with exceptions for those who require special protection, such as sexual predators and gang dropouts.
The prison had been on a modified lockdown since Thursday after receiving reports that inmates were planning some violence, but none of the information indicated the problem would be in Reception Center West, Hargrove said.
Even in lockdown, the medium-security inmates can mingle freely in their dorms, where they are separated by race in two-man bunks. That puts men of different races in bunks next to each other, with just a few feet between them.
Outside the dorms, a narrow strip of grass separating the long, barracks-style housing units and an asphalt entrance area was still littered with debris. The chaotic tapestry featured discarded alcohol swabs, plastic handcuffs and latex medical gloves, filthy, bloodstained bedding and piles of abandoned clothes.
Two emergency plastic stretchers sat where they were left by paramedics who had treated inmates. One metal bunk had been ripped from its bolts and thrown into the yard.
An inmate had scrawled "8-08-09 HISTORY" on one mattress in black ink to mark the date of the riot.
Dominoes, cards, religious books, packs of crushed instant noodles and dozens of inmate identification cards fluttered in a warm breeze that still smelled of smoke next to the dorm gutted by fire.
Nearly every window was shattered inside the dorms that didn't burn. In one, the metal legs of a dismantled bunk had been used to pry large pieces of wood from the walls to use as weapons. Gang graffiti covered the beams and walls.
Amid the chaos, were signs of personal lives interrupted.
A black-and-white photo from an ultrasound of a fetus — age 21 weeks — lay at the foot of a bunk draped with a mattress coated in dried blood.
Next to bunk No. 193, a prisoner had left behind reminders of life on the outside: a magazine photo of a fawn standing in a snowy forest, pinned next to a religious card labeled "Path to Salvation."
By another bunk, an inmate had pinned a calendar with the days of August crossed out until the date of the riot.
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