My, my, my. Some prison guards and prisoners are alleging that California's attorney general's office may have been very naughty indeed.
Correctional officers say state officials have lied to the U.S. Supreme Court about racial segregation in California prisons.
One correctional officer filed a whistleblower's complaint in December with the California state auditor, asking for an official investigation. He contends that the state Attorney General Bill Lockyer and the Department of Corrections knowingly downplayed and lied about the extent that race is used to set prison policies. Many other correctional officers and inmates corroborate his claim.
Officials with the state attorney general's office and the corrections department contend that they never misled the court.
In November, the California attorney general's office went to the high court to defend the state Department of Corrections' unwritten 100-year-old policy of segregating prisoners by race during the first two months of their sentence. California Senior Assistant Attorney General Frances T. Grunder told the high court that the segregation is limited to "reception center" housing of inmates during their first 60 days at a prison. New inmates are initially segregated to determine their propensity for racial violence, state attorneys told the court. Beyond the reception centers, the prisons are fully integrated, the brief submitted by Attorney General Bill Lockyer said. "All other aspects of an inmate's life in prison both while at the reception center and afterwards are managed without reference to his race or that of his fellow inmates," the brief stated. "There is no distinction based on race for jobs, meals, yard and recreational time, or vocational and educational assignments."
Inmates and correctional officers say segregation is rampant.
Six officers, all presidents of their prisons' union chapters, told The Press-Enterprise that with little exception, inmates are assigned cellmates and dorm-room bunkmates by race. "It's all about segregation. It's all we do," said Charles Hughes, a lieutenant at California State Prison in Lancaster. "We segregate permanently and use race for job placement and everything, and for them to say otherwise is an absolute lie. And for them to lie to the Supreme Court is appalling." [...] After the state argued its case, Deixler told the California attorney general's office that Lockyer and Grunder may have misled the court when they said the segregation is a temporary measure, said attorney general spokesman Nathan Barankin. His office checked into the matter and was assured by the corrections department that the segregation is temporary, he said.
"What we argued before the Supreme Court were the facts about what the California Department of Corrections policy is and how they implement it," he said. "No one we've spoken with at the California Department of Corrections said those facts aren't accurate."
A spokesman with the Department of Corrections tells a different story. "We never said in the argument that the inmates are not segregated in the institutions . . . (or) outside the reception center," said Youth and Adult Corrections Agency spokesman J.P. Tremblay. Race is one of many factors considered for permanent housing assignments, he said.
However, that's not what the state's attorney told the court during oral arguments when justices repeatedly asked for assurance that the practice doesn't apply beyond the reception centers. "It does not happen outside of the reception center cell practice. Once they go to their permanent housing assignment, they may choose their own cellmates," Grunder told the court.
[...] "There is no way I'd put a white and a black together," said Hughes of California State Prison in Lancaster. "I'd be putting my job on the line if I did that." Housing the two together would be to disregard the safety of the inmates because the gangs would require one of them to hurt the other, he said. "If a black inmate asked for a white celly (cellmate), there is no way in hell I would do that," Hughes said. "I'd refer them for a mental-health evaluation."
I wonder if there's any penalty for lying to the Supreme Court. If proven, would it automatically constitute a default judgement against the lying party?
What gets me is, why would anyone expect that a prison wouldn't be segregated? It is unconstitutional, yes. Nonetheless, given the propensity for prisons to break out in racially-motivated violence every so often, it would seem entirely unrealistic to expect that a prison wouldn't be segregated. Especially given racially defined gangs that are active within prisons, not segregating by race would seem to be saying, "No, please, go ahead and rape and maim and kill each other! The state doesn't mind, not a bit!" Of course, the state of Texas actually doesn't mind, but we're talking about California, which would not seem to have quite the draconian mindset of Texas regarding prison administration.
And speaking of the lovely and talented Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which administers that state's prisons, it seems that Texas is running out of both space for its prisoners and money with which to run its prisons.
Texas prisons are running out of beds more quickly than expected and may need to lease space in county jails by March. But there is no money in the prison system's budget to pay the jails. Prison officials confirmed Tuesday that they may need to ask lawmakers for an emergency appropriation to get through fiscal 2005, which ends Aug. 30. The Legislative Budget Board projected last June that prisons would not exceed capacity until October. The prison crowding crisis comes 2 1/2 years after the state ended 30 years of federal control with the dismissal of the Ruiz prison-reform lawsuit.
The news also comes at a particularly difficult time for lawmakers, who are under a judge's order to put billions of dollars in new funding into public education. And, in the wake of hundreds of child deaths, state leaders want to significantly increase spending on its systems to protect children and the elderly.
"Based on the offender-population patterns we've seen, we believe it's possible that we may need to contract for beds by March, and so we are briefing various leadership offices at this time," said spokesman Mike Viesca. Viesca said the department has no money in its current fiscal budget to pay for space in county jails. He said the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is compiling information it received last month from county jails about how much space is available.
Viesca said that as of Sunday, the prison system held 150,575 inmates, which represents 97.3 percent of capacity. The department considers 97.5 percent of capacity the level that it cannot safely exceed, taking into account the need to house different types of offenders separately.
So they have nowhere to put prisoners, no money with which to pay the counties that might have extra space, the legislature has other priorities dictating that they're not likely to have funds for an extra appropriateion any time soon.
On the other hand, with Our Glorious Leader firmly in the saddle for another term in Washington, and the Torturer-in-Chief in charge in what was once actually the Department of Justice, it's highly unlikely that Texas will be forced to do anything to alleviate overcrowding any time soon. Prosecuting human rights and constitutional violations, however egregious, is hardly likely to be at the top of the agenda for an administration that seldom saw a torture justification it didn't love. And, to be fair, easing the lot of prisoners is also not likely to be at the top of the agenda for most of the people of Texas; after all, those people were convicted of crimes to get where they are today, so who cares if they're a little uncomfortable, or crowded in so tight that it's far more likely that the prisoners are going to get raped and/or killed. (Of course, this is Texas, where such things are encouraged in prisons, so it may take them a while to notice.)
Posted by iain at January 20, 2005 04:21 PM
