A-Infos (en) Prisoners and Public Will Pay Haevy Price for Corrections Policies

[Tom Burghardt <tburghardt@igc.apc.org>]

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                     * PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE *
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                    - Thursday, 19 March 1998 -
 
                              -----
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     PRISONERS AND PUBLIC WILL PAY HEAVY PRICE FOR CORRECTION
                  POLICIES THAT IGNORE HISTORY
_________________________________________________________________
                                       
     By A Recent Parolee
 
     Despite a virtual blackout on media coverage of prisons and
prisoners in California, news of scandals involving prison
officials give cause for alarm about what is happening behind
bars. One inmate provides a view of 35 years of California prison
history from the inside, and warns that an explosion is in the
making. The writer, who is on parole and fears official
retaliation, asks to be anonymous. A book on his experiences at
the California Youth Authority has been published.
 
                                *
 
     Recent news of scandalous behavior by guards at California
prisons -- "gladiator" contests at Corcoran, killings at Pelican
Bay and Susanville -- show how important it is to learn from
history. As a witness to more than 35 years of California's penal
policies from the inside, I know that current practices will fail
both prisoners and the citizens of California.
   
     In 1956, I was committed to the California Youth Authority
(CYA) where I was beaten, raped, placed in solitary confinement
for months, and generally preyed upon, not only by those
incarcerated with me, but also by those entrusted to care for me.
I was 14 years old.
   
     When I was released at 17, I was a seriously disturbed young
man, much more disturbed than before I was "corrected." I was
angry. I hated everything and everyone, and determined to reap my
revenge upon an uncaring society. In that process, I left behind
hundreds of victims.
   
     In 1961, just before my 18th birthday, I was arrested and
convicted of burglary and sentenced to up to 15 years in state
prison. During those years, the 1960s, violence prevailed in
California prisons -- every day one or more convicts was
murdered. Guards were also stabbed, beaten, often killed. There
was a continuing battle for control of the system.
   
     Finally, prisoners were unified in a way that the
administration -- with all its resources -- could not prevent.
>From deep under the mire of cruel and inhuman conditions, came
thousands of men, white, black and brown, standing together on
the prison yards with clubs, knives, zip guns and pipe bombs to
face those who stood high above them with guns and tear gas
grenades.
   
     There the convicts screamed, "No more!" There they demanded
to be treated humanely. There they cried out for an end to the
beatings, the forced injections of drugs, the shock treatments
and lobotomies. There, utter frustration erupted into riots.
There, the guards made prisoners lie face down, handcuffed their
wrists behind them, and beat them -- some to near death, some to
death.
   
     This back and forth struggle for control went on for years,
until the brutal conditions finally erupted in the public's
consciousness with a series of killings of prisoners by guards
and guards by prisoners.
   
     Finally, under court order, the Department of Corrections
granted an Inmate Bill of Rights, ending much of the abuse, the
extreme cruel conditions, the routine brutalizing of prisoners.
The prison population, wary at first, finally began to feel safe
from guards as well as each other -- and so, slowly, prisoners
allowed the administration to regain control.
   
     Declaring victory, the CDC built super-max prisons at
Pelican Bay and Special Housing Units (SHUs) in other prisons to
provide maximum control, locking rule breakers and gang members
into solitary confinement. And so it has remained.
   
     Now, California Governor Pete Wilson and the CDC are turning
back the clock. The Inmates Bill of Rights is gone.
Rehabilitative programs are gone. Educational programs are gone.
Recreational activities that release pent-up frustrations, like
lifting weights, are gone. Personal grooming choices -- relating
to clothing or hair length or facial hair -- are gone. Media
access to prisoners is gone. Even law libraries are going.
   
     The governor who hopes to reap electoral rewards for being
"tough on crime" is leading the state back to the future. He has
forgotten (or chooses to ignore) history. Men who were once
satisfied with conditions that resemble humanness will not
forever tolerate being systematically stripped of all humanity.
Should they unite and choose to face possible death over
conditions they consider intolerable, prisoners will die, guards
will die, buildings will burn, cells will be destroyed. Leaders
will rise up followed by great numbers of prisoners, and the
battle will once again be waged for control of the prison empire.
   
     While Wilson gears up to run for President of the United
States, largely on the backs of the more than 150,000 men and
women locked up in this state, the citizens of California must
face the real possibility that they will pay the cost of his
campaign -- a cost that will not only be measured in the billions
of dollars, but in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives.
 
     Copyright 1998 Pacific News Service. All Rights Reserved.
 
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