CALIFORNIA EXAMINES BRUTAL, DEADLY PRISONS

CORCORAN, Calif. -- There was lots of celebrating in this cotton-growing
town in the San Joaquin Valley when a maximum-security prison opened here 10
years ago.

It would bring jobs and economic growth to the stagnant farm belt, not to
mention put more criminals away. But while the jobs came, the prison has,
more than anything, brought Corcoran a bad name.

Months after it opened as part of a prison construction boom in California
that coincided with a push for tough new sentencing laws, the State Prison
at Corcoran began to develop a reputation as one of the deadliest, most
abusive prisons in the biggest, most troubled prison system in the United
States.

Now, state lawmakers and prison officials are examining why Corcoran, and by
extension, the entire state prison system, veered out of control. From 1988
to late 1994, when whistle-blowers inside Corcoran went to the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the prison's guards shot to death 7 inmates and
wounded 43, more than in all other prisons in the country combined.

And while the shootings at Corcoran stopped when the Federal authorities
moved in, they continued at other California prisons. At High Desert
Prison, guards have killed 3 inmates and wounded 11 since that
maximum-security institution opened three years ago.

"California correctional officers, on at least a few occasions, have shot
and killed an inmate who was locked in a cell, in a fist fight with an
inmate, with no weapons in sight," said State Senator John Vasconcellos, a
Democrat from San Jose. "No other state has done that."

At the end of a series of recent legislative hearings on abuses at Corcoran,
Vasconcellos called for a meeting of prison leaders from other states to
review California's prison system, particularly its violent form of inmate
control. But some wonder what took so long.

In October, five prison guards at Corcoran were indicted on state charges of
conspiracy, accused of having an inmate rape another inmate in 1993.

In February, as part of a four-year Federal investigation into abuses at the
prison, eight guards were indicted on civil rights charges, accused of
staging gladiator-style fights among prisoners in exercise yards and
shooting at the inmates when they did not stop fighting on command.

In 1995, a Federal judge ruled that treatment of prisoners at the
maximum-security Pelican Bay Prison, at the northern tip of the state, was
cruel and inhumane.

Also in 1995, 5 supervisors at Corcoran and 10 other guards were accused by
whistle-blowers of beating a busload of handcuffed, shackled prisoners who
had been transferred to the prison.

A local grand jury declined to indict the guards, but the Department of
Corrections handed out punishments ranging from dismissal to demotion. In
September, a court overturned the disciplinary penalties on a technicality.

There is no one answer to why California became the model for how not to run
prisons.

But the troubles began when the state embarked on the biggest, fastest
prison construction boom in American history. When the building began in
1982, the state had 12 prisons and 31,000 inmates. Now, it has 33 prisons
and 160,000 inmates.

The boom, prison officials say, was prompted by several tough-on-crime laws
drafted by the Legislature, most famously the "three strikes" under Gov.
Pete Wilson that mandated life terms for third felony convictions. As
prisons were built, the Department of Corrections hired thousands of guards,
many of whom had no experience in law enforcement beyond the six weeks'
training given by the state.

Like the system's critics, C. A. Terhune, who became director of the
corrections department last year, said the system grew too large, too fast.
But Terhune also blamed the state's entrenched prison gangs, which he called
"second to none" in the country. Just as significant, he said, his
department, with an annual budget of $4 billion, has the nation's largest
prison population, but ranks near the bottom in the ratio of guards to
inmates, 1 to 7.6.

"While California was building its prison system, there didn't seem to be a
concurrent budgeting of resources," Terhune said. "It's only begun in this
last year or so to really commence the process of staffing up."

The prisons' security housing units, or super-maximum prisons within the
prisons, where most of the shootings have taken place, were built so that
one or two guards with high-powered riles could watch over a yard with
dozens of the most troublesome prisoners. Other states with super-maximum
security units have nothing close to the same numbers of incidents of guards
using lethal force. But in California, use of force was a major factor in
the inmate control equation.

"The design, the staffing, and many of the factors that go into the program
operations of the California prison system were based on having lethal force
as a control mechanism," Terhune said. "It is a reality of life that we have
to live with."

Terhune acknowledged that the department's policy on use of force had not
been defined in writing and that it needed to be defined strictly and
enforced the same way. Echoing the Correctional Peace Officers Union, the
second-most-powerful union in the state after the teachers' union, he said
the system's 27,000 prison guards needed reinforcements and more training.

"A lot of good things happened in these hearings," he said, "and I think one
of the main ones is that a six-week academy is not sufficient for the task
that we ask of our officers."

Longtime critics of the California prison system remain skeptical of the
department's willingness and ability to reform itself. Corey Weinstein, a
doctor who directs the Corcoran Committee of California Prison Focus, a
watchdog group based in San Francisco, said recent history suggested it
would not happen.

'Only after abuses are exposed in the press do they act," Dr. Weinstein
said. "Only when the public sector has forced them into acting have they
acted."

Dr. Weinstein pointed to the catastrophe of the integrated prison yard
policy, in which rival gang members imprisoned in security units were put in
tiny, concrete recreation yards together to force them to get along.

In the mid 1980's, the policy backfired when guards began shooting and
killing inmates to break up fights at the California Correctional Institute
at Tehachapi. Still, officials continued the policy when Corcoran and
Pelican Bay prisons were opened in 1988 and 1989, respectively.

Pelican Bay prison was built to house the "worst of the worst." It quickly
became a place where prisoners claimed they were beaten, brutalized and
tormented. In 1995, a Federal court agreed. In a class-action civil rights
case, Judge Thelton Henderson of Federal District Court in San Francisco
ruled that the prison caused "senseless suffering and sometimes wretched
misery."

Like many critics of the system, Dr. Weinstein blames the prison guard union
for some of the problems. The union, which has contributed more than $1
million to the political campaigns of Governor Wilson and Attorney General
Dan Lungren since 1992, has stymied investigations, largely by directing
guards not to answer questions.

George Galaza, the warden at Corcoran, said the accusations of continued
abuse and neglect at his prison were "lies."

"I wouldn't be sitting here if that was going on," said Galaza, who became
warden of the 5,000-inmate prison in 1996. "With all the different agencies
scrutinizing this place, if something was going on, I'd be behind bars if
anything was going on."

Guards at Corcoran said they were tired of being made out to be the
criminals, in a prison filled with some of the state's toughest inmates.
Lieut. Rob Vella, who has been at Corcoran since it opened, said that even
criticisms of the old integrated yard policy was simplistic.

"There are just so many facets to it," he said. "When we separate the gangs,
the ones that used to get along start forming rivalries."

Lieut. Rob Dean, one of the group of guards accused of beating inmates
getting off a bus in 1995, said the accusatinos were politically motivated.

"If we were doing all the things they said, these guys wouldn't respect us,"
he said, as he watched a sagging, baggy line of prisoners file into the mess
hall.

Checked-by: Rolf Ernst