CLUB FED? Women's prison in Dublin has some perks, but it's no picnic

Broke and burned out, social worker Patricia Clark and her 29- year-old
daughter turned to bank robbery as a quick solution to their troubles.

During the heist in Lemmon Valley, Nev., last year, Clark, 51, said she
wore a Frankenstein mask, held her BB gun backwards and blurted out ``don't
give me the money'' to bewildered tellers.

The bumbling mother-daughter team was sentenced to three years in prison at
the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin.

``I was in Washoe County Jail, scared and shaking and crying, waiting to be
transferred,'' Clark said recently. ``The jail nurse patted my back and
told me everything would be OK. She said she heard we were going to a
country club.''

Like other federal lockups, the Dublin penitentiary is sometimes called
``Club Fed.''

But at a time when prisons and jails across the country are cutting back on
recreation activities for inmates, it's business as usual at the
low-security Dublin institution: Its curriculum still reads like a
community college course catalog.

Horticulture, forklift training, computer programing, art therapy and
parenting classes are part of a long list of programs available.

Plus there are clubs and courses, such as knitting and meditation, aimed at
relieving stress for the estimated 950 inmates.

With its sweet-smelling gardens and tennis courts, the penitentiary may not
seem much like a prison.

Life on the inside, however, is no picnic, insists Warden Constance Reese.

``They can't go anywhere; their freedom has been taken away,'' Reese said,
sitting at a desk with the American flag hanging beside her. ``They come
here as punishment, not to be punished.''

These courses don't coddle inmates, but rather teach them discipline,
self-respect and responsibility, Reese said.

>From the time the prison was built in 1974 on the eastern edge of Dublin
>in an old army post, it has housed some well-known inmates.

Among them are Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss; Russian spy Svetlana
Ogorodnikov; Autumn Jackson, who tried to blackmail Bill Cosby for
millions; and would-be assassin Sara Jane Moore, who tried in 1975 to kill
then-President Gerald Ford.

Perhaps the most notorious inmate was kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty
Hearst, released in 1979 after serving two years for robbing a bank with
the Symbionese Liberation Army. She claimed that she had been brainwashed.

Celebrities don't enjoy special treatment, and fellow inmates are usually
indifferent to them, said Dominic Gutierrez, the prison's executive
assistant.

The institution is next to two other Bureau of Prisons facilities --a men's
detention center and a work camp, switched three years ago to serve only
women. When the camp was an all-male prison, it had its share of famous
outlaws such as junk-bond king Michael Milken and ex-Los Angeles police
officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell, convicted of violating the civil
rights of motorist Rodney King. The detention center is now the only male
institution at the site.

For a time, women were sent to a wing of the men's detention center as
discipline. In 1995, three women who were sent to the wing charged that
they were raped and beaten by male inmates who were let into their cells at
night by guards.

A $500,000 settlement for the women was reached in March. The prison has
since stopped placing women in the detention center, fired some of the
guards and adopted a sexual harassment sensitivity program for its 274
employees.

The case proved to be the blackest mark on an institution that prides
itself on providing a clean, safe environment for prisoners.

But the prisoners themselves have sometimes drawn attention, including two
who pulled off a brazen jailbreak in 1986.

Ronald McIntosh was a con man serving a sentence for fraud at the camp, and
his lover, Samantha Lopez, was incarcerated at the prison on bank robbery
charges.

In October 1986, McIntosh escaped and later hijacked a helicopter. He then
flew back to the Dublin prison and lifted his sweetheart to freedom.

They were captured 10 days later while picking up wedding rings in a
suburban Sacramento jewelry store.

After that escape, quarter-inch steel wires were strung above the grounds
of every federal prison.

The prison doesn't have bars or gun towers, but surrounding the grounds are
tall double fences topped with razor wire.

Unlike many state prisons and jails, the prison is not overcrowded, in part
because a new penitentiary in Connecticut has absorbed some of the growing
population of female prisoners.

The quarters, however, are still cramped. Clark and her daughter share a
standard 8-by-10-foot cell with another woman. Bunk beds, lockers, a small
sink and toilet take up nearly every inch.

The cells are grouped in clusters of 300, with at least one guard stationed
at each unit.

The women are told when to get up, when to eat, which television shows they
can watch and what kind of books they can read, and they all wear a uniform
of khaki button-down shirts and slacks.

They spend every weekday working clerical, factory or maintenance jobs on
the prison grounds earning anywhere from 4 cents to $1.15 an hour and are
locked down five times a day to be counted.

On weekends, they can watch PG-rated movies. ``Stuff like `Old Yeller,' ''
said Paula Williams, 38, of Kansas City, Mo., twisting her face in
exaggerated disappointment. ``I can't wait 'til the day when I can watch
action movies again.''

Before receiving visitors, inmates are strip-searched.

``Sometimes, I tell my friends not to come see me because I can't handle
the searches,'' said Sara Jane Moore, now 70.

Moore reads national newspapers and two nights a week teaches needlework
and cross-stitching. She once won a blue ribbon at the Alameda County Fair
for a pillow she designed.

Others knit baby clothes and blankets that are donated to poor children at
Christmas.

Self-improvement programs -- like drug rehabilitation, parenting and
classes for high school diplomas -- are always crowded.

Other courses, like meditation, relaxation, art and knitting, help ease stress.

``We try to encourage the women,'' Reese said. ``This is an opportunity for
them to turn their lives around, and hopefully when they return to the
community they won't return to a life of crime.''

Williams, jailed for four years on a drug conspiracy charge, has
successfully finished the 500-hour drug abuse program. She sings in the
prison church choir. She is scheduled for release August 6.

``I've been praying to the Lord to help me stay focused,'' she said,
flashing a wide smile. ``We have racquetball, tennis and weight lifting. We
can watch movies. I sing. But this is no clubhouse.''

1998 San Francisco Chronicle Page A15

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)