Law & Order
Rural Prison as Colonial Master

By Christian Parenti
In 1964 a tsunami swept over Crescent City, California completely
destroying the downtown. Only nine people died, but the town
nestled just below the Oregon bordernever recovered. It was rebuilt
as a shabby imitation of Southern California's worst planning examples;
empty parking spaces and boxlike buildings dominate the landscape.
In 1989 another tsunami hitthis time the tidal wave was
political. The California Department of Corrections (CDC) rolled in,
and with little opposition, built the sprawling, $277.5 million Pelican
Bay State Prison, one of the newest, meanest supermax prisons in the
system. Pelican Bay is now an international model of sensory
deprivation and isolation; half the inmates are deemed incorrigible and
locked in their cells 23 hoursaday. The prison is also Crescent City and
Del Norte county's largest employerand, some say, its new colonial
master.
The new prison has political and economic clout which is all
the more exaggerated due to Crescent City's extreme isolation and
poverty. Only 4 of the area's 17 sawmills were still in operation when
the prison arrived, commercial salmon fishing was dead, and during the
mid 1980s, 164 businesses had gone under. By the time the CDC
came scouting for a new prison site, unemployment had reached 20
percent. Del Norte County, with Crescent City at its heart, was in a
seemingly terminal economic torporthe prison was its only hope.
It is a situation that has been replicated a dozen times in recent
yearsfrom Bowling Green, Missouri to rural Florida to Dannemora,
New Yorkeconomically battered small towns are rolling over for new
prisons. In fact, punishment is such a big industry in the American
countryside, that, according to the National Criminal Justice
Commission, 5 percent of the growth in rural population between
1980 and 1990 is accounted for by prisoners.
But the story of the rural prison boom is not all rosy economic
statistics, critics say prisons bring an array of political costs. "We're a
penal colony, plain and simple. This is California's Siberia or Guyana,"
says John Levy, a Crescent City lawyer, who used to make his living
defending Pelican Bay prisoners charged with committing crimes in
prison. Levy says that, at least in Crescent City, the CDC's power
extends far beyond the prison gate and prison officials use economic
leverage and violent intimidation to silence dissent. Several other
persecuted defense attorneys, former guards, and community
members, tell a similar story.
For the most part, people in Del Norte county don't agree,
they're just happy to have jobs. Pelican Bay provides 1,500 jobs, an
annual payroll of $50 million dollars, and a budget of over $90
million. Indirectly, the prison has created work in everything from
construction and pumping gas, to domestic violence counseling. The
contract for hauling away the prison's garbage is worth $ 130,000 a
yearbig money in the state's poorest county. Following the
employment boom came almost 6,000 new residents, Del Norte's
population (including 4,000 prisoners) is now 28,000. In the last ten
years the average rate of housing starts doubled as has the value of local
real estate.
With the building boom came a huge Ace Hardware, a private
hospital, and a 90,000 square foot KMart. Across from KMart is an
equally mammoth Safeway. "In 1986 the county collected $73 million
in sales tax; last year it was $142 million," says county assessor Jerry
Cochran. On top of that, local government is saving money by using
lowsecurity "levelone" prisoners instead of public works crews.
Between January 1990 and December 1996, Pelican Bay inmates
worked almost 150,000 hours on everything from school grounds to
public buildings. According to one report, the prison labor, billed at $7
hour, would have cost the county at least $766,300. "Without the
prison we wouldn't exist," says Cochran.

While the CDC 's economic impact is plain to see, its power in
Del Norte County courts is quite opaque but just as real. "From our
investigations it seems that the prison, in conjunction with local judges
and prosecutors, is using every excuse it can to keep more people
locked up for longer," says Leslie DiBenedettoSkopek of the California
Prison Focus (CPF), a human rights group based in San Francisco which
investigates conditions in Pelican Bay. CPF investigators, who visited
Pelican Bay in late January, say that minor administrative infractions
such as spitting on guardsare often embellished and prosecuted as
felonies in the local courts in front of juries stacked with guards and
their families. As a result, Pelican Bay inmates are getting new
convictions and becoming permanently trapped in prison, regardless of
their original conviction.
"For example," says attorney and CPF
investigator Rose Braz, "I interviewed this one kid G; he's 21, a
white guy from [rural] Trinity County. He got 4 years for robbery,
turned 18 in the Corcoran SHU (Security Housing Unity). But due to
several fights inside, some of which were staged by guards at Corcoran,
this guy is now facing his third strike."
"I am afraid I'll never get out," said Gin a taped CPF
interview. Just to make sure, the CDC is, paying 35 percent of the Del
Norte county District Attorneys' budget. The money covers the costs
of convicting prisoners charged with committing new crimes. District
Attorney Bill Cornel, says the CDC's contributions don't even cover
the full cost of handling an annual average of 80 Pelican Bay cases. "It's
clear what this is all about," says CPF investigator Noelle Hanrahan.
"These prison convictions are job security for the whole area."
Crescent City criminal defense attorneys say that while the
CDC bolsters the local prosecutor's office, it also uses behindthe
scenes leverage to prevent effective inmate defense. "Hell, all I know is
that in 1995 I won four out of five of my Pelican Bay cases and they
were almost all three strikes. Then, in 1996 the judge gave me only
one case," says criminal defense attorney Mario de Solenni, a self
proclaimed "conservative, redneck painintheass." According to de
Solenniwho owns and drives a collection of military vehicles
successfully defending prisoners is a nono: "Let's just say the system
doesn't seem to like it if the defense wins."
Other lawyers tell similar stories of beating the prosecution too
many times and then finding themselves with fewer defense
appointments. "Now the judges go all the way down to Humbolt to
find incompetent, ponytailed fuckups who alienate juries and can't
win cases," says de Solenni.
Tom Eastona defense attorney with the slightly euphoric air
of someone who's just survived a major auto wrecklives in a modest
house overlooking the sea. The National Review and American
Spectator cover his coffee table, but rightwing reading habits haven't
helped endear him to CDC compradors.
"The prison and the DA are trying to destroy my career," says
Easton, who was facing felony charges including soliciting perjury from
a prisoner. Easton says the charges were nothing more than retaliation
for providing defense in criminal cases and handling civil rights suits on
behalf of Pelican Bay inmates. In late January, all charges against
Easton, save one misdemeanor count of soliciting business, were
dropped or ended in hung juries. "But the DA could still try to have
me disbarred," says Easton. In the meantime, he has been banned from
communicating with the seven Pelican Bay prisoners he represents.
"I am convinced that they went after Easton because he filed
suits on behalf of prisoners," say defense attorney Paul Gallegos, who
has been accused of gang affiliation by the DA. "That accusation was
patently absurd. The DA didn't even realize he was, by implication,
accusing the judge who appointed me to the case."
Absurd or not, DA harassment has a chilling effect. "I can see
the writing on the wall," says John Levy. "They just don't want these
prisoners to get defense. The more of 'em they can pack in, the more
money comes down the pipe. I've had enough of it. I'm leaving town."

Among Levy's clients are four prison maintenance workers
who testified against administrators in a recent corruption case. "The
former head of operations out there made death threats against my
clients, the state is still investigating," says Levy, adding that one of his
clients has since been forced to leave town after being fired from the
local hardware store at the behest of a prison official. "Hey, the prison
is the only place that buys in bulk," says Levy.
According to Levy and others, the CDC also has covert
investigative units, with classified budgets, that conduct surveillance in
the community and keep dossiers on troublemakers. "Internal Affairs
does investigations in the community but I don't think that's
inappropriate," says Tom Hopper, former Del Norte county sheriff and
the current Community Resource Manager at Pelican Bay. CDC officials
in Sacramento also confirm that the department's two undercover
police forcesthe Special Services Unit (SSU) and the Investigative
Services Unitdo at times carry out surveillance off of prison grounds.
During recent revelations of officially sponsored violence at Corcoran
State Prison, SSU officers were caught trying to intimidate whistle
blowers.

John Cox looks like a poster boy for the CDC. But the former
Pelican Bay correctional officer (CO) is, instead, a CDC target. Trouble
began in 1991 when Cox broke the guards' code of silence and
testified against a fellow officer who had beaten an inmate's head with
the butt of a gas gun, and then framed the victim. Cox refused to go
along with yet another setup. According to findings in Madrid vs.
Gomeza highprofile class action against the CDCPelican Bay
administrators called Cox a "snitch" and told him to "watch his back."
Even before Cox broke ranks in court he was hated by other
guards. As sergeant in charge of the D yard SHU, Cox gave all his
officers 100 extra hours of onthejob training beyond the standard 40.
This was seen as treachery by some hardline CO's. "They called D
Yard SHU, 'fluffy SHU,' because we didn't hogtie inmates to
toilets or kick them in the face after cell extractions," says Cox. "There
was one officer in there who used to take photos of every shooting and
decorate his office with them."
Federal court papers are replete with other heinous examples
of abuse at Pelican Bay, such as the notorious case of guards and
medical staff who boiled an inmate alive. A central element in this
slowmotion riot of sadism was the constant framing of prisoners, so
that their sentences grew by decades with each year inside. Coxtrying
to play by the rulesfound it almost impossible to do his job.
"I broke up one fight without assistance, called for backup but
none came, and got a torn rotator cuff," says Cox. "The next day the
lieutenant made me climb every guard tower ladder. It was pure
harassment." The final straw was a series of death threats and close calls
on the job. In one incident Cox found himself alone, surrounded by
eight inmates and unable to get backup. "That was it. If I stayed and
tried to do my job I probably would have been killed," says Cox, who
is currently suing the CDC.
Things have hardly improved since Cox quit. "Bullets through
the window, death threats on my kids, hangup calls, sugar in the gas
tank, slashed tiresyou name it," says Cox, recounting the continued
harassment he still suffers at the hands of the CDC and its allies. "The
DA and the sheriff have refused to even investigate. They told me to
talk to the prison."
Other former guards have had problems, notably James Carp,
who says he was harassed by superiors for pointing out security faults,
such as an automatic door system which failed to lock and required a
$2 million dollar overhaul.
Officials at Pelican Bay refuse to comment on Cox's case. But
Pelican Bay's Tom Hopper did say: "The prison saved this community
and people are grateful. There are a few disgruntled employees and
other fringe elements that complain, but you can't please everybody."
As evidence of CDC bullying mounts this line may become harder to
maintain.
"Face itCrescent City has sold its soul to the devil. They got
a few jobs but that's about it," says CPF investigator and former
prisoner, Louis Talamantez. According to the critics, the wreckage from
Crescent City's latest tsunamirule by the CDCtakes the form, not
of fallen buildings, but shattered lives. "Remember, the whole
lockdown economy," says Talamantez, "feeds off prisoners, many of
whom will never see the world again. " z

Christian Parenti teaches sociology at the New College of California in
San Francisco. Many thanks to California Prison Focus for research aid.