Governor Confronts New Crisis, No Script

PRISON MESS TESTS FLEXIBLE RESPONSE

SACRAMENTO - In his first two months in office, Arnold Schwarzenegger
has pretty much followed the script he and his advisers laid out after
his election.

But with a long-simmering crisis in the nation's largest prison system
coming to a boil, the new governor and his administration are now
suddenly forced to ad lib.

How governors deal with these unscripted events or natural disasters
can often turn into defining moments for their administrations. Think
Gray Davis and electricity.

At issue is how Schwarzenegger will handle charges that the state
Department of Corrections, under the sway of the powerful prison guard
union, is unable to police itself. A federal court report has accused
top corrections officials of whitewashing an investigation and, in
legislative hearings last week, tearful prison guards told of being
intimidated after reporting on other officers.

Schwarzenegger -- with the threat of a federal takeover and renewed
legislative scrutiny on his side -- could be emboldened to make
changes sought by prison reformers for years. Unlike his three
predecessors, he has not taken any contributions from the prison guard
union, which has spent lavishly to support the state's
politicians.

Lawmakers who want to reform the system are optimistic the governor is
in their corner. State Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose, said he was
buoyed after meeting with Schwarzenegger in early December. He said
the governor told him, "We've got to make the Department of
Corrections a department of corrections."

Persistent critics of the corrections system note, however, that
Schwarzenegger installed a former prison guard in the top job and
fired the acting inspector general for prisons just before he was
about to testify about its failings at a legislative hearing.

Schwarzenegger inherited a corrections department that grew
topsy-turvy in the 1980s as a focus on rehabilitation gave way to
punishment. In the 1980s and 1990s, the state cracked down on gangs,
enacted the "three strikes" law and imposed tougher drug sentences
- -- leading to more inmates.

As the number of inmates grew to 161,000 and corrections employees to
49,000, the guard union also grew. It now has more than 25,000 members
and collects millions of dollars in dues that are funneled into
political donations.

"They have a lot of money," which translates into political clout,
said Bruce Bikle, an assistant professor of criminal justice at
California State University-Sacramento.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Steve White, the former inspector
general for prisons, testified last week that the union also works
behind the scenes to influence the appointments of wardens, who must
be confirmed by the Senate Rules Committee. With a close relationship
to former Gov. Gray Davis, the union also managed to negotiate a
controversial labor agreement that critics say will cost more than
$500 million annually when it takes full effect.

The system is plagued with problems -- from an inability to
investigate and discipline its own officers to an inability to send an
e-mail between prisons. Most troubling, critics say, is a pervasive
code of silence in which prison guards say they are discouraged from
exposing excesses.

Bikle said Schwarzenegger must recognize that this is an enormous
problem. "The code of silence is an indication of institutional
malaise in the department and they've got to fix that," said Bikle, a
former prison administrator in Oregon and other states.

Mike Jimenez, president of the California Correctional Peace Officers
Association for the past 18 months, said the guard union "has never
stopped an investigation." In legislative testimony last week, he
disputed the claim that a code of silence prevails, calling it instead
"a code of cowardice" by "individuals who lack the courage and the
intestinal fortitude to stand up."

Schwarzenegger himself has not talked about prisons, but his cabinet
secretary for corrections, Roderick Hickman, has promised to make
changes. Last week, for example, corrections officials temporarily
reassigned the top managers at Folsom State Prison in the wake of an
internal report that was critical of how the prison's leadership
handled a 2002 riot.

"The key for leadership is understanding that the message has to be
clear that you will be held accountable for the values that we
expound," Hickman told a legislative hearing last week. Prodded by
the federal court's oversight at Pelican Bay State Prison, Hickman
said he is developing a plan to revamp the way the department
investigates wrongdoing.

In the coming weeks, a flurry of legislation is expected to be
introduced, possibly to restore $5 million that lawmakers cut from the
budget for the inspector general, the state's prison watchdog; to
expand the attorney general's role in scrutinizing prisons; and to
allow expanded media access to prisoners for jailhouse interviews.

Schwarzenegger will be asked to take positions on these
proposals.

Some close observers of the prisons are concerned about
Schwarzenegger's first moves, citing the appointment of Hickman as the
corrections secretary to oversee the state's 32 prisons, juvenile
prisons and parole programs.

They note that Hickman started as a guard and has spent 25 years in
the California prison system. At the dramatic legislative hearings
last week, White, the former inspector general, questioned whether
Hickman had the passion to lead the agency on a new path.

And just the week before, Schwarzenegger fired John Chen, White's
successor as acting inspector general. Chen had been poised to testify
that the department exhibited "a persistent cultural environment
resistant to reform."

State Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Rosemead, who co-chaired the hearings,
contends that the system is on the brink of being morally bankrupt.
"It is one judge's order away from being pulled into receivership and
run by a federal court," she declared. "It is a tarnished
institution."

Romero and others insist that there is a pervasive code of silence
that must be broken. And witnesses, including hardened prison guards,
broke down in tears last week as they described the hostility they
suffered when they blew the whistle at prisons.

The code of silence was cited by a special court master in a highly
critical report to U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson detailing the
failure of the Department of Corrections to investigate and discipline
staff who abuse prisoners. The report found officers unwilling to
report problems, especially if the union was involved, because of this
informal code.

Acknowledging Schwarzenegger's recent election, the special master,
John Hagar, suggested the state should be given additional time to
comply with his recommendations for reform despite its "miserable
compliance record."

Hagar wants the department to develop a plan to fully investigate
allegations of the misuse of force, to establish appropriate penalties
and to do this without interference from the union.

But White, the former inspector general, remains skeptical that
Schwarzenegger and his new corrections chief can accomplish the
sweeping reforms he thinks are needed.

"What will happen," White told lawmakers, "is that heads will roll,
butts will get kicked, and three months later, when you're not
looking, it will all be back to where it was. I know this to a
certainty."