A Look At Prison Officials' Actions

REPORT: CHIEF MADE PELICAN BAY GUARDS PROBE `GO AWAY'

It was late in the afternoon of March 27, 2003, when then-California
Department of Corrections Director Edward Alameida Jr. convened a meeting
in his Sacramento office that his top advisers later agreed was
``extraordinary.''

The agenda for these managers was what to do about an internal affairs
probe into allegations that Pelican Bay State Prison guards had committed
perjury to protect two fellow guards during a 2002 federal criminal
civil-rights trial. Alameida was livid that he had to deal with the cases
at all, according to other participants.

Pounding his fist, the state's top corrections official reportedly
described the allegations as the type that just get ``thrown up in the
air.'' Then he asked: ``How do they go away?''

As a special investigator appointed by a San Francisco federal judge has
found, Alameida and his top aides did make the cases ``go away,'' allegedly
cutting off the internal probe under immense pressure from California's
powerful prison guards union. And the ``extraordinary'' meeting in
Alameida's office has become Exhibit A in a scathing portrayal of how
deeply a ``code of silence'' permeates even the upper echelons of the
prison system and paralyzes the department's ability to police guards who
break the rules or abuse inmates.

Critical Report

The account of the meeting is contained in a blistering, 80-page report
released this week by John Hagar, a prison expert monitoring Pelican Bay
for U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson. Hagar's report suggests a
criminal investigation is warranted into whether Alameida and others may
have defied court orders and lied during an ongoing probe into problems at
Pelican Bay, a prison on the rugged North Coast where the state sends its
most violent inmates.

Alameida, who recently resigned as corrections department director, has
denied silencing any investigations. The union denies a code of silence
exists to protect guards. And the newly installed leadership in the prison
system under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is offering assurances that flaws
will be quickly addressed to reassure Henderson, who has the power to force
changes in the corrections department.

But Hagar's report puts pressure on Schwarzenegger to seek fixes for a
department that for years has been unable -- or unwilling -- to pierce the
code of silence among officers sworn to uphold the law and is considered to
have lost control of its internal discipline. Hagar has given
Schwarzenegger an unspecified window of opportunity to restore the
department's credibility -- a task that eluded his most recent
predecessors, former Govs. Gray Davis and Pete Wilson, both of whom enjoyed
close ties to the guards union.

Experts say the outcome will determine whether California's leaders can
weed out rogue guards in its prisons.

Hearings Next Week

``The responsibility for changing the culture rests squarely on the
shoulders of leadership,'' said Dennis Luther, a former federal prison
warden and now a consultant. ``You can't discount it to bad policy or lack
of resources or dysfunctional culture. It's up to the leader of the
organization to change it by example.''

The prison system will remain under the microscope next week, when two
Democratic state senators hold legislative hearings to examine problems in
the way prison officials investigate rogue guards. The hearings will
include testimony on the revelations arising out of Pelican Bay, as well as
concerns about similar breakdowns at other prisons, notably Folsom, where a
probe of a 2002 riot has been clouded in controversy leading to a
management shake-up.

The hearings and Hagar's report all connect to a central theme: that the
corrections department operates under a nearly unbreakable code of silence,
enforced by the prison guards union with the tacit support of department
leaders. According to the report, the union went out of its way for years
to impede the federal criminal investigation into abuses by Pelican Bay
guards accused of beating inmates, staging inmate fights and, in one
instance, shooting an inmate.

``A minority of rogue officers can establish a code of silence . . . and
create an overall atmosphere of deceit and corruption,'' Hagar wrote. ``If
the minority are supported by a powerful labor organization, and the union
as well as management condones the code of silence, the consequences are
severe.''

Even the FBI had trouble with the code of silence. While the FBI was
investigating Pelican Bay guards Edward Michael Powers and Jose Garcia, the
union strongly discouraged guards from talking to agents, according to
court documents. The stonewalling forced federal prosecutors to use grand
jury subpoenas to haul reluctant guards into court.

``It was disturbing to me to see a law enforcement agency where that
dynamic existed,'' said Melinda Haag, the federal prosecutor who obtained
convictions for civil rights violations against Powers and Garcia.

Union officials say they vigorously defend the rights of the guards but
don't silence whistle-blowers.

``There is a hesitance to judge your peers, but clearly there is a line . .
. when a bad decision has been made and you have to report it,'' said Lance
Corcoran, the union's executive president.

The code of silence is not a new dynamic for the corrections department.
Nearly 10 years ago, Henderson, who has supervised Pelican Bay under a
civil rights lawsuit, found major flaws in the department's internal
mechanisms for investigating and disciplining guards for abusing inmates.
The judge, who must review Hagar's findings, labeled department internal
affairs probes ``counterfeit.''

Indeed, Robert Presley, secretary of the state's youth and adult
correctional agency under Davis, said the department's handling of internal
complaints always troubled him. The prison agency, now run by new secretary
Rod Hickman, oversees the corrections department.

It ``was one of the things I complained about almost the entire time I was
there,'' Presley said. ``I didn't think the quality was too good. That was
a constant refrain of mine.''

Enforcing The Code

Now, Hagar has exposed the problem in an almost unprecedented fashion by
directly accusing the department's top brass of enforcing the code of
silence. According to his report, the department, after a briefing by Haag,
the federal prosecutor, investigated allegations against three officers
suspected of lying during Powers' and Garcia's 2002 trial.

The three officers, the report said, were suspected of lying about Powers
beating two inmates and permitting the stabbing of another inmate. But at
the March 2003 meeting, Alameida instructed his aides to end the perjury
probe, according to testimony before Hagar.

Hagar has accused Alameida and at least one of his top aides, Thomas Moore,
the former deputy director of the department's internal affairs unit, of
lying during federal court hearings last fall about their handling of the
matter. Moore, through the department, declined comment.

To Hagar, the actions of the managers known as the ``Directorate''
undermine the system and maintain the code of silence.

``The highest level of CDC officials must take decisive steps to control
the code,'' Hagar concluded, but ``the Directorate did the very opposite.''