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CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRESS ROOM | |
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| Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 1622 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 | Tel: (415) 621-5661 | Fax: (415) 621-5466 |
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The nation's largest prison system, battered by allegations of overspending, inmate mistreatment and brutality by guards, has bedeviled California officials for years.
One lawmaker called it "a gladiator school" that teaches violence to young offenders. Others heard testimony from sobbing witnesses that guards covered up a prison riot and formed their own gang-style organization to intimidate inmates.
The state's new prison chief acknowledges that the problems are so widespread that it will take years to end a corrosive "code of silence" that punishes whistleblowers and protects employees who abuse inmates.
"That is one my highest priorities," said Jeanne S. Woodford, who became corrections director this month. "For me, it's really about changing the culture" of the department.
Woodford, 50, has spent a career at San Quentin, starting as a guard there in 1978 and working her way up to become the facility's first female warden.
"Being with the department for 25 years, I have experienced the code of silence first hand," she said. "I think there's no question it exists."
A federal court monitor in January described the alleged code and recommended Woodford's predecessor be charged with contempt of court for prematurely shutting down inmate-abuse investigations.
Youth and Adult Correctional Secretary Roderick Hickman, Woodford's boss, responded by promising a "zero-tolerance" policy that provides for the firing of employees who do not disclose wrongdoing.
Woodford takes over amid a series of scathing reports and hearings that describe a system overrun with violence and overspending.
One report alleged that guards at Salinas Valley State Prison formed a gang-like organization called the Green Wall to intimidate inmates and fellow employees, and even devised gang-style hand signals and codes.
Last month, witnesses told state senators about the "code of silence" among guards and accused top Folsom State Prison officials of covering up their mishandling of a 2002 riot that broke out when two rival gangs were released together into an exercise yard.
Changing the agency's culture will require ethics training for all employees and not only protecting but rewarding those who step forward, Woodford said.
State officials are reviving the independent Office of Inspector General after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) reversed plans to sharply trim internal investigators and merge them into the same agency they are supposed to oversee.
In addition, a single prosecutor will oversee investigations from start to finish to ensure fairness and minimize errors that can ruin disciplinary cases, she said.
Woodford blamed the prison system's budget crisis on persistent underfunding while costs soared to meet federal and state laws.
Saving money is now a top priority, she said. Schwarzenegger and lawmakers are pushing to renegotiate a lucrative five-year contract former Gov. Gray Davis (news - web sites) signed with the guards' union, one of his key political backers.
The department also has started a new parole program designed to keep more inmates from returning to prison by easing their transition back to a normal life.
"We need to remember that the door of the prison swings both ways," said Woodford, who oversees 33 prisons, 38 conservation camps and 16 community correctional facilities.
The parole program began only in January but is showing early promise. The number of parolees returning to prison has dropped by 4,248, from 24,696 at the end of February 2003 to 20,448 this year.
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