Big changes are on the horizon for California’s solitary confinement policies.
In the wake of hunger strikes, public protests and a complaint to the United Nations, California prison officials are gearing up for policy changes expected to dramatically reduce the number of prisoners in solitary lockups.
State prisons chief Matthew Cate announced April 24 that “the department is already projecting a decreased need for segregated housing for gang members and has cancelled the proposed construction of 50 segregated exercise yards for gang members at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi.”
Cate said that cancellation saves about $2.9 million.
He said changes “are expected to begin in fiscal year 2012-13.” They include:
• Offer graduated housing and privileges as incentives for positive behavior, and impose consequences for gang-related behaviors;
• Offer a step-down program for inmates to work their way from a restricted program back to a general population setting;
• Provide support and education for inmates seeking to disengage from gangs;
• Employ a weighted point system to enhance the integrity of the gang validation process;
• Use segregated housing only for those gang associates and suspects who engage in additional serious disciplinary behavior; and
• Offer programs designed to promote social values and behaviors in preparation for an inmate’s return to the community.
“The department manages arguably the most violent and sophisticated criminal gangs in the nation,” Cate said. “The department’s prior prison gang strategy was developed more than 25 years ago and relied primarily on suppression. Tested national models available today utilize a combination of prevention, interdiction, and rehabilitation measures.”
On March 20 the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law petitioned the United Nation to investigate and urge an end to solitary confinement. The petition came in the wake of 6,000 persons in 13 California prisoners conducting hunger strikes last summer, claiming the practice are “inhumane and torturous,” The Associated Press reported.
The petitioners say California’s solitary confinement policies violate “international rules governing the treatment of prisoners.”
On Feb. 20 the Occupy movement demonstrated outside San Quentin objecting to solitary confinement, among other things.
“Certainly there are a small number of people who for a variety of reasons have to be maintained in a way that they don’t have access to other inmates,” Chase Rioveland, a former head of corrections in Colorado and Washington state, told the New York Times. “But those in most systems are pretty small numbers of people.”
Mississippi corrections commissioner Christopher B. Epps told the New York Times he used to believe difficult inmates should be locked down as tightly as possible, for as long as possible.
But Epps said while he was fighting a lawsuit over prison conditions he changed his views and ordered changes. “If you treat people like animals, that’s exactly the way they’ll behave,” he said.
