Calif. Bills seek to lessen restrictions on interviewing inmates

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By Associated Press

Published: 02/23/2004

News organizations are hoping that a string of prison scandals and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's talk about a more open government will translate into fewer restrictions on interviews with inmates.
The groups are backing bills by Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, and Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, that would overturn 8-year-old regulations that prevent reporters from arranging interviews through the Department of Corrections with specific prisoners.
Critics say the regulations have made it tougher for the news media -- and the public -- to learn what goes on behind prison walls. Recently, California's prison system has come under serious scrutiny after a series of riots, reports of secret organizations among guards and deaths of inmates.
"This will just bring further transparency to the department, and given that we are talking about the fastest growing department in state government ... more transparency is better," said Leno.
Department officials say reporters have plenty of access to work on their stories, despite the limitations.
"In practice, the media are in our prisons nearly every single day," said spokeswoman Terry Thornton.
To obtain a face-to-face interview with a particular inmate, the regulations require a reporter to write and ask the prisoner to send a form the journalist must fill out to get on the inmate's list of authorized visitors.
Once a reporter has been placed on the list, a process that takes about 30 working days, the reporter can visit the inmate during regular visiting times. But visiting hours are generally limited to weekends and reporters must compete for time with the inmate's family, friends and attorneys, critics say.
And the rules bar reporters from bringing tape recorders and cameras. Spiral notebooks with wire that could be turned into a weapon can be turned away, but paper, pens and pencils are allowed, said Thornton.
The prison will also provide paper and pencils, according to the department's media policies.
Reporters can write and request that a prisoner call them collect, although those conversations are limited to 15 minutes and can be recorded by prison officials.
Reporters are also allowed to interview prisoners they encounter at random during prison tours.
Critics of the rules say they are so limiting that many news organizations have cut back on their prison coverage.
"It's not that there isn't any access whatsoever," said Jim Ewert, an attorney for the California Newspaper Publishers Association. "It's just that it's so diminished now that it's nearly impossible to conduct meaningful interviews."
Romero's bill would let reporters again arrange face-to-face interviews with a particular inmate through department media officers, although officials could limit the number of interviews a prisoner could have, set reasonable limits on time and place and bar interviews that would pose a threat to public safety.
The bill also notes that interviews have been arranged in the past without any safety problems and there is "no legitimate reason for a blanket ban on media interviews with specific prisoners."
The legislation would permit the department to set up a pool interview arrangement if officials received a large number of requests for interviews with the same prisoner.
Leno's bill, as now written, wouldn't go that far. It would expand the current interview policy by letting a reporter who got on one prisoner's visitation list also visit any inmate at the same facility during regular visiting hours if the prisoner was allowed to have visitors and was willing to be interviewed. That arrangement would be good for a year and could be renewed.
Both bills would require prison officials to continue to allow journalists to interview prisoners at random while taking a prison tour or doing a story on a prison activity, program or event.
And both bills would allow reporters to receive confidential mail from prisoners unless it posed a threat to public safety -- as well as let reporters bring tape recorders, cameras, pens, pencils, paper and other material needed to conduct the interviews.
Hoping to avoid a veto, Leno said he hopes to get some signal from Schwarzenegger's staff about how the governor feels about the bills before considering any changes.
Easing access to prisoners could make it easier to uncover, or head off, prison scandals, they say

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