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| Pelican Bay Prison officials say they target only gang leaders |
| By scpr.org - Julie Small - KPCC |
| Published: 08/23/2011 |
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Lawmakers in Sacramento plan to put Pelican Bay, California’s toughest prison, under a microscope at a hearing on Tuesday. The supermax prison located near the Oregon border isolates about 1,000 of California’s most dangerous inmates in a Security Housing Unit called “the SHU.” Last month, hundreds of inmates in the Pelican Bay SHU launched California’s largest prison hunger strike in California in a decade. They wanted better conditions inside the prison and an end to strict policies that get inmates into the SHU in the first place. The cells in Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Units measure 8 by 10 feet – about the same size as other prison cells. The difference is that SHU inmates spend nearly 23 hours in these cells and don’t get to see other inmates. Inside the cells, there's a bed, a metal toilet, a sink and a TV. Armed guards stand watch over the men 24/7. Lt. Chris Acosta says the door to a SHU cell opens once a day to let the inmate out to take a shower. When he steps inside the shower stall, a metal door locks him in. Inmates can leave their cells to exercise for an hour-and-a-half alone in a concrete yard with 15-foot-high walls, and a small rectangle of sky. Pelican Bay is hundreds of miles from any major city. It's the most isolated prison in the system: Think Alcatraz, but on land. Prison officials say the SHU is designed to be a prison within the prison that keeps top leaders of California’s prison gangs from communicating with their associates. Lt. Dave Barneburg investigates those gangs. "We’ve got these gang leaders here at Pelican Bay that are very influential. They don’t do the assaults, they don’t do the hits, they don’t personally get their hands dirty. But they command legions of subordinate gang members," he says. Barneburg says seven prison gangs – including the Mexican Mafia and Nazi Lowriders – started in the prisons, recruit in the prisons and mainly operate in the prisons. But they also have ties to street gangs. Barneburg says isolating gang leaders in the SHU’s at Pelican Bay has thwarted their criminal operations on prison yards and neighborhoods. The only way corrections will let a gang leader out of the SHU is if they become inactive or denounce the gang. Barneburg says that can be tricky. "So many times these gang members will plead and say 'Look, I haven’t had a disciplinary offense in many, many years. How could I be this influential guy?’" Barneburg says. "Well, they isolate themselves, and compartmentalize themselves and have their subordinate gang members do their bidding. So many times there is no direct evidence demonstrating enough to give those disciplinary reports that they are those gang members." Read More. |
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