Prison Riots

We all know that prisons are violent places and that at any moment inmates can attack each other or staff members. But what are the motives for such violence, besides the fact that inmates don’t want to be locked up? Although prison staff try to keep the prisons safe for both inmates and employees, riots occur unexpectedly and some with tragic results.



In August of this year there was a riot at the California Institution for Men (CIM) where hundreds of inmates resulted with injuries and several had to be transported to hospitals. What causes these riots is not always clear and concise, but TIME magazine reported that overcrowding, program cuts and understaffing all have a link to prison violence. Inmates always attempt to take over the prisons and sometimes plan these attacks while other times they are unexpected. The riot at CIM was “the state’s worst since 2006.” Parts of the facility were burnt down and many of the neighboring prisons were placed on lockdown.

According to TIME, prison violence is natural and caused by racial disparities, gang rivalries and hatred toward prison guards. But is there a way to avoid the violence before it comes? Not unless we empty out the prisons or segregate the inmates, but we can’t do that so the best thing is to be prepared for anything. It’s obvious that overcrowding is a major problem and everyone is aware of it, but releasing inmates won’t stop riots from occurring.

Juveniles Commit Adult Crimes and are Punished like Adults

We’ve seen that crimes are not only committed by adults but now more and more adolescents are getting involved with the Criminal Justice system. If juveniles commit crimes just like adults do, it’s only right to punish them as such….or is it?

A 14-year-old girl, with the help of her boyfriend, killed her mother by placing a narcotic in her drink to make her sleep, then stabbed her to death (News 10). For a teenage girl, this is a very brutal and violent crime, which would have landed her on death row if she was over eighteen years old. Since she is not, the judge presiding over this case concluded that the severity of the crime qualifies her to be tried as an adult and now faces a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. After serving her time at a Juvenile Correctional Facility until she turns eighteen she will most likely be transferred to a State Prison.

Some argue that if juveniles have the capacity to commit a crime severe enough to deserve an equal punishment, there should be no leniency. Others however strongly believe that juvenile offenders should not be punished the same way an adult would for any crime. The death penalty for juveniles is the most popular form of punishment that has caused much attention. According to an article on the San Diego Union Tribune, the Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for juveniles because it goes against the 8th Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The argument is that minors do not have the maturity that adults have and are easily influenced by others, and even life terms are being considered cruel and unusual for juveniles.

If minors commit any other crime besides murder, juveniles should have alternatives other than serving time in prison. Rehabilitative programs are one option, where juveniles would be able to prove that they have learned from their mistakes. In my opinion, I believe this is a good approach to dealing with juvenile delinquency, although I can’t help but think what would happen if an offender was to be released and then commits another crime as an adult. Could this have been prevented if the offender was incarcerated instead? In the girl’s case above, what would be the appropriate punishment? Because it was a murder and taking advantage of the fact that life terms for juveniles have not been abolished yet, I believe it would be understandable if she spent the rest of her life in prison rather than going easy on her and risking her committing future crimes.

New Prison Facility in Stockton is Unwanted

Earlier this month, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the federal receiver announced plans to convert a previous youth correctional facility in Stockton, CA into a medical facility for proper care of adult inmates. This is because there have been arguments that the existing facilities are not equipped to treat the medical and mental needs of inmates.

The Coleman v. Schwarzenegger case determined that because prisons are so overcrowded, these conditions prevent proper treatment of inmates and required the state to reduce its prison design capacity from 190% to 137.5% (U.S. District Court). What used to be DeWitt Nelson Youth Correctional Facility in Stockton was considered a desirable location for a facility with more beds for inmates with medical and mental health problems and will be able to hold over one thousand inmates (CDCR Press Release). DeWitt was closed in 2008 because of a decrease of juvenile population.

Right after this decision was announced, members of the community expressed their opposition to having a medical facility for prisoners in their area. The city of Stockton along with San Joaquin County filed a lawsuit against the federal receiver and the CDCR without consulting officials prior to making the decision, according to an article by the Tri-Valley Herald. However, the press release by the CDCR states that they came to the decision after conversing with Stockton leaders. The arguments are that with the construction of this new facility, financial problems will arise for the city of Stockton as well as a “worsen the short supply of medical providers available for law abiding citizens” (Stockton Record). The department of Corrections claims that this project will bring over one thousand construction jobs and after the facility is complete, there could be as many as 600 staff jobs.

Regardless of how beneficial this may be for prison officials, it’s natural for the members of the community to oppose the construction of a new prison facility. It’s difficult to accept that prisoners will be closer to us than what we would like and that the decision has already been made. With the lawsuit, all plans will be on hold for this project so we will have to wait to find out what the outcome will be.

Cell Phone Sniffing Dogs

Corrections has come up with a way to prevent or minimize the smuggling of cell phones into prisons. Among other things, cell phones are being smuggled into prisons by visitors and even by the staff members and most of the time the staff do not realize it. Never send a man to do a dog’s job! Specially trained canines are the new way of detecting contraband at prisons. There are only two dogs in California that are trained to sniff out any cell phones at all 33 state prisons.

Cell phones are the most popular device that makes its way into the prisons because the inmates use it for many things from planning escapes to ordering hits outside of prison. Usually they are brought into the prisons by visitors and as disturbing as it is, they hide them inside their bodies. Not only do they insert cell phones into their bodies, but other artifacts that make me wonder how they even manage to get into their bodies. The creativity of the smugglers is pretty impressive, as they come up with the strangest ways to smuggle contraband into a prison. In a report by a San Francisco news station titled Smuggled Cell Phones Pose Prison Problems, cell phones and accessories are being brought in hidden in cakes, printers, VCRs and other things.

Correctional Officers and other staff are also responsible for some of the contraband found in the prisons. For this reason and because cell phone smuggling is a big issue in California prisons, cell phone sniffing dogs have come to the rescue. Last year at the prison in Solano there were 800 cell phones confiscated thanks to the help of the dogs. It is important to be strict about searching for cell phones because they are being used to commit other crimes even when the inmates are inside the prison and if staff members are part of the problem and can’t do the job, having these dogs is a great step forward. Perhaps inmates shouldn’t be allowed to have any kind of property in their cells, which would avoid any kind of contraband.

I'll Take the Death Penalty Please

The death penalty is a very controversial issue. Not only is it a debate whether is morally correct to put someone to death or not, but its also about the costs and length of being sent to death row. With California’s Death Row reputation, its not wonder that a convicted offender would opt to be sentenced to death rather than serve a regular life term at a regular prison. Why? Because apparently death row inmates have a better lifestyle in prison than do other inmates. And lets not forget that California has a hard time killing an inmate.

In an article by the Los Angeles Times, a man convicted of murder asked for the death penalty because the living conditions at San Quentin were better than at any other prison. California has the largest Death Row population in the Nation, yet since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977 there have only been 13 executions, and the murderers just keep coming in but no one comes out. We all wonder why it takes so long for an execution to occur in California and why we can’t be like other states and execute people left and right. Well, one reason is because the appeal processes take many years. Another is that executions in this state are on hold because the lethal injection method has been under review for the last four years.

Life in San Quentin State Prison is unlike life in any other state prison; inmates have certain privileges that in other prisons they wouldn’t have. They stay in single-bed cells, can talk on the phone more often, have televisions and radios, and have better food. Everyone knows living conditions on death row are not so bad so its not surprising that murderers prefer to spend their lives on death row, where they are more likely to die of natural causes than executions (CDCR).

Maybe its time to consider whether California should really have the Death Penalty because we are not using it. We say we have it but we are not executing anyone we are spending more money than needed on keeping these death row inmates.

Pointing Fingers

The case of Phillip Garrido and Jaycee Lee Dugard has caused a lot of commotion around the country. We've all heard the story about this kindap and sexual abuse case that took place almost twenty years ago and took so long to be resolved. The main question was why wasn’t Garrido captured sooner? Well, there are different sides to the story but almost all put the blame on the parole supervision of the Department of Corrections of California. The much anticipated "Garrido Report" was released two months after the arrest by the Office of the Inspector General. This report bashes on Corrections for their poor parole supervision techniques.

The New York Times reports that one of the main criticisms of parole officials is that they failed to realize who Jaycee really was after so many home visits. However, there weren’t very many visits in the first place throughout the supervision. In one of those visits, officials became aware that there was a child living in the Garrido home and didn’t do anything. Maybe they forgot that Garrido was a sex offender or maybe they didn’t make the connection; either way this was irresponsible and could have helped end this kidnapping case a lot sooner.



The truth is that there were too many parties involved since the beginning, too many law enforcement agencies “working together.” Garrido was convicted in 1977 by state and federal court. The federal government sentenced him to fifty years in prison, while the state of Nevada sentenced him to 5years-to-life in prison. After this it gets messy; the federal government paroled Garrido after serving only eleven years of his fifty year sentence….isn’t there something wrong here?!!! This was the first mistake. This man was convicted of a serious crime and was paroled before serving even half of his original sentence. It was then that he was released to Nevada authorities to serve his state sentence and mistake #2 occurred; he was paroled AGAIN after only seven months from being received. I don’t know if it was Garrido’s sympathetic face that made officials feel that he was ok to be released or if they were really idiots. Then California came in the picture because this is where he was serving his paroles. Dumping Garrido on California must have been very convenient for the federal government and Nevada, washing their hands from this mess. Now California is the “bad guy” for not capturing this guy and for their poor parole supervision. It is unfortunate that only California is at the center of attention and when the federal government and Nevada deserve some of the blame as well.

California Releasing Inmates

The State’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is in trouble; they didn’t meet the deadline to submit a proposal for release of inmates. A federal three judge panel ordered the release of forty thousand inmates in the next two years due to overcrowding, but the department objected and said, that’s not going to happen.

Apparently, the CDCR had a better, more reasonable solution to alleviate this issue. The plan is to build more facilities to transfer the inmates to, convert existing youth facilities into adult ones, and expand out-of-state transfers. This will not take two years; in a time period of six years, the department anticipates to reduce overcrowding rates from 190 percent to a possible 132 percent, which is more than what the panel ordered, according to a CDCR Press Release.

Releasing so many inmates will create chaos because of course people want their relatives to be released, and the rest of society does not want criminals out in the streets again. While it’s a good thing for the department and for safety in the prisons, the communities are strongly against it. The idea though is not to release violent criminals but instead release those that are at the end of their sentence, the elderly and sick, and the ones that are not a danger to society. An interactive map of California’s overcrowded prisons published in the Sacramento Bee shows us the exact numbers of our prison population. With several prisons at over 200 percent capacity, safety conditions for both inmates and correctional staff are not the best and it makes sense to try to improve these conditions and at the same time relieve the financial burden of the department.