Working in California’s vast correctional system is often
dangerous, and most prison guards carry out their jobs
honorably.
Nothing, however, can excuse what federal investigator John
Hagar revealed in a blistering report on the prison system released
last week: a pervasive
”
code of silence
”
that protects rogue guards who pummel inmates and sometimes prod
them into fights, and that is condoned by leaders who
”
neither understand nor care about the need for fair
investigations.
”
Working in California’s vast correctional system is often dangerous, and most prison guards carry out their jobs honorably.
Nothing, however, can excuse what federal investigator John Hagar revealed in a blistering report on the prison system released last week: a pervasive “code of silence” that protects rogue guards who pummel inmates and sometimes prod them into fights, and that is condoned by leaders who “neither understand nor care about the need for fair investigations.”
At a hearing last week on prison and parole reform chaired by Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, Roderick Q. Hickman, secretary of the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, conceded that “the revolving door in and out of prisons in California creates too many victims and shatters too many lives … ”
Hickman said the system must be more successful and promised to “give our offenders services to allow them to succeed,” such as job training and drug treatment.
Unfortunately, though, his newly released budget not only fails to fund such new services, it eliminates the money for the most basic reform of all: the correctional system’s independent watchdog, the Office of the Inspector General.
Under pressure from the prison guards union, the Legislature cut the inspector general’s budget by 76 percent in the last two years. Now Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his fiscal year 2005 budget, has proposed reducing the agency’s budget to zero.
Tip Kindel, a Hickman deputy, says the department is setting aside $630,000 to carry on the job of the inspector general from within the agency. But the inspectors shouldn’t report to Hickman, the head of the department they are investigating.
Restoring the inspector general’s independence is the best single step to get at the root problem that Hagar’s report exposed: a correctional system that now sanctions not only needless violence against prisoners but assaults on the careers of those who blow the whistle on abuse.
