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03/02/2006: "What to do about Prison Violence in California"

I was told yesterday the following article was going to appear today in Wehonews.com. It did not. To tell you the truth, this is the latest in a long string of difficulties I've had with the editor. I prefer not to be more specific, because it's just not professional. But I doubt very much I'll be writing for Wehonews anymore, so I'm going to go ahead and post the article--in the hope it reaches the eyes of someone who can consider the idea. (There were more riots just yesterday.)

N is for Non-Violent: An Open Letter to Sheriff Baca

Most law-abiding citizens don’t pay a lot of attention to conditions for the incarcerated. Even in liberal West Hollywood, it is more comfortable to distance oneself from those on the inside than to empathize with them. We do the same thing with the poor and the homeless. It’s a natural human reaction. If we felt the discomfort of the suffering and less fortunate to the degree we should, we couldn’t function. Instead we focus on how we’re not like them, and imagine that what they’re going through is somehow more tolerable for them than it would be for us.

Even those of us who have been incarcerated fall prey to this self-protecting syndrome. I was imprisoned for most of 2004, the first two months down at Twin Towers, the next 7 months at various places in the state prison system. (Happily, I am out of that life for good, as my bad behavior was entirely a function of a drug addiction that is in remission—one day at a time.) But I only write to one buddy I left behind, and pretty much don’t even want to think about my experience. However, the recent riots and blaring news coverage have brought it all back to the fore of my awareness.

I could expound at length on how this sorry state of affairs came about, but diagnosing a sick system and its causes doesn’t necessarily help people in authority like Sheriff Baca figure out what to do right now to improve things on the ground. I’d rather use my experience to suggest than to criticize. But first, people need to understand how the present system inside prison works, commonly referred to by inmates as “politics.”

The internal power structure of inmates in California has long broken down on racial lines, and this is not something that can be decreed away. But gang leaders don’t personally enforce many of their orders, any more than Hitler personally conquered Europe. Violence is perpetrated by those who do what they’re told, and to a man you will hear them insist that they do so because if they don’t, they themselves will be punished for not carrying out those orders. It’s the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy, a dilemma that bears out the dirty little secret that the vast majority of prison violence is not inter-racial, but intra-racial. One is far more likely to get hurt by members of your own race than to by members of a different racial group. Ninety percent of beefs between individuals of different races are settled in conference between “shotcallers” –and the individual found in the wrong is punished by his own. Race riots occur, but they are few and far between in comparison.

For those who are first gay-- then black, white or latin--in L.A. Central Jail, one can declare oneself “K-11,” and be assigned to one of three mostly gay and transsexual dorms. They are not violence-free, but the altercations between individual inmates that do occur there are rarely related to race. I remember one guy with a swastika tattooed on his scalp assert “there’s no gangbangin here.” I almost got a fist in my face for not saying “excuse me” loudly enough (there was a movie showing and I was trying to be considerate--silly me) but at least with a willingness to apologize I found one could pretty much avoid getting hurt.

Unfortunately, there are no gay dorms on the state level. If one wants to “opt” out of the racial politics, one has to request placement in protective custody. In my experience, I didn’t mind the company so much, (other HIV+ men, gays and transsexuals, older and disabled men, informers, sex offenders and inmates escaping their drug debts) but there were fewer privileges available to us, and worst of all, a dangerous suspicion if and when you returned to the general population (as I did) that you were an informer who couldn’t be trusted.

State prison made for a more delicate dance than county jail, as my homosexuality and HIV+ status put me at risk of getting “taxed,” or being marginalized (not allowed to share food, cigarettes or hair clippers, for example). As things turned out, it also ended up affording me a perverse protection—as no one wanted to be exposed to my blood, a likely consequence if I chose to defend myself. Once I had made some friends and no longer felt at risk, I let it be known that in fact I was congenitally non-violent, and could not be depended on to lift a finger in a riot. No one would admit in front of others that they wanted to make the same choice—but it was made quite clear to me in private I was not alone.

When inmates are first processed into the system, they are classified under any number of categories: by race, gang affiliation, sexual orientation, medical status, minimum, medium or maximum security risk. Often these distinctions define one’s experience in prison. But inmates are not given the option to assert their willingness to do what they’d most like to do: serve their time in peace without getting hurt or hurting anybody else.

Why not establish a new category: N, for “Non-Violent” and “Non-Affiliated.” Have all the inmates who so self-define sign a simple agreement that they agree not to resort to violence of any kind for any reason, period. All such inmates would be h.oused together. If they violate their agreement, they get to return to the general population. If they would rather be black, white, or latin first, and human second, so be it.

I’ve read articles that more and more ex-gang members are doing the previously unthinkable and serving their time in protective custody because they can no longer tolerate the “politics” and concomitant violence of the mainline. Sheriff Baca, the prisoners who wish to opt out of the system as it’s presently configured are there, a great many of them. Let the system provide them with a way to make a new and different choice, and reduce the violence that presently plagues the system. Start it in LA County, and perhaps set an example that the state will follow.

Freedom from violence may not be listed in the constitution, but what could be a more fundamental human right?

MCO 2006