CHINO Mayoral Candidate Debates Mayor Yates

Check out the debate between Lee McGroarty and Mayor Yates. Pay attention to their discussion of the prisons...

GET OUT THE VOTE! CHINO HAS THE CHANCE TO VOTE FOR A NEW MAYOR THIS NOVEMBER, ONE THAT IS SERIOUS ABOUT MOVING OR UPGRADING THE CHINO PRISONS. For the sake of the safety of our community, the improvement of conditions for guards and inmates alike, we need to support Lee McGroarty and vote for him in the election. He's got great ideas to stomp out corruption in the city, bring in new businesses, and to re-make Chino into a destination where people will go to study, to work and to live. VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE!

Recent Story on Overcrowding and Chino Prisons

NEW YORK TIMES STORY _

In a California Prison, Bunk Beds Replace Pickup Games
Ann Johansson for The New York Times

A gymnasium has been converted to house inmates at the California Institution for Men in Chino. Inmates on Tuesday watched soap operas on television.
By JENNIFER MEDINA
Published: May 24, 2011

CHINO, Calif. — The basketball hoops jimmied up to the ceiling prove that this dingy space was a gym once upon a time. But for years now, the windowless space has served as a de facto cell for dozens of prisoners at the California Institution for Men.

California’s Overcrowded Prisons
Related

Prison Ruling Raises Stakes in California Fiscal Crisis (May 24, 2011)
The rows of bunk beds, just a few inches apart, covered almost every empty space on the floor Tuesday afternoon. The gap between most beds allowed only the thinnest of inmates to stand comfortably. A few prisoners wandered around, but most simply rested on their thin mattresses, reading or dozing. As a rule, they go out to the yard just two or three times a week.

Ominous messages stenciled on the walls signaled the tension: “Caution: No warning shots will be fired.” Two guards mind the 200 prisoners, while another, known as a gunner, watches from up high, ready to intervene at any moment.

It would be hard to call the cavernous cell anything but crowded. Still, there are fewer people in it than there were just a few months ago, when triple bunk beds lined the wall. Now, those have been converted to hold just two inmates.

“That helped,” said Michael Collins, a 49-year-old inmate who sits a few feet from a dank corner converted into a group of metal toilets and open shower stalls. “We have less people using the bathroom now. If you just mind your business and stay in your bed, it’s O.K.”

But according to a Supreme Court ruling issued Monday, California — which has the highest overcrowding rate of any prison system in the country — must eliminate rooms like this at its facilities across the state, shedding some 30,000 prisoners over the next two years.

The problem is not new. For decades, the prison population has steadily risen, largely because of tougher mandatory sentencing laws. The overcrowding has led to riots, suicides and killings of inmates and guards over the last several years.

Matthew Cate, the secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said conditions had actually improved since the filing of the lawsuit in 2006 that ended with Monday’s court decision. There are now roughly 143,000 inmates in the state’s prisons, down from 162,000 in 2006, in part because the state has sent some 10,000 inmates to out-of-state facilities.

While there were once nearly 20,000 inmates in spaces not meant for housing, commonly referred to as “bad beds,” that number has dropped to 6,600.

“It’s not perfect, but we haven’t been at those kinds of levels since the early 1990s,” Mr. Cate said. “The standard that I use personally is: are the prisons clean, are the staff positions filled and are prisoners complaining about care? I think that conditions are good on a day-to-day basis on the basics.”

But critics say that it is impossible for the state to deal with such a glutted system. The lack of space can make it impossible, for example, to move inmates from one prison to another for their own safety.

Mr. Cate said that the state was “the birthplace for every major prison gang in the country,” but that the overcrowding paralyzes wardens from switching prisoners to defuse racial and gang tensions.

“It’s an unacceptable working environment for everyone,” said Jeanne Woodford, a former director of the state prisons and a former warden at San Quentin prison. “Every little space is filled with inmates and they are housed where they shouldn’t be housed, and every bed is full. It leads to greater violence, more staff overtime and a total inability to deal with health care and mental illness issues.”

One major impact of the overcrowding, and a centerpiece of the Supreme Court’s ruling, is the lack of adequate health care for prisoners with mental illness or other chronic medical conditions.

In 2005, a federal official began overseeing California’s prison health care system after a judge ruled that the state was giving substandard medical care for prisoners. Now, Mr. Cate said, roughly 90 percent of all clinical positions are filled, although that rate varies among the prisons.

Donald Specter, the director of the Prison Law Office who argued against the state before the Supreme Court, said that medical care was still wanting.

“There are not enough beds for the mentally ill, you have prisons all over the state who are flunking by every measure in taking care of chronic conditions like H.I.V. and diabetes and high blood pressure,” Mr. Specter said, citing several recent reports by the state’s inspector general.

Mr. Cate concedes that the state is doing little to rehabilitate prisoners and has almost no space to run programs that would keep them from landing back here again.

“There’s far too much idleness, and that’s the thing that concerns me the most,” he said. “When you have lockdown as often as we have to, it’s not setting anyone up for anything good.”

Many of the prisoners here are serving sentences of less than a year for parole violations. According to California law, any parolee caught violating the terms of release could be sent back to state prison, creating a situation that many call the “revolving door.” Under a plan Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed, those inmates would instead be sent to county jails.

Robert Caldera, 52, has spent much of his life floating in and out of the prison system, most recently arriving at Chino after he did not report to his parole officer. Mr. Caldera was convicted of second-degree robbery several years ago, he said. Now, he spends his days reading the Bible with a group of inmates. He, too, said the conditions had improved, but like nearly everyone else here, he said the real problem is the bathroom.

“It’s nasty pretty much all the time,” he said. “There are holes in the walls that have feces in them. It’s damp constantly so you don’t ever feel clean.”

Even from several feet away, it is possible to smell the scent of an overused locker room. There is something that looks like mold on each of the walls and one guard said they are constantly battling broken pipes and leaks.

The conditions at other California prisons have led to outbreaks of viruses, causing officials to quarantine hundreds of prisoners at a time.

Correction officers in Chino say that while the crowding has eased, guarding as many as 70 prisoners at a time is unspeakably stressful. Several said they looked forward to the day when they would have a more manageable number of inmates. But it can be hard for them to muster sympathy for their charges.

“It’s worse than this in the Navy and you don’t hear those guys complaining,” said Robert Spejcher, an officer who oversees a room converted to hold 42 inmates. “We never really know what we’re dealing with and we never know how long they are going to stay.”

No new Riots

Things have been quiet at CIM - Chino, no riots in the past several months.

Let's count our blessings.

Move Chino Prisons.

FROM KUOR PULBIC RADIO WEBSITE - Prisoners Held Outdoors

Chino prison inmates complain of being incarcerated outdoors

AP Photo/Reed Saxon

Lavatory and dormitory facilities lay in ruins during a tour of the California Institution for Men in Chino, Calif., Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009. Blood-soaked mattresses, singed bedding and abandoned backboards and medical supplies littered the campus of the Chino prison, a testament to the violence of the riot that shut down part of the institution and injured nearly 200 inmates.

Jan. 11, 2010 | Steven Cuevas | KPCC

Rumors of violence swirled for days before the riot exploded inside the Chino prison’s Reception Center West.

Guards had taken to serving meals to small groups of inmates, rather than entire dorms.

“The tension, you can feel,” said former inmate Sterling Werner, who talked about the riot while he smoked hand-rolled cigarettes on the balcony of his Anaheim apartment recently. “And when officers are doing controlled feeding one building at a time two days prior to the riot, you know. Something is wrong."

Letters from Chino prison montage
Watch and listen to a montage of voices reading letters from inmates alleging mistreatment by Chino prison guards after the Aug. 8, 2009 riot.

"You know, total chaos. We’re talking about window panes coming off and being thrown. Pieces of glass being used like Ninja stars. Kicking, fighting, punching. So much blood. So many people just trying to get out of the way."

It took authorities until sunrise to contain the violence. More than 200 inmates at the California Institution for Men were injured. Two housing blocks were demolished, making the prison’s bad overcrowding problem even worse. Each dormitory was at double capacity. About 1,300 inmates were left without bunk space. Hundreds of prisoners were immediately moved to other institutions across the state.

In an interview in his office at the California Institution for Men, Acting Warden Aref Farkhoury defended his staff’s response to the riot.

"Both custodial and medically, response at CIM level was outstanding," he said. "If it wasn’t for the training that we have provided our staff and all the tools we have available to them, this would have taken longer and we would have had a lot more seriously hurt people, and possibly death."

'They housed 10 of us per cage'

But dozens more inmates claim they were handcuffed with plastic zip-ties, separated by race and marched into outdoor recreation cages. The inmates say they remained in these cages all day and night, for up to four full days. Werner says most inmates were stripped to underwear, socks and shoes.

"They housed 10 of us per cage," he said. "We tried to cooperate. OK, we know it’s probably going to be maybe a few hours. Well, it extended to days and nights. Freezing cold. The only warmth I was able to get was from leaning my body against another inmate. They are only supposed to be used about two hours at most while the ad-seg people have rec time. They’re animal cages."

Each enclosure is about 20-feet long and 10-feet wide, with a toilet and a sink. Werner says nobody fed the inmates for a day after the riot. They were given no soap, no blankets – and no complaint forms.

Guards non-commital about inmate treatment

When KPCC asked about the allegations over a month ago, a prison official denied them.

But on a visit to the prison, two guards in the Chino prison’s administration segregation unit said that inmates were held outdoors for hours after the riot.

"As far as what I remember being in here, we would bring them out here during the day so we can do our daily process to try and get some of these guys out and try and give them medical," said Lt. Eddie Hernandez. "And then at night, probably be around 9 at night when we would bring them inside."

Lt. Gerard de los Santos said that initially, the inmates might have been held outside for up to two days in order to "let the dust settle and find out where we were gonna house inmates."

"They were out here initially because we had no place else to put ‘em at," De Los Santos said. "But we gave them blankets and everything else, jumpsuits so they can stay warm. They were not here with just boxers on and nothing else."

Letters tell of post-riot treatment

After the riot, Chino’s daytime temperature soared into the upper 90s. The holding cages provided little shade. Some inmates were sunburned after hours in the outdoor rec cages.

Werner says the skin on his back blistered and peeled. The prison’s chief physician confirmed his staff treated sunburned inmates after the riot.

"They stripped us down to our boxers and had us there for about three days," said Charlie Padilla, reading a letter from a relative incarcerated at Chino at the time of the riot.

Sitting in her Los Angeles County home, Padilla reads the letter - one of dozens of letters sent to her by inmates at the Chino prison. Last month, she launched a Web site: www.intheriot.com. Padilla began corresponding with inmates after hearing her relative’s story.

"The sun burnt us during the day, at night it was real cold," Padilla read. "I remember watching that movie 'March of the Penguins.' We all stood real close together like the penguins did. We looked dumb. But it worked.

"I have no idea what they’re going to do with us but I don’t see freedom getting any closer."

Padilla said many prisoners talked about the riot as a "nightmare."

That’s all anybody talked about," she said. "He didn’t give me a lot of detail about blood and what he saw. I’ve gotten that from other people.

Five years ago, a group of Chino guards complained that some inmates were held in small holding tanks for days at a time. They called it “cruel and dangerous.”

Inmate complaints after the riot reflect a similar practice.

Audit after guard's murder to determine CIM future

Panel calls for prison overhaul
Second review calls for audit to determine CIM's future
By Mason Stockstill
Staff Writer
Link to Article (http://www.dailybulletin.com/Stories/0,1413,203~21481~2768942,00.html#)

Thursday, March 17, 2005 - CHINO - A second review of the circumstances surrounding the killing of a correctional officer at the California Institution for Men suggests that the prison may need to be renovated or abandoned.
The report, from a specially appointed panel of national experts, calls for a sweeping audit of CIM's design and security features to determine whether the prison's mission "can be safely accomplished within the existing physical plant."
Like a review released Wednesday by the state's Office of Inspector General, the latest report found numerous violations of policy and security standards surrounding the Jan. 10 stabbing death of Officer Manuel Gonzalez.
In response to the criticisms raised by the reports, Youth and Adult Correctional Agency Secretary Roderick Hickman said he planned a safety review of all of the state's 32 prisons and eight youth facilities.
"The two reports I have received on the homicide ... made it very clear to me that we as a state must do more -- better training and supervision -- to ensure our staff is safe," Hickman said.
The panel included officials from the New York Department of Correctional Services, the Los Angeles and San Diego county sheriffs' departments and the California Department of Corrections.
Its review did not specify options for dealing with physical problems at CIM, which was built in 1941 and -- like most California prisons -- regularly holds more than twice the number of prisoners it was designed to handle.
The inspector general's report, issued Wednesday, outlined several problems with the aging facility, saying poor maintenance had left many units there "in a serious state of disrepair."
Structural defects at the prison allow inmates to strip metal from walls to create weapons, then remove parts of the wall to hide their weapons inside, according to that report.
For its part, the independent panel noted "deplorable" conditions found in Sycamore Hall, where the killing took place.
"The panel observed heavy cobwebs, broken windows, fecal matter on the walls, accumulated filth and food on the floor, gang graffiti on cell walls, an enormous number of "fish lines,' and inmates blocking officers' view of their cells with "curtains,' " the report states.
Fish lines are pieces of string inmates use to pass items such as weapons or drugs from cell to cell.
The report also calls on state officials to evaluate how many inmates are processed at CIM every day, to determine whether that number should be reduced.
Both reports found that the inmate suspected in the killing, Jon Christopher Blaylock, was wrongly housed in general population despite his violent past. Blaylock has been charged with murder. They also found that protective vests should have been immediately distributed to officers after they were obtained in September. Gonzalez was not wearing a vest when he was stabbed.

Wow - 3 Riots in 5 years. - When will the next one be?

Massive riot erupts at CIM (Chino Institute for Men)
Inland Daily Bulletin ^ | 12/31/2006 | Jannise Johnson

Posted on Sunday, December 31, 2006 4:16:26 AM by radar101

CHINO - Dozens of inmates were injured, one of them seriously, during a riot Saturday morning at California Institution for Men in Chino. Prison officers at about 9:25 a.m. confronted inmates involved in a melee at Reception Center-West, a medium security portion of the prison, according to a prison official.

The inmates in the massive fight were from four modules, which each house approximately 200 inmates.

The cause of the fight is still under investigation, but Lt. Mark Hargrove, a prison spokesman, said he believed "two inmates began fighting and it just flashed up from there."

Prison officers used pepper spray and non-lethal impact weapons, which included shooting tear gas cannisters and small wooden blocks, to get the inmates to disperse, Hargrove said

The fighting was quashed within two hours, Hargrove said.

"All the housing units are contained. We have full control, it never spilled out of the units," he said.

About 51 inmates were injured, including at least 24 that were treated at the prison's hospital and 27 that were sent to area hospitals.

Three inmates had to be airlifted to trauma centers for treatment.

The inmate that was most seriously injured suffered trauma to the head and puncture wounds to the back.

Conditions of the injured inmates were not immediately available.

No prison staff members were injured, but one officer was temporarily overcome by pepper spray, he said.

Officials at the prison were investigating the incident Saturday evening, specifically the number of inmates that were involved. Approximately 800 inmates are in the four housing units, but they may not have all been involved.

The damage to the prison itself was also being assessed.

"They broke out most of the windows in the housing units," said Hargrove, who added that doors were also damaged.

Ruben Guerrero, battalion chief of the Chino Valley Fire District, said 21 firefighters responded to the prison to treat and transport those injured to a local hospital.

Chino, Fontana, and Ontario police officers as well as Chino Hills and Rancho Cucamonga sheriff's deputies assisted with traffic control on the perimeter of the prison.

In September 2005, more than 200 inmates rioted in the prison's Reception Center-East. The fracas was contained by correctional staff, but not before two staff members had to be rescued from potentially dangerous situations, including one who was forced to barricade himself inside an office.