Overcrowded - Racialized - Incubator of Pain

Great interview highlighting the problems with overcrowding at Chino and the general level of unrest in the prison:

Quoted from the story:

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2009/aug/19/no-easy-answers-fixing-states-overcrowded-prison-s/
MOBLEY: Well, Chino is known as a reception center within the California Department of Corrections, which means that it's a place where prisoners are sent following conviction in the courts where they are then assessed by corrections authorities for their security level and for their program needs and then they are sent on from Chino to a permanent designation. So tempers often run high, people's nerves are shot. They – If you can put yourself in the place of these people, most of whom are parole violators, by the way, they've recently been in communities, right, living in their own homes, they've run into some trouble, found themselves snatched up and run through a court system or a jail system and now find themselves back in prison. And around 70% are parole violators, so to say back in prison is appropriate, and their lives and their plans, their hopes and dreams are now shattered or, at a minimum, put on hold. And they're congregated there together in these very high numbers sort of in a warehouse situation, dormitories often three bunks high. In some cases, there are dormitories that have been made out of gymnasiums or reading rooms or other places that weren't really intended for housing, which means there aren't very many bathrooms to be shared. And you just add to this mix of people who are being segregated along racial lines and maybe they didn't come into prison with overly harsh racial attitudes but while – when in prison, they are met at the gate with this asking for a declaration from them of what race do you belong to? And then they're introduced to racial leaders from that particular group and their housing and their associations are then channeled along the particular race that they happen to claim.

CAVANAUGH: Alan, let me ask you, is it true that Chino is housing now twice as many prisoners as it was built for?

MOBLEY: Yes, and that's generally true throughout the state system.

CAVANAUGH: And, Scott, I want to ask you, at Second Chance, you work with a lot of men who are coming out of prison and trying to rebuild their lives. And I wonder, what are they telling you about prison life? What stories do you hear?

SILVERMAN: Well, similar to what Alan outlined, and that is the overcrowding but, you know, nowadays they – they're lucky they get to take a shower once a week and they get about 16 seconds to have a meal. And, you know, they're dealing with not only overcrowding and the issues around the race issues but also the correctional staff is short right now because of the budget issues, so you've got these ratios of correctional officers to inmates, you've got the frustration they have of being in the system, and most of the folks that are in Chino, from what I understand, are coming out of the LA County Sheriffs Department so they're already coming out of an incubator of pain going into a system of more pain with less supervision and with the reduction of resources and programs because all of those things are gone because now they're triple bunking, as Alan said, and the overcrowding just combines the issues and the frustration that they have that, you know, even though it's a reception yard, they know they're only going to be there a short period of time but still they're acting out because they've got to put their colors out to let people know who they are so they can survive.