Public Safety | Daily Report

Flickr photo by Dawn Endico

Lockdowns are a way of life for many inmates serving time in California prisons. That might not come as a surprise, given endemic violence, racial tensions, gang activity and budget cuts. 

But according to the Prison Law Office, recently obtained government data suggest prisons across the state are arbitrarily imposing lockdowns on entire racial groups, with some stretching to months and even years.

A letter to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation secretary Matt Cate from the Prison Law Office sent last week cites “troubling evidence of racial discrimination” in more than 100 lockdowns conducted between January and June 2009.

The letter alleges that 25 of the state’s 30 men’s prisons were involved in one or more “discriminatory lockdowns.”

Citing CDCR Progress Status Reports, the letter also states:

• On more than 75 occasions during that six-month period, prisons imposed and maintained restrictions on all inmates of a particular race in response to an incident that is reported to involve only a small number of identified inmates of that race, or in response to more indeterminate security risk … It appears that the prison staff never conducted … assessments of individuals within the affected groups to assess whether they, in fact, pose a threat to security.
• On more than 25 occasions during the first six months of 2009, the prisons imposed lockdowns on all individuals of a specific race after a so-called “race riot,” and then maintained the lockdown on the entire racial group for more than two weeks.

“In short,” reads the letter, “the data and our ongoing communication with prisoners and investigations of lockdowns at individual prisons, point to a disturbing policy and practice of racial discrimination within the prison system in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.”

Lockdowns leave inmates confined to their cells and unable to participate in educational and vocational programs and religious services. Some can last years. What’s more, the letter warns that discriminatory lockdowns “incite racial hostility” and could exacerbate violence.

CDCR spokesperson Terry Thornton said the department is reviewing the allegations. “We have policies in place that prohibit the use of lockdowns to target specific racial or ethnic groups unless there is a legitimate penologicial interest in doing so,” she said.

Thornton declined to elaborate on the lockdown policy, saying it’s part of a restricted section of the department’s operations manual.

Prison officials have long argued inmates are obligated by virtue of their skin color or ethnicity to race-based prison gangs. They say in emergencies it is often impossible to separate gang members from those inmates who must follow their orders or face the consequences.

A CDCR official summoned up official department policy in a recent court case:

In emergency situations and on a short-term basis, inmates may be separated on the basis of ethnicity for security purposes, so long as it’s not done preferentially or as a punitive measure.

In order to avoid “costly and time-consuming litigation,” the Prison Law Office is asking the CDCR to enter a binding agreement “to stop imposing racially discriminatory lockdowns” and create a “reliable monitoring mechanism.”

The letter in full is below: