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Report Slams Calif. Prison Guards' Union

By Jeralyn, Section Inmates and Prisons
Posted on Fri Jan 16, 2004 at 05:07:07 AM EST
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California's notorious prison guards' union is hammered in a new federal report. California has the largest prison system in the country, with 161,000 inmates doing time in 32 prisons:

California's $5.3-billion penal system is plagued by a pervasive "code of silence" that protects rogue guards, corrupts recruits and is condoned by leaders who "neither understand nor care about the need for fair investigations," a federal report charged Thursday.

At the very top of California's vast Department of Corrections, officials face unrelenting pressure from the powerful prison guards union and are unwilling to discipline officers who attack inmates or engage in other misconduct, says Special Master John Hagar, a prison expert appointed by a federal judge.

Hagar's report, still subject to review, amounts to a sweeping indictment of the department's ability to police itself, and recommends criminal charges against former Corrections Director Edward S. Alameida and a high-ranking deputy.

After a review period, the report will be filed with the federal court which can order reforms or forward the matter to U.S. prosecutors for criminal charges.

Hagar's 78-page report is an outgrowth of a court decision placing Pelican Bay under the supervision of a federal judge in San Francisco. In 1995, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson found that poor medical care and brutality by guards at the Crescent City maximum security prison violated the civil rights of inmates. As part of that ruling, Hagar monitors the prison's progress to ensure compliance with court orders specifying reforms.

Read how Gray Davis pandered to the prison guard union here. We covered it here and here.

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