Flu separates inmates, families

Gloria Griffin woke up at 5 a.m. Sunday, anxious to see her daughter for the first time in three months.

She knew to dress in a black skirt and black top, avoiding green, blue and orange colors that might resemble the uniforms of guards and inmates.

At 6:30 a.m., Griffin, 52, her 16-year-old daughter, Unique, and two granddaughters boarded the Chowchilla Family Express in Sacramento for the three-hour trip to the Valley State Prison for Women. Other passengers had been on the bus since 3 a.m. when it left Redding.

After two more hours of waiting at the prison, Griffin was finally able to see her daughter, Lalicia Thomas. But only 15 minutes had passed when suddenly all visitors were ordered out of the building.

“Everybody was mad, mad, mad,” Griffin said.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation suspended all visitations in its 33 adult prisons and six juvenile facilities Sunday after a possible case of swine flu was reported at Centinela State Prison in Imperial. That case was later confirmed.

There are more than a dozen other suspected cases that are being tested, said Scott Kernan, undersecretary of operations for the state prison system. He said the decision of suspend visitation was made after much debate.

“When it comes to public safety and given the young children and elderly that come into our system and the general health of our inmates, no, I don’t think it was an overreaction,” he said. “I think it was a cautious action.” The state prisons had 56,839 adult visitors and 15,241 juvenile visitors in May 2008.

Given the crowded conditions in the prisons, Kernan said, if one inmate became sick “it would spread through the prison population very quickly.” There is no indication when visitation will resume.

“We’re hopeful,” Kernan said, “from an operation side, visiting is a very, very important program and it keeps violence down so we impact visiting as little as we can.”

The suspension resulted in the postponement of the annual Get on the Bus trip, which brings children and families from across California to the state’s three women’s prisons on the Friday before Mother’s Day to see mothers, wives and daughters.

When the program began 10 years ago, there was one bus and 17 families, director Maria Costanzo Palmer said. This year, she said, there were to be 50 buses and 1,000 children taking the trip.

“It’s incredibly devastating for all the children,” she said.

Devine Glover, 8, said she was looking forward to spending another day with her mother at the Central California Women’s Facility after attending the Mother’s Day event last year. Her mother is serving time for a drug-related offense.

The trip has been tentatively rescheduled for June 26.

Derenaissance Glover, 32, the child’s father, said he became concerned about the bus trip when he began hearing news about the spread of swine flu. Last year, the Lomita resident became sick after traveling to the prison, which he attributed to being confined in a bus for five hours.

“I think they’re doing what they have to do, they’re taking precautions,” he said. “I just hope that this trip for June 26 doesn’t get canceled for the same reason.”

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raja.abdulrahim@latimes.com