Women’s Prison Problems Grow as Population Soars

The way Karlene Cecil heard it, the California Institution for Women at Frontera was a “good place to dry out, a vacation spot from life on the street.”

She soon found out for herself. A San Francisco prostitute convicted of second-degree murder in the killing of one of her customers, Cecil was sentenced to seven years to life in prison, and arrived here in 1978 to find trees, lawns and seemingly friendly faces behind the barbed-wire fences of California’s only prison for long-term female felons.

About 650 inmates lived one to a cell in low, red-brick buildings they called cottages. Inmates visited other cottages when they pleased. Corrections officers did not even wear uniforms.

“Those days are gone,” Cecil, 35, said with a shudder. Now she is afraid to leave her cell.

The institution has undergone a dramatic transformation since Cecil’s arrival. Since 1981, mandatory sentencing, stiffer terms and more aggressive criminals have sent the population--and the number of violent incidents--soaring at the prison, which is located just east of here in San Bernardino County.

202% of Capacity

In 1981, there were 930 inmates in the prison, which was built in 1952 to house 926. By Oct. 20 of this year, there were 1,872 inmates--202% of capacity, according to Robert Denninger, deputy director of institutions for the Department of Corrections. The population continues to grow at a rate of 45 commitments a month.

Meanwhile, the rate of assaults per 100 inmates jumped from 3.64% in 1981 to 4.29% in 1984, Department of Corrections statistics show. In the first five months of this year, the rate leaped further to 6.41%. By comparison, during the same five-month period, Tracy prison for men reported an assault rate of 5.75%, Folsom 10.82% and San Quentin 14.18%.

In 1981, prison officials documented 19 inmate assaults on staff members. The number jumped to 52 in 1984, Department of Corrections statistics show.

Today, there are two prisoners in every available cell, and restrictions on movement have been imposed to stem a rise in theft, drug abuse, homosexuality and assaults. Corrections officers were ordered to wear uniforms in 1982, and in 1983 they began training in the use of firearms for the first time.

“In the last six months it seems everyday somebody is doing something to somebody--I don’t even go to dinner or to the movies anymore,” Cecil said in a recent interview at the prison.

Officers, Inmates Injured

That same day, two corrections officers received minor injuries breaking up a fight between inmates. Two days earlier, an inmate’s face was cut by another wielding a glass vase. Last week, an inmate was wounded in a stabbing incident. In August, a male corrections officer required 135 stitches on his face after an inmate attacked him with a metal hole punch. In June, an inmate overdosed on heroin and died.

It is not just inmates. There have been problems involving guards as well. At least two corrections officers in the last seven months were fired for having sex with inmates after the inmates were paroled, which is against prison policy, authorities said.

There has been a high turnover of top prison officials here over the last seven years. Most recently, Superintendent Sylvia Johnson was dismissed from her position in December, 1984, because of problems with her “management style,” Department of Corrections officials said.

Annie Alexander, the fourth superintendent since 1978, in August approved a policy of locking inmates in or out of their cells each half-hour to better control prisoner movement.

“I’m sure the inmates don’t like controlled movement,” Alexander said. “It was a reaction to an increase of violence.”

In the wake of the population surge, the prison has been hit by four lawsuits in the last year accusing it of failing to abide by existing codes and regulations regarding medical care, services and vocational training for its inmates, particularly those who are pregnant, ill or in segregated confinement.

Litigation Welcomed

“We welcome the litigation--it clears the air for everybody,” said Hal Tanner, chief deputy at the Frontera prison.

To be sure, the problems at the Frontera prison are not as bad as those at the infamous men’s prisons at Folsom and San Quentin. Unlike those overcrowded institutions, rape, racial strife and gang violence are all but nonexistent here, according to corrections officials.

Most of the violence at Frontera, inmates and prison officials agree, is related to drug purchases or homosexual triangles. There has never been a murder there.

Nonetheless, state legislators, Department of Corrections officials, judges and inmates expressed deep concern about deteriorating conditions at what was once considered the “Disneyland” of the state penal system.

Design and legal limitations are part of the problem.

As the only major institution for women in California, Frontera is forced to mix murderers, bank robbers and kidnapers together with the much-larger numbers of low-security check forgers, thieves and burglars. The mixed bag presents difficulties in meting out punishment.

At institutions for men, inmates are classified under a complex procedure that takes into consideration the prisoner’s behavior and the gravity of his crimes, among other things. Inmates are then sent to light-, medium- or high-security prisons according to their classification.

With only 58 high-security cells to work with and hindered by recent court-ordered restrictions on who can be placed in high-security units, Frontera prison officials have been unable to control all of their most predatory inmates.

Control Restricted

“We can no longer separate inmates we would have placed in lockup four or five years ago,” said Wally Nelson, an administrator at the prison. “We have to slap their hands and let them back into the general population.”

“It’s certainly a crisis situation,” said Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside), chairman of the Legislature’s Prison Construction Committee. “As a Legislature, we are going to have to work as closely as we can with the Department of Corrections to bring assistance as quickly as possible.”

“I predict this is going to be a place that will hit the front pages more often,” said Marie (Rocky) Bove, 44, a prisoner and chairwoman of the Women’s Advisory Council, which mediates problems among inmates and staff.

Research analyst Nancy Shaw, who has studied the health problems of inmates at Frontera and other prisons, said overcrowding results in tension, which “raises the potential for health problems, stress and conflict in prison society.”

“The sardine-can effect has made it nerve-wracking,” Nelson said.

To ease the population crunch, the Department of Corrections has been sending the best-behaved women to the California Rehabilitation Center at Norco, and to newly opened forestry camps at Temecula and Malibu.

Alexander has approved contingency plans that would, if necessary, sacrifice recreation to make room for an additional 220 inmates at the Frontera prison by converting its gymnasium and mail room into housing units.

New Prison in Stockton

There are plans to open a $28-million, 400-bed institution for women near Stockton in November, 1986. Presley, for one, wonders whether another prison is the answer.

“This (new prison) is not large enough to be cost-effective in terms of overall operations,” Presley said. “The only salvation is whether or not the intake numbers taper off, and nobody seems prepared to make that assumption.”

Statistical surveys also suggest that these remedies may not keep pace with commitments in the years ahead.

The number of female felons imprisoned in California grew 23.9% between October, 1984, and October, 1985, compared to a 14.5% increase among male inmates in the same period, authorities said. In 1985, there were 2,500 incarcerated women and 47,500 incarcerated men.

Criminologists offer no conclusive theory for why the number of women inmates is increasing at a rate faster than men, although it is clear in California that tougher sentencing laws have contributed to the overall population problem in men’s and women’s prisons.

The situation is similar across the nation.

Although women constitute only about 5% of the nation’s inmate population, “the growth rate since 1974 for women has been greater than the rate for men,” said Phyllis Baunach, director of surveys and censuses for the prisons and jails division of the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Women’s Rate Higher

Nationwide, between 1974 and 1984 the number of females in prison ballooned 162%, compared to 102% for male inmates, Bureau of Justice statistics showed.

Some critics believe that problems for female inmates will inevitably worsen as their numbers increase and are calling for alternatives to incarceration for those who have committed nonviolent crimes.

Conditions have already become life-threatening for unborn children of pregnant inmates at the Frontera prison, some prisoner advocates say.

Ellen M. Barry, director of the San Francisco-based Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, joined the American Civil Liberties Union in filing three lawsuits against the institution aimed at improving medical treatment and services for inmates who were pregnant when they arrived or who already had children.

(While there are apartments on the prison grounds for conjugal visits, women rarely become pregnant as a result of family visitations, prison officials said. There are currently 26 pregnant prisoners.)

“There have been three late-term prenatal deaths there in the last three months,” Barry said. “They do not have a gynecologist on duty, nor the proper equipment or facilities to conduct adequate medical examinations or prenatal care.”

The state contracts with Riverside General Hospital, 10 miles east of the prison, to provide medical services, including prenatal care and delivery.

Position Advertised

Prison and hospital authorities refused to comment on the lawsuit. In September, however, the Department of Corrections began advertising for a obstetrician/gynecologist to work part time at the prison.

In October, Rebecca Jurado, an attorney with the ACLU of Southern California, filed suit on behalf of six inmates who contend that conditions in segregated confinement units are inhumane and in violation of existing codes and regulations.

Inmates are normally segregated from the general prison population when they are deemed troublesome or for their own protection. Confinement in high-security units can last from a few days to five years, officials said.

At best, “there is nothing to do in segregated confinement but stare at the brain sucker (television) and listen to the planes fly overhead,” one inmate said.

The suit seeks to change conditions in these units as well as in the “quiet room,” a cramped, dark cell with a solid steel door, which normally is used for psychiatric cases.

The lawsuit alleges that segregated inmates are forbidden to challenge their isolation, know the length of their time in segregated confinement, and obtain proper medical and hygiene services.

Some plaintiffs complain that they were not allowed the minimum three showers a week, adequate exercise or access to library materials. Prison officials deny these allegations.

Can Personalize Cells

As in most other units, these inmates in lockup, however, are allowed to personalize their cells with photographs and appliances ranging from hair driers and fans to televisions. Some decorate the walls with erotic photographs.

Alexander was appointed superintendent by Gov. George Deukmejian in May but has yet to be confirmed by the Legislature and is very cautious when describing her policies. She acknowledges that she has toughened the rules at Frontera, adopting many of the same regulations used in the men’s prisons.

That represents something new here.

“Because it was a women’s facility, it was thought there were other ways to deal with our inmates,” administrator Nelson said. “So, many practices (formerly in use here) were completely out of line with what the rest of the department was doing.”

Attorneys Barry and Jurado contend that many of the prison’s problems could be alleviated by placing low-security inmates in mother/infant care programs, half-way houses and work-furlough programs in the community.

“The bottom line is women do not tend to have as many violent incidents as men and the crimes they commit are generally nonviolent crimes,” Barry said. “The department would be better off using alternatives to incarceration.”

She added that “we have a societal, humanistic and even economical interest in wanting to know that the women who come out will be able to function in society and not return to prison.”