Security at Norco Prison Proves Stringent : New Rules Reduce Fights; Inmates’ Movement Curbed

Inmates at the California Rehabilitation Center were settling in to watch the Super Bowl on television a year ago when a scuffle broke out between black and Latino prisoners vying for prime seats.

That fight, among a few dozen inmates in an activity room, prompted a security lock-down. But a week later, when the lock-down lifted, a brawl erupted in the main yard involving several hundred inmates.

Prison officials instituted a second lock-down, transferred about 170 inmates to higher-security prisons, and re-evaluated their own plans for maintaining order in the medium-security Norco prison.

Today, officials there say they’re confident that new security measures, both physical and operational, will prevent such major disturbances.

Additional Guard Towers

A “security improvement package,” including tall fences to separate areas inside the prison, additional guard towers and “skirt fencing” to close off crawl spaces beneath the prison dormitories, already had been proposed by Supt. Bob Borg.

“But as a result of Super Bowl Sunday,” said Lt. George Morgan, “parts of the security package were speeded up.”

Those physical improvements will cost a total of $2.2 million, said Morgan, who is public information officer for the Norco prison.

Prison officials still are waiting for the state Department of Finance to release the funds appropriated by the Legislature last year to build four new guard towers. But the other measures are in place, including 12-foot-tall chain-link fences, topped with coils of razor-sharp wire, to divide the three housing units, the main recreation yard, and the occupational and educational facilities for the prison’s 3,200 men.

Fight Ended Quickly

“These fences are the best thing since bottled ketchup,” said Capt. Arnold St. Peter, community resources manager for the prison. “There’s no way now that 1,800 or 2,000 (inmates) can rampage through the yard.”

A fight that broke out two months ago in the yard, which, like most disturbances, was divided along racial lines, ended almost before it began, St. Peter said. “There were three officers there, and in five minutes they stopped the whole thing, because no one else could get there” to join the fight.

The fences also help corrections officers limit the number of prisoners congregating in the main yard by opening it to only one housing unit, or about a third of the inmates, at any given time.

“You can’t just go out there and sit around like you could,” inmate Darrell McNary said.

‘Mini-Courts’ Installed

Use of the main yard also has diminished because prisoners can use new “mini-yards” with weights and basketball, handball and tennis courts in two housing units.

A similar mini-yard is under construction in the third living area--which has been dubbed “The Hotel” because it was built a half-century ago as part of a resort along the north shore of Lake Norconian.

Prisoners complain, though, that recreational facilities alone cannot provide relief from the unmitigated boredom of doing time.

“How many people do you think that’s in a prison, in an institution, that’s gonna play tennis?” McNary asked. “. . . You’re put back into the dorms; you have nothing to do; you can’t go anywhere.

“You get Monopoly, a couple of decks of cards, and checkers. For 90 guys. . . .

‘Something to Do’

“I know we’re on tight security,” McNary said. “(But) give us some more to do. Give us something to do.”

Before the new fences were installed, said Robert Shaw, chairman of the prison’s inmate advisory committee, “you had 92 acres of open field to play in. Now you have six square feet.”

Because of overcrowding in the prison dormitories, “you have no time to yourself,” Shaw said. “None at all.”

The prisoners’ freedom to move about within the institution also has been curtailed with a midnight curfew and a “pass system,” requiring inmates to have written permission to go from one place to another.

In addition to his usual array of identification cards--one bearing his picture and number, one his work assignment information, another his privilege status, each inmate must carry a pass to do “anything that doesn’t happen in your normal working hours,” Shaw said.

That includes using the prison’s library, chapel, gymnasium or hobby shop, he said.

“You’d have to get a pass to go to AA (Alcoholics Anonymous meetings),” McNary said. “. . . You need a pass to go to see your counselor. . . . It may be good for the institution, but it’s not good for us.”

Services Have Suffered

Prisoners interviewed last week generally agreed that the measures have improved internal security, but they also complained that the policies are too restrictive, and that food and laundry service in the prison has suffered.

In both those areas, prison officals have tried to reduce tension and conflicts by reducing the time prisoners spend standing in line.

Inmates go to meals in smaller groups and bypass the old cafeteria queue, picking up trays already filled with portions of food. Their laundry is collected and distributed in their dormitories, rather than at the prison laundry.

“We think it works well,” St. Peter said, “because we don’t have a line of 300 people waiting for the laundry.”

Irritated by Lines

When prisoners wait in line, he said, “they get irritated, they get to arguing, they get to cutting in line. . . . And then they get to fighting.”

The inmates claim that under the new system their laundry is often returned either damaged or dirty. Sometimes they get the wrong clothes, McNary said.

And inmates working in the cafeteria, while relieved of the complaints and pressure from prisoners they served on the cafeteria line, are paying less attention to keeping the peas and the pie separate on their plates, he said.

“Everything they are talking about--food, medical (care), laundry, facilities--it’s all caused by the overcrowding,” St. Peter said.

But the inmates say security can be maintained more efficiently if their activities are less stringently restricted. “We are still humans,” McNary said.

When a man has nothing to do but sit on his bunk after work and after dinner, inmate Shaw said, “either he gets fat or gets in trouble, one or the other.”