Life Near a Prison: Weighing the Good, the Bad : Proposed East L.A. Facility Raises Some Fears; Others Cite the Advantages

If John Mendonca wants to know if there’s a prison inmate loose in his Chino neighborhood, all he has to do is step outside and see if the dreaded blue beacon is flashing a few blocks away at the California Institution for Men.

The light, installed at the prison after an escaped convict killed four people in a nearby Chino Hills home in 1983, alerts residents to the fact that an inmate has broken out. Or taken off from a work crew of supervised minimum security prisoners.

Not Particularly Alarmed

But Mendonca is not particularly alarmed at the sight of the blue light blinking from the minimum and medium security prison about 40 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

He’s used to escapes (two so far this year). On several occasions, Mendonca, a dairy farm employee, has discovered convicts’ clothing in a hay barn near his house and called the police. One time, he also found a sack of razor blades, but so far he has not encountered any inmates.

“If I was afraid, I wouldn’t have lived here for 17 years,” Mendonca insisted.

It is a view voiced by many of the residents within proximity of the prison. As Mendonca’s wife, Betty, explained, “If you live this close, you can’t be afraid. We always feel if they’re going to get out of there, they’re not going to stay around here. I think there’s more crime happening in town than there is here. It’s pretty much country out here.”

That relaxed view is not shared by everyone who lives with a prison or jail in his vicinity. And though there are cities that welcome prisons (many residents in Blythe, for example, are eagerly awaiting approval of a new state prison for their city because of the expected 700 steady jobs and annual payroll of $13 million it would bring), such acceptance is hardly universal.

In East Los Angeles, residents have been struggling to keep a proposed state prison out of their community for more than two years.

In recent weeks, several hundred Boyle Heights residents have appeared in Sacramento for last-minute lobbying, hoping to persuade legislators to vote against a bill placing another penal institution in East L.A.

They argue that there are already four such facilities in their area (including the county’s Hall of Justice downtown, 2 1/2 miles from the proposed prison site at 12th Street and Santa Fe Avenue). And they insist that there should be a full environmental review of the prison property before it’s purchased. Thus far, the protesters have registered some major results. Last month, after their lobbying, the Senate reversed itself and rejected a plan to build the prison in East L.A. The Assembly approved the plan, which remains unresolved pending a special legislative session next Tuesday.

What is it like to have penal institutions for neighbors?

Frank Villalobos, one of the East L.A. community activists lobbying against the proposed prison, already knows.

A landscape architect and urban planner, Villalobos lives six blocks from two county detention facilities, the Sybil Brand Institute for Women and the Biscailuz Center for Adult Detention. If the new state prison also lands in East L.A., Villalobos’ home will be about two miles from it.

A Negative Image

“Twice a day, I see the inmates and visitors and everybody else going to those places,” he said. “My kids ask, ‘Who are these people?’ It projects a negative image on the neighborhood. Instead of looking to a positive future, our kids see a negative aspect of society.”

Villalobos feels so strongly about not having yet another barred facility in East L.A. that he has made about 15 trips to Sacramento in the last 18 months--at his own expense and on his vacation time. As do most people, he accepts the fact that it’s fair to put a state prison in Los Angles County, since there isn’t one here and approximately 38% of the state’s inmates come from the county.

“Part of life includes freeways and jails, except that in East L.A. we have all the freeways and all the jails already. We have five freeways and four jails,” he said. “We think that it is the responsibility of the rest of the city to bear the same responsibility.”

(Arguments in favor of placing a prison in East L.A. include that it would be in a central location--near the county jails, courts, freeways and bus stops--which would reduce transportation costs for the state and for prison visitors. In addition, proponents contend the 30-acre land parcel available in East L.A can be purchased for a price well within the state’s allotted budget and is located in an industrial area.)

But Villalobos and others respond that the fact that the prison would be constructed in an industrial area is deceptive. He claimed that within a one-mile radius of the proposed prison site there are thousands of residents, 5,689 alone (at last count) in two large, low-cost apartment complexes. And, said Villalobos, there are 21 public schools and five parochial schools within a two-mile radius of the proposed prison site.

Many of the other state prisons are located in far more remote, largely undeveloped areas of California. At the California Correctional Institution at Tehachapi, for example, there are relatively few homes within the immediate vicinity of the prison, about a 10-mile drive from town.

But many of the residents who live within a mile or so of the prison are still adjusting to its addition of a state-of-the-art maximum security facility last October. Nadine Radovicz, for one, is still getting used to having 4,278 inmates for neighbors.

And there are all those security guards.

“My little daughter Vanessa will hear their (target) shooting and say, ‘What’s that noise?’ ” said Radovicz, a waitress at a nearby resort. “And I say, ‘Oh, that’s the guards. Practicing. For the kill.’ ”

Close to Nature

Radovicz moved into the area about 40 miles southeast of Bakersfield in January, 1985, in part because it’s still so undeveloped and she wanted to be close to nature. But she’s not thrilled about the fact that it’s fairly difficult to see the stars at night through all the orange haze (from the bright lighting system at the prison).

She also doesn’t like it that the sewage system is smellier than it used to be (the prison is currently working to correct that situation). And she’s disturbed that some families of inmates have moved into the area (according to a local realtor, there have been a few inmate families relocating in Tehachapi but a very small number).

“That’s what makes me the most nervous, that families of inmates are moving here,” she emphasized. “Let’s face it. That’s not usually a good cycle of life.”

Radovicz is not alarmed enough to move herself and her family out of the attractive, ranch-style home where her parents used to live.

But she has taken shooting lessons from her husband, a college student, and keeps a gun handy. And she remembers to keep things in perspective.

“I used to live in Hollywood,” she noted. “So do I have any room to talk? How fearful can you get after that?”

Some people who live near prisons actually consider the facilities blessings in disguise.

“People are always saying ‘Living near a prison--How could you?’ But we’re treated like kings right here around the prison,” said Eda Johnson, who lives with her husband John across the road from the Radovicz home. The Johnsons raise Missouri Fox Trotters on their ranch, the Lazy J.

The royal treatment Johnson likes best is the fact that the fire department for the prison also serves the area around the prison. Two weeks ago, she pointed out, there was a brush fire that burned several acres of land not far from a group of homes that includes hers. “The fire department was here in two minutes,” she recalled, adding that she also appreciates the calls or visits from prison officials when there is an escape.

Two Escapes This Year

There have been two escapes from the Tehachapi prison thus far this year, one by a medium-security inmate who was apprehended in Long Beach. The other involved a minimum security inmate who escaped during a conjugal visit with his wife (who then reported the escape). That escape occurred Sept. 4. and the inmate is still at large. There have been no escapes by maximum security inmates at Tehachapi.

Residents near the Tehachapi prison are not warned about escapes by a blue light. (Chino is the only state prison to have such a light, according to Howard Ritter, chairman of the prison’s Citizen’s Advisory Committee.)

At other prisons, citizens rely on telephone calls or sometimes even visits from prison officials who bring along photographs of escapees.

In the estimation of Johnson, the prison’s calls and visits have thus far been quite adequate.

Other Tehachapi area residents, however, have complained about the alert system, said Fred Johnson (no relation), chairman of the Tehachapi prison’s Citizens’ Advisory Committee.

“The prison automatically calls people who live near the prison,” he explained. “They’ll try two or three times, but if somebody’s not home, they can’t notify them.”

On the whole, Johnson said, he and his committee have received “very little input from citizens,” during the two years he’s served as chairman. “Their main concern has been being notified if there is an escape.”

But prisons can be counted on for far more than escape alert services and fire extinguishing duties in the opinion of Robert Gore, an assistant director of the state Department of Corrections.

“What’s good about prisons is that they provide 200 to 300 peace officers driving through the community at shift changes,” said Gore, who heads the department’s communications division.

“Prisons also provide people living in the community who care about the community. Our people (prison employees) are Little League coaches, Girl Scout advisers, council members, things like that.

Community Work Crews

“And prisons provide community work crews. We maintain parks. In Sonora, we rebuilt the city cemetery. In Susanville, we cut free firewood for senior citizens. These inmate work crews are supervised by prison staff and selected, by the staff, from minimum security prisoners with no history of arson, sex offenses, crimes of extreme violence and no escape history. They generally have two years or less to serve on their sentences because the penalty for escape is two years.”

As for escapes, Gore said they are at an all-time low, both in absolute numbers (in 1985 there were 37 escapes from state prisons and 42 from state minimum security work camps) and as a percentage of the total number of inmates (.09% of prisoners in state prisons and 1.72% of prisoners in work camps).

What about inmate families who relocate in prison communities?

Gore said that by and large, inmate families do not relocate, though there may be very small numbers of inmate families (perhaps 10 or 15) living near the state’s most remote prisons, such as the one at Susanville.

He also cited an August, 1985, study by the California Senate Office of Research that concluded that there appears to be no more crime in cities associated with a prison than in similar cities without prisons. The same study also determined that the presence of a prison does not appear to depress property values.

“Prisons very quickly become a part of their communities,” Gore said. “For every corrections job there’s one job created in the community. The prison has an overall positive effect on a community. We’re a clean, recession-proof industry. We’re there for the long-term. Look at Folsom: 105 years old. San Quentin: 130 years old. There’s never been a prison go out of business in California.”

That’s what bothers the people of East L.A. The penal institutions they have are not likely to leave and they could end up with another one.

As East L.A. resident Kenneth Gibbs put it, “I don’t think it’s a good idea--they’ve got enough problems already here.”

For the last five years, Gibbs has been a resident at the Wyvernwood Garden Apartments, one of two large apartment complexes located less than a mile from the site of the proposed prison for East L.A.

Upset Over Possibility

Gibbs’ mother-in-law, who’s lived at Wyvernwood for the last 30 years, has been so upset over the possibility of another prison in her neighborhood, she hasn’t been able to read her newspaper.

“It’s disgusting,” Louella Jackson scoffed, frowning when the prison was mentioned. “It’s terrible. There will just be a lot of escaped convicts. It’s the wrong place. It’s too close to town.”

Argelia Ramirez, who moved from Mexico to the Wyvernwood apartments with her husband and three young children two years ago, is similarly concerned that if the new prison is built, she won’t feel safe allowing her children to play outside on the large grassy areas within the apartment complex.

“The kids won’t be secure playing outside,” she said, speaking through a translator.

Yet people in other California communities--even those with young children--continue to move into areas near existing prisons. In Chino, a new division of about 100 tract homes a couple of miles from the prison is not quite completed but it’s virtually sold out.

“They (the buyers) don’t seem to be concerned. Half to 60% of the buyers come from this area--they’re what we call move-ups. Their feeling is that with the prisoners behind bars, at least you know where the bad guys are,” explained Ian Sagman, a salesman for Foxwood Meadows.

Even closer to the prison, not far from the hay barn where Chino inmates’ clothing has been repeatedly found, Beverly Donahue didn’t hesitate to move in--complete with her husband and five young children.

“We moved in January from Idaho. . . . I’m not afraid and the children aren’t afraid. In fact, I wish they were more afraid. They’re too trusting,” Donahue said, taking a break from a family celebration. “You know, the lady who lived here before us had two dogs and locked them in the house with her all the time. She was terrified. We haven’t had any problems. I guess I’ve just never been afraid.”