Changes Seen as Inmates’ Racial Brawls Escalate

Violence between African-American and Latino inmates in Los Angeles County’s jails has escalated over the past 18 months, culminating with six fights last week that involved 307 inmates and injured 74, officials say.

The groups cannot be effectively kept apart in the 21,500-prisoner system because of federal and state prohibitions against racial segregation in jail dormitories, authorities say.

In addition, officials blame recent budget cutbacks for keeping the Sheriff’s Department from implementing some reforms aimed at easing the tension.

Although officials worry that the situation is a powder keg about to explode, they report that few hospitalizations and no deaths have resulted from the increasing number of fights between the African-American and Latino inmates.

The county’s jail population is made up of 46% Latinos, 34% African-Americans, 18% Anglos and 2% Asians and others.

Robert J. Spierer, an area commander in the custody system, said several reforms have been considered to deal with the disorders:

* A new classification system in which older inmates would be separated from younger ones, who tend to be more violent.

* Sending guards inside the dormitories and cellblocks to assess attitudes and learn about impending violence in an effort to head it off.

* “Progressive housing,” which would offer inmates better living conditions--such as more space and more television, telephone and store privileges--in exchange for good behavior.

* More and better educational opportunities within the jails.

The latter two reforms have fallen victim to the budget ax, but the new classification system and the guard-infiltration program are planned, officials said.

In addition, Spierer said, changes in security--including more thorough checks for weapons--will be implemented.

Three of the six altercations last week occurred at the Peter Pitchess Honor Rancho in Castaic, one at the Mira Loma facility in Lancaster and two at the Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles.

Emergency response teams of deputies were able to control the fights within 10 minutes or less, officials said. Searches after each altercation turned up large numbers of knives (shanks) and other weapons--including telephones pulled from the wall and pieces of metal.

Transfers of the most violent participants in the disturbances have sometimes seemed to spread the trouble, officials said. They noted that some participants in the fights at the Central Jail on Wednesday had just been transferred from the Pitchess camp, where they were involved in fighting.

Supervisors at three of five Pitchess facilities, each housing at least 1,600 prisoners, assessed some of the blame for the Latino-black fights on prisoners being cooped up with little to do since the decline in educational programs because of budget cutbacks.

Two supervisors, Lts. Wilma Findon and Joe Hladky, said tensions have escalated since Latinos have become more numerous than African-Americans in the jail system.

There have been frequent struggles for dominance in some dormitories, and Latino and African-American inmates that do not join in the fights are often denigrated, which causes more people to join in later brawls, supervisors said.

Developments outside the jails are also believed to be an important cause of the unrest. “What goes on in here mirrors what’s going on on the streets,” Findon said. “They come in here and do what they’ve been doing right along.”

Spierer said that although many incidents started over mundane squabbles such as the use of television sets or telephones, or payment of small gambling debts, “they quickly tended to break along racial lines” and develop into brawls.

A majority of 20 inmates interviewed last week at Pitchess said dormitories often contain either more African-Americans or more Latinos, causing the larger group to try to dominate. One Pitchess fight last week, however, involved a dorm that was almost evenly split.

Small incidents--over such things as which television shows to watch, Latino resentment over rap singing, disputes over how many telephones are allocated to each group, even a facial expression considered disrespectful--can spark an altercation, inmates said.

Slights are quick to be felt. When a reporter turned from an African-American inmate to speak to a Latino, the black inmate said: “Don’t talk to him. He can’t speak English.” The Latino inmate flared: “We get no respect. Do I look like I don’t speak English?”

Gang differences and ethnic tension outside the jails in the wake of the Los Angeles riots--exacerbated by newspaper and television reports--have contributed to the fractious atmosphere, inmates and sheriff’s supervisors said.

Findon, commander of the East Facility at Pitchess, said ethnic balance within the dormitories has become so important that a demographic report is prepared daily.

“We try to balance out blacks and browns, and try not to have too few whites in each dorm,” she said. “We try to keep them distributed in such a way as to minimize the opportunity for one group to dominate.”

But officers say it is not simply a matter of balancing the number of African-Americans with the number of Latinos. Other factors include an inmate’s age and severity of offense, officials said.

Some inmates suggested that it would be a good idea to segregate inmates by age if they cannot be segregated by race. But Findon and Sgt. Jack Ryon, who assists her, said this could result in placing the most inflammatory youths in the same place without the restraining influences of older inmates.

Hladky said he felt racial segregation would make “a lot of problems go away. . . . There would still be small fights, but they wouldn’t be escalating into racial fights.”

Yet no one is preparing to challenge the law. Capt. Robert N. Wilber, in charge of South Facility at Pitchess, noted that, in emergencies, inmates can be segregated racially for a day or two, as happened in April when blacks assailed whites after the verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating case.