A Jail Without Walls : Penal system: The prison camp where Rodney King’s assailants will do time is of the type sometimes called ‘Club Fed.’ Critics say such federal facilities are an example of inequity.

Former Los Angeles police officers Stacey C. Koon and Laurence M. Powell will spend the next 30 months at a prison without walls, fences, bars, gun towers or guns.

At the Federal Prison Camp at Dublin, guards wear gray slacks and maroon ties, escapees are called walkaways and the only boundary separating freedom from imprisonment is an imaginary line encircling the facility.

Prison camps are the least guarded institutions in the federal prison system. They are officially known as Security Level No. 1 institutions; inmates sometimes refer to them as country club prisons or Club Fed.

As the nation’s prison population exploded during the 1980s, these institutions have generated controversy. Some prison experts contend that the system is inequitable and argue that camps attract a disproportionate number of big-time drug dealers, white-collar criminals and felons who can afford top attorneys. Junk bond king Michael Milken, for example, served two years at Dublin.

Defendants who are convicted of street crimes generally get longer sentences and are consigned to higher security institutions, prison experts say. The supporters of the two defendants on trial for beating truck driver Reginald O. Denny have predicted that, if convicted, the two men would serve their sentences at state prisons that have few amenities and harsh, dangerous living conditions.

“One of the major ills of the prison system is that the harshness of the punishment is often connected to class and race,” said John Irwin, a criminology professor at San Francisco State who has written extensively about prison conditions. “There is a lack of uniform punishment in the system.”

But lawyers for the officers insist that Dublin does not afford inmates the comfortable life described by those who call the minimum-security facilities Club Feds.

“Anybody who would say that is grossly misinformed,” said Ira Salzman, one of Koon’s attorneys. “Anyone who spent a week in there would be begging to get out. Their lives, in every sense of the word, are regulated. Their lives are not their own. It’s a prison.”

Greg Bogdan, spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons, contends that Koon and Powell belong in prison camps because they have no previous criminal record, they have relatively short sentences and have special security needs. In higher-security prisons, convicted officers are marked men, ranking only a notch above informers and child molesters at the bottom of an inmate hierarchy. They often are targets for attacks and sometimes have to be housed in special protective custody units.

But that is not necessary at a facility such as Dublin, Bogdan said. Inmates there have no history of violence and are unlikely to commit offenses that would subject them to the greatest punishment the institution can impose--banishment to a higher-security prison with gun-toting guards and fences topped by razor wire.

Robert Leoni, a convicted marijuana smuggler from Marin County, said life at Dublin is “sweet,” compared to some of the higher-security institutions where he has been incarcerated.

“But even though this may not look like a prison, it still feels like prison,” he said. “We’re separated from our families and we’ve lost our freedom--that’s punishment enough.”

The majority of inmates at Dublin--about 65%--have committed drug offenses. About 25% are in for white collar crime, fraud, bribery or extortion, and there is a handful or robbers and burglars. All of the inmates will be released in less than 10 years and about half will be released in less than five. The camp is designed for inmates who have not committed sexual offenses or crimes of violence, said camp administrator Kathryn Kuhlmann.

Dublin is intended for nonviolent offenders, and Koon and Powell were assigned there because “the technical description of the crime” was a civil rights violation, not a violent act, Kuhlmann said.

And since the goal of the Bureau of Prisons is to place inmates “in the lowest security level possible and still meet their security needs and protect the public,” the camp is the best place for them, Bogdan said. It costs much less to house inmates in camps, he said, than in higher-security institutions.

When Koon and Powell arrived at Dublin on Tuesday, they checked into a facility that looks more like a military base than a typical prison. The institution, next to the Army Reserve’s Camp Parks, is about 40 miles east of San Francisco and consists of three pale yellow former Army barracks that were renovated when the camp was created in 1990.

Two of the barracks house inmates and a third is used for a visiting room and administrative offices. Another building is under renovation. The barracks are separated by manicured lawns framed by daisies, oleander and marigolds.

At the edge of Dublin are recreational facilities--no tennis courts as at some of the federal camps, just a sand volleyball court, a weightlifting area and an asphalt running track. Across the street from the camp is a higher-security women’s prison, where Patty Hearst did her time, and a federal detention center, both surrounded by two 12-foot-high chain-link fences.

But there is virtually no security at the camp, and when Koon and Powell arrived Tuesday they merely checked in at the front desk. They were scheduled to meet with a counselor, prison officials said, who will give them an orientation and point out the off-limits areas.

Koon and Powell were given physical examinations. They will undergo a series of tests and then be issued khaki pants, white T-shirts, green jackets and caps with the camp’s identification emblazoned on the front. They will be assigned jobs at which they will make 12 to 40 cents an hour--as cooks, gardeners or orderlies at the camp or maintenance workers at the military base.

Because the prison is so overcrowded--it was designed for 139 inmates but houses 245--they will be sleeping in a 24-man dormitory until they are assigned to a four-man room, authorities said. These rooms look like college dorms, with blue linoleum floors, wooden desks by the windows, metal lockers and a pair of bunk beds. Koon and Powell will work 40 hours a week, eat in a cafeteria with a salad bar, and then be free for recreation. The may watch television at night in a recreation room and rent VCRs on weekends.

There are 43 federal prison camps in the country, including three in California--at Boron, Lompoc and Dublin. Milken, who pleaded guilty to six counts of securities violations, was Dublin’s most famous inmate. He earned $5.25 a week as a kitchen orderly and maintenance man during his two years at the camp.

One notable law enforcement officer served time at Dublin: former Detroit Police Chief William Hart, who was convicted of the theft of $2.6 million from a secret Police Department fund set up to pay informers, buy drugs and conduct undercover investigations.

Hart had no problems at Dublin, inmates say; they also expect Koon and Powell to be left alone.

“Everyone here is just trying to do their time,” Leoni said. “The harder-core prisons are different . . . but here, people care about only one thing: Getting out.”