ACLU Weighs Segregation of Pitchess Inmates : Jail: Group says separation of Latino and black prisoners may be the only way to stop racial fights at the county lockup.

Despite a history of staunch opposition to racial segregation, American Civil Liberties Union leaders said Thursday that keeping blacks and Latinos apart in Los Angeles County jails may be the only way to defuse explosive tension that has erupted into prisoner brawls in recent weeks.

“Because of the compelling state interest of keeping prisoners free of harm, we believe it might be constitutionally permissible” to separate black and Latino inmates, said Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California.

Local ACLU legal director Paul Hoffman said he agreed and that the ACLU is examining the constitutional ramifications of such a policy at the request of the county Sheriff’s Department.

Although top Sheriff’s Department officials said they are not yet seriously considering long-term segregation, they acknowledged that they asked Ripston, Hoffman and other ACLU officials Tuesday to discuss the feasibility of enacting such a policy.

The meeting came in response to the largest brawl at the mammoth Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho in Castaic. As many as 1,000 inmates rioted for hours Sunday, swinging homemade knives and broken broomsticks at each other. Eighty inmates were injured, including 24 who were taken to hospitals, authorities said.

Since then, fights have broken out between blacks and Latinos at court lockups in the county and at Pitchess. The two groups have been kept mostly separate, and both sides have warned that more fighting will occur if they are put together.

On Thursday, two African American inmates broke free of their handcuffs and injured six Latino and white inmates who were shackled as a bus carried 55 prisoners to San Fernando Superior Court.

The possibility of keeping the Castaic facility segregated has weighed heavily with Sheriff’s Department officials. They say they do not want to resort to such drastic measures, but are in the untenable position of trying to force inmates to get along.

Cmdr. Robert J. Spierer, who is in charge of the facility, confirmed that the department asked the ACLU to meet and discuss the issue. But he said the department still believes that segregating the inmates would be bad policy and possibly unconstitutional.

Such a policy also would be a procedural nightmare, he said, because of the number of inmates--about 21,000 countywide--and the fact that so many need to be transported from the Pitchess facility to courthouses every day.

In addition, Spierer said, the department has resisted calls for segregation for years, even though racially motivated fights have been commonplace.

“However, if that is the only way we can protect the inmates, then we will have to consider it,” Spierer said.

Spierer said jail officials are trying to slowly re-integrate inmates at Pitchess by moving troublemakers to other wings and buildings and by moving in new inmates. He said the department considers permanent segregation potentially dangerous because it would allow blacks and Latinos to devise plans to attack each other when put together in non-segregated holding tanks and buses.

Although the ACLU has long opposed nearly all types of segregation, Ripston and Hoffman said it was the seriousness of the problem--and the prolonged nature of the racial conflict--that caused the civil rights organization to re-examine its position.