State Politicians Take Aim at Inmates’ Bill of Rights : Corrections: Anti-crime fervor may doom the statute signed by Reagan. It allows conjugal visits and lets prisoners wear their hair at any length.

On the floor of the upper house, a senator launches into a harangue about Charles Manson profiting off his murderous crimes by selling song lyrics and demands repeal of the statute that would allow such an outrage.

As he campaigns for office, an assemblyman lambastes Manson follower Tex Watson, charging that the same statute gave Watson the right to conjugal visits with his wife, during which he fathered three children while in prison.

The focus of the politicians’ ire is the “inmates bill of rights,” a statute dating back to Ronald Reagan’s tenure as governor.

In a year when baseball analogies are used as answers to crime, the inmates bill of rights is a hanging curve--and politicians are slamming it up and down the state. It has become the stuff of sound bites, headlines and talk shows.

With Gov. Pete Wilson’s support, lawmakers are working to rid the state penal code of a law they say allows imprisoned child molesters, rapists and murderers to receive hard-core pornography, wear their hair as they choose, and sue over such slights as food that is too high in cholesterol.

But lawyers for prisoners, and some state lawyers, have doubts that the statute’s repeal will end many of the most often cited abuses. Court decisions in recent decades have affirmed that many prisoners’ rights are protected by the U.S. Constitution.

The reasons behind the impending demise of the inmates bill of rights are many, some tied to the campaign season.

Wilson, seeking reelection on an anti-crime platform, has made the statute’s repeal a priority. Two bills to do away with the statute are being carried by Assemblyman Dean Andal (R-Stockton) and state Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside). They are running against each other for a State Board of Equalization seat.

But the movement to gut the statute goes beyond electioneering. The prison guards union, an aggressive and well-financed lobby in Sacramento, is supporting the repeal effort, as are crime victims groups.

As the prison population grows beyond 120,000 inmates, California Department of Corrections officials say it is more costly to provide benefits required by the bill of rights, such as the right of mentally ill prisoners to have court hearings before they are forced to take antipsychotic drugs.

Department of Corrections attorney Pam Smith-Steward also fears that in time, courts could interpret the statute so broadly that the 7,000 prisoners who work for the Prison Industry Authority making blue jeans, furniture, license plates and other products could receive minimum wage of $4.25. As it is, they make an average of 55 cents an hour.

Buried 586 pages deep in the California Penal Code, the inmates bill of rights is brief, only 52 words. In a single paragraph, it says that a person sentenced to prison arrives with the same rights as everyone else. Any narrowing of rights must be directly related to the prison’s safe operation, and be the least restrictive alternative possible.

A companion statute lists prisoners’ specific rights, among them, the right to marry, make wills, correspond confidentially with lawyers, own property and receive publications.

Prisoner rights lawyers say most of the rights listed in the statutes are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. But state lawyers say court rulings have forced California to give prisoners far more than is required by federal law.

“The (California) law says we may only restrict inmate rights if we can show a security link,” Smith-Steward said. “It isn’t right. It’s insidious.”

Although California is the only state with an inmates bill of rights, many states give prisoners rights beyond what is required by the U.S. Constitution. New York allows conjugal visits. Oregon pays prison workers minimum wages.

The origins of the inmates bill of rights date to Reagan’s first term as governor. Red Nelson, then the nail-hard warden of San Quentin, recalls approaching Reagan at a reception early in 1967. As they chatted, Reagan asked Nelson what he thought of one of the issues of the day: Should inmates be granted overnight visits with their spouses?

It was an innovative concept. Some prison officials believed that the program would end homosexuality in prisons, and serve as a reward for good behavior.

“I thought it was a horrendous idea,” Nelson said, and he recalls telling the governor so.

Reagan did not take Nelson’s counsel. In 1968, he authorized conjugal visits as an experiment at one prison, and allowed prison officials to expand the policy systemwide in 1971.

“We were in a period where people thought they’re not bad boys,” Nelson said. “That was the style. There was no stopping it.”

In 1968, state Sen. Alan Sieroty, a liberal from Los Angeles’ Westside, teamed up with the Friends Committee on Legislation, a Quaker lobbying organization, and proposed the legislation that first came to be known as the inmates bill of rights.

Pete Wilson, an assemblyman from San Diego, voted for it. So did George Deukmejian, then a state senator from Long Beach. Reagan signed it into law.

At the time, politically active lawyers were attacking every aspect of the prison system, from restrictions on what inmates could read to indeterminate sentencing, which resulted in terms of up to life for even minor crimes.

It also was a time of political and racial unrest inside the prisons. George Jackson, serving time for robbery, published “Soledad Brother” and emerged as a leader of the Black Panthers, and a hero of leftist reformers and revolutionaries.

Accused of killing a prison guard at Soledad, Jackson was moved to the highest security block in the prison system, the Adjustment Center at San Quentin. In a visit, a gun was smuggled to Jackson in August, 1971, setting off the worst riot in California prison history. Jackson was shot to death, and three officers were killed.

When Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. became governor in 1974, he brought with him some of the lawyers who had been suing the prisons. Sieroty and the Quakers saw a chance to expand the inmates bill of rights.

“The attitudes were so much different in those days,” said Sieroty, who retired from the Legislature in 1982. “There was a feeling that prison reform was a worthwhile thing.”

Although Brown was skeptical of Sieroty’s bill, an aide to the then-governor recalled that Corrections Department chief Ray Procunier urged Brown to support it.

“His argument was that this would calm things down in the prison system,” said the former aide. The bill was signed into law in 1975.

Today, Sieroty is upset that his work is threatened. He called the statute even more important now, given that the inmate population has sextupled since 1975.

“Pornography was not the reason we wrote the bill,” Sieroty said. “The issues were much broader than that.”

The Department of Corrections has been trying to weaken the statute since at least 1987, with no success. This year, however, the Legislature’s attitude changed dramatically after the kidnap-murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas and arrest of parolee Richard Allen Davis for the crime.

Crime quickly rose to the top of the California political agenda and, since the start of the year, the Legislature has been approving anti-crime bills at a frenetic pace. The inmates bill of rights has became a symbol for the “coddling” criminal justice system.

In the Senate, Presley, the Legislature’s top expert on prisons, introduced a bill to abolish the bill of rights. He said the costs of operating the prisons can be cut if the statute is repealed. His bill cleared the Senate overwhelmingly this month, and is awaiting Assembly action.

In the Assembly, Andal introduced an identical bill, with Wilson’s backing. Andal and Assemblyman Phil Isenberg (D- Sacramento) reworked the bill to have California adopt the the federal standard governing prisons. The bill passed the Assembly 60-0 Thursday and goes to the Senate.

Under the federal standard, wardens can impose restrictions if they are “reasonably” related to some prison-related interest. The current statute says any regulations must be the least restrictive.

Lawyers who represent prisoners in civil rights claims say the federal standard is toothless. But even under the federal standard, many rights in the inmates bill of rights--to marry, maintain bank accounts, file lawsuits, correspond confidentially with lawyers--will be protected, said San Francisco attorney William B. Turner, an expert on prison law.

With or without the state statute, Turner added, wardens will not be able to stop most pornography and racist material from getting into the prisons. That, too, is protected by federal constitutional law.

As the California law now reads, prisoners can receive almost anything the Postal Service will deliver--short of writings about gambling, bomb making or escape.

There likely will be lawsuits if the prisons try to significantly restrict pornography from reaching prisoners. Whether the state would win in court is unclear. Its track record has not been great.

A man, imprisoned for second-degree murder for killing his 6-month-old daughter, received sadomasochistic photos of adult women. When prison officials seized the pictures, he sued in 1992, and a federal judge urged state lawyers to settle the case. They did, giving back some photos and paying the prisoner $1,200 for pictures officials had destroyed.

There also is doubt among lawyers, including some who work for the state, that other often-cited abuses can be stopped. Sen. Charles Calderon (D-Whittier) is pushing a bill aimed at stopping prisoners such as Manson from profiting from their crimes. Similar laws have been struck down by federal courts.

Prison authorities do not expect immediate sweeping changes if the statute is repealed.

Wilson would eliminate conjugal visits for sex offenders and those serving life terms, but prison authorities say the program helps promote better conduct by other inmates.

The prison system permits 25,000 conjugal visits a year at a cost to the state of $3 million. As recently as last year, the Department of Corrections defended conjugal visits, saying in a memo to Andal that “family visitation is a valuable tool for inmate management” and a “proven rehabilitative program.”

All this is not to say there would not be changes. Prisons would regain broader rights to control inmates’ hair or beard length. Authorities also may regain some powers lost as a result of court rulings interpreting the statute.

One that bothers officials came in 1986, when a court of appeal held that the inmates bill of rights gave mentally ill prisoners the right to demand a court hearing before they could be forced to take antipsychotic drugs.

The state has lost only 17 of the 494 court hearings since 1990. But there are court and prison costs, and corrections officials say less expensive administrative hearings should suffice in California.

In the prisons, where small slights often loom large, there is talk about the legislative effort to repeal the bill of rights. Hyperbolic flyers are circulating urging inmates to tell their families and friends to call lawmakers and voice their opposition to its repeal.

“You are in danger of losing all your rights,” a flyer warns. Without the statute, the flyers say, prisoners will lose the right to marry, own property, make wills, sue, get visits, or correspond confidentially with lawyers--though no politician is suggesting repealing such rights.