Changes in Jail System Underlie Pitchess Brawls

A series of violent brawls last week among hundreds of inmates at the Pitchess jail has cast a spotlight on the vexing political, economic and racial problems plaguing the county’s jail system, and authorities concede there are no solid solutions in sight.

Even with advance warning, Sheriff’s Department officials were unable to prevent the outbreak of violence among 1,800 inmates Wednesday afternoon--the largest in the facility’s history--when Latino inmates attacked African Americans throughout the sprawling jail’s dormitories. The fights continued in the following days, leaving 162 injured and damage estimated in the tens of thousands of dollars.

The Castaic jail remained locked down Saturday, and no additional outbreaks had been reported.

Sheriff’s officials have said that overcrowding and the “three strikes” law are underlying factors in the seemingly endless series of melees, which also underscore the power that state prison gangs are believed to have over a large population of county jail inmates.

Both civil libertarians, who monitor the inmates’ living conditions, and sheriff’s officials contend that the situation has not reached crisis proportions because they have not lost complete control of the jail and riot-equipped deputies have been able to quell the fights.

Yet once again, they find themselves searching for solutions to a entrenched problems, which they acknowledge have only grown worse over the years.

Meetings are planned next week between attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Sheriff’s Department.

“We’re going to have to discuss, as we always do, how to figure out a resolution,” said Silvia Argueta, an ACLU staff attorney. “There may not be one, but at least we can figure out ways to make things better.”

Trying to find a way to end the fighting at Pitchess is nothing new. In the past the Sheriff’s Department has consulted outside experts on strategies to stem the racial violence, discussed segregating the jail with the ACLU, and even enlisted the help of top black and Latino church leaders.

But at nearly every turn, new problems have cropped up.

“We’ve experimented a lot over the years,” said Mark Squiers, chief of the Sheriff’s Department Custody Division. “I’m not saying there’s no solution, but I’m not confident when you have a prison gang calling the shots that there is a great deal you can do other than to react.”

One option discussed previously that will be considered again, Argueta said, is bringing conflict resolution consultants in to talk with inmates about how to work out their differences without fighting.

“Usually the flare-ups occur because of minor things that just escalate into a full--blown brawl,” Argueta said.

But this approach is not likely to work, some believe.

“We are not dealing with the cream of the crop in society here,” one jail official said.

Interracial battles are common to nearly all correctional facilities, but a combination of factors makes Pitchess unique and helps explain the greater frequency and magnitude of the fights there.

Among the problems, sheriff’s officials and jail experts say, are the increasingly violent nature of offenders housed at Pitchess, the shift in racial dominance, the growing influence of state prison gangs and the large size of the dormitories.

When problems arise at the Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles, for instance, sheriff’s deputies are able to quickly contain fights because inmates are housed in jail cells, which restrict their movements.

In contrast, many Pitchess inmates live in 125-man dormitories. Larger dorms became fashionable in the 1950s, largely in reaction to public criticism that the smaller, more isolated cells of traditional jails were too oppressive.

Dorms are also cheaper to build and maintain than individual cells. But they are more difficult to lock down because a large group of combatants are cooped up in one room. Jail experts say that such layouts are fertile ground for racial tensions and rioting.

“It’s a given they contribute to violence,” said Alvin J. Bronstein, the recent director of the National Prison Project of the ACLU. “You cannot protect people in a dormitory setting.”

Bronstein said dormitories should only be used to house minimum-security inmates who have already been sentenced. He said there are dangers to using dorms to house violent offenders who are awaiting trial, as is the case at Pitchess.

“You don’t know whom you have there,” Bronstein said. “It’s almost impossible to separate the predators.”

The Pitchess jail was built to house misdemeanor and low-level felony offenders, but over the years it has undergone a dramatic change. Budget cuts in the ‘90s have forced the Sheriff’s Department to close four jails, triggering massive overcrowding throughout the county jail system.

Initially, the dorms were intended to contain a single level of beds, but now hold bunks that cram more inmates into the existing space. So jammed are the county’s jails that the Sheriff’s Department now only accepts inmates with bails that exceed $25,000. Misdemeanor inmates are usually cited and released.

The state’s “three strikes” law has further taxed the jails, with inmates more inclined to go to trial rather than plea bargain with prosecutors and accept a conviction. This has led to a concentration of violent felony offenders staying at Pitchess as they await trial.

Overcrowding among the new breed of inmates has triggered other problems for the Sheriff’s Department and the public.

After one of the jail’s many racial brawls, a small hole was punched in the ceiling in one of the dorms. Deputies used a steel plate to temporarily cover the hole but later forgot about it. Inmates secretly pried away the plate and enlarged the opening.

Last May, 14 inmates made a dramatic escape from the jail through the hole.

Squiers, Argueta and others say one solution to the overcrowding would be to open the newly completed maximum-security Twin Towers jail in downtown Los Angeles, which remains empty due to a lack of funds.

Described as state-of-the-art, Twin Towers is designed to house serious offenders because food, visitors and medical services are brought to the inmates, minimizing their movements and the problems that arise when they congregate in large groups.

Besides becoming more violent over the years, Pitchess inmates have undergone a change in demographics. African American prisoners are outnumbered 45% to 35% by Latinos, and as a result suffered the bulk of the injuries in last week’s fighting.

The change has spawned a race war as the two groups fight for dominance inside the jail.

Some inmates have been segregated by race, but only temporarily, Squiers said.

Sheriff’s officials contend that permanent racial segregation of prisoners is philosophically undesirable, too difficult to maintain and ineffective to boot. Moreover, when it was attempted in the state prison system in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it only increased the violence during the inmates’ occasional contacts, jail experts say.

Punishing inmates also appears to have done little to deter them from brawling. After Wednesday’s outbreak, the jail was locked down. Television, mail, telephone and other privileges were canceled, yet despite those conditions, at least 15 melees erupted in the next three days.

Over the years, the fighting has escalated from sporadic scuffles to organized violence. Squiers believes last week’s fights were orchestrated events that were probably ordered by state prison gangs.

“It’s a conspiracy of criminals to act this way to gain power in their own substrata,” he said.

The assertion of power by prison gangs has reached a frightening level in recent years, sheriff’s officials said. A large-scale, organized jail riot at Pitchess in January 1994 appears to have chillingly foreshadowed the violent, new trend.

The recent round of melees may be a symptom of the power struggle within the Mexican Mafia, following the indictment of 22 alleged leaders last spring, Squiers said.

La EME--as the organization is known--consists of incarcerated members of Latino street gangs who for years have controlled drug dealing, gambling and prostitution in the California penal system.

The aggressive enforcement against the powerful network in the state prison system resulted in a series of violent aftershocks throughout the San Fernando Valley last year and now, possibly, at Pitchess jail, according to police and sheriff’s officials.

Los Angeles police believe the indictments of syndicate leaders weakened the Mexican Mafia’s influence on the streets, triggering an outburst of killings in the Valley last summer and the demise of a 2-year-old truce between Latino gang members.

Now, sheriff’s officials suspect the fighting at Pitchess may indicate a struggle among members of the Mexican Mafia to fill a void created after their leaders were plucked from their power base in state prison.

Faced with such potent obstacles and few reliable solutions, Squiers said his department can do little more than mobilize its forces to quell fighting.

Sheriff Sherman Block is expected to brief the County Board of Supervisors next week on the situation at Pitchess. The ACLU’s Argueta also plans to tour Pitchess next week to inspect the conditions there.

All agree that no simple solution exists to a problem that appears to have poured over from the streets into the jails.

“There’s a power struggle going on between Latino and African American inmates as to who dominates the jails,” Argueta said. “As the Latinos’ numbers rise, the struggle intensifies.”