Inmates’ Access to the Media

Some things never change. I see from her Jan. 19 commentary (“California Revises the 1st Amendment”), Rose Bird hasn’t changed her style--she still makes decisions that favor criminals at the expense of crime victims.

She assumes, because the California Youth and Adult Correctional Agency and the California Department of Corrections are reviewing the regulations that control inmates’ access to the media, that the state is somehow trying to rewrite the 1st Amendment.

Nowhere in any of the discussions about the regulations on inmate access to media has there ever been an effort to cut off the media’s access. Media are still able to tour our facilities, report on the conditions of our prisons and interview inmates on a random basis. The only thing the agency and the department are trying to control is the abuse of a privilege that inmates have enjoyed since former Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Inmate Bill of Rights in 1975.

Under the ill-conceived and misdirected Inmate Bill of Rights, inmates were granted basically the same rights as law-abiding citizens. Inmates were able to call the media and ask for an interview with the local newspaper, television show or radio show. And under those regulations, Department of Corrections personnel were put into the position of having to make arrangements, including setting up a room for the interview and providing staff to protect the reporters and crew when they enter the prisons.

Bird rushed to judgment without considering all the facts including the most important, the finding by the U.S. Supreme Court in Pell vs. Procunier (1974) that the California Department of Corrections has a right to prohibit face-to-face interviews as long as inmates have other avenues to contact the media. The same court also said in Turner vs. Safley (1987), that as long as regulations governing inmate treatment meet four specific tests--rehabilitation, protection of the public, deterrence of crime and security of the institution--they pass the constitutional test.

Given the fact that inmates have called into live radio talk shows, and written to newspapers, and one inmate on death row even has a friend on the outside posting his “columns” on the worldwide web, it doesn’t appear that inmates’ 1st Amendment rights are being restricted by anything the department or this agency has done or is planning to do.

Providing tailor-made forums for inmates to continue their victimization of others, in the opinion of this administration, is an unacceptable consequence of existing regulations.

JOE G. SANDOVAL, Secretary

Youth and Adult Correctional Agency

Sacramento