Jail, Like So Much of L.A., Is a Tinderbox : Racial antagonism, ‘colonialist’ guards and seething rage contribute to the climate that exploded in rioting.

The Los Angeles County Jail is under siege again. Sixty inmates staged a hunger strike earlier this month to protest harsh treatment, inadequate medical care and other conditions in the downtown facility. The peaceful demonstration arrived on the heels of almost a week of rioting at the rural Castaic facility. That disturbance, marked by racial confrontations between Latinos and African Americans, involved close to 3,000 inmates and left at least 160 injured, 75% of them African American.

What is really happening behind the walls of the County Jail system, which houses more than 18,000 men and women? Speculations abound over the probable cause. Overcrowding, the three strikes law, budget constraints, a power struggle among inmates over control of the prison system in California--these are but a few of explanations offered by experts and authorities.

Having personally witnessed the tensions and conditions in County Jail, I am certain there are added factors in what caused these disturbances.

I unexpectedly had a short stay in the downtown jail for an unresolved traffic violation just days before the rioting broke out in Castaic. Believe me, it was a sobering experience.

Inside the jail, I saw a microscopic reflection of society at large. Not surprisingly, the majority of the inmates are Latino and African American. Conversely, the jailers, all members of the Sheriff’s Department, are overwhelmingly white. This stark reality of a colonialist-type system screams at you from the moment you enter it.

From the beginning of my incarceration, as I passed through what seemed to be an eternal booking process, the racial polarization was apparent. In the sweltering prisoner holding tanks, which are filled to more than three times their capacity, each minority group looks to its own for comfort and protection. Naturally, the combination of the heat and the sardine-packed conditions elicit extreme anxiety and irritation. I witnessed many verbal and physical altercations among the more volatile inmates.

In this thick and tense atmosphere, however, inmate behavior is mild compared to that of the guards. The sheriff’s deputies roam around in groups of five or more with a threatening, intimidating and provoking demeanor. The slightest inmate stare, murmur or mistake can bring a threat, a slap or a shove against the wall by the overzealous guards. When the prisoner does not respond correctly (showing he is intimidated), the physical force escalates to severe arm twisting, almost to the point of fracture. In some cases--I saw two--the inmate is then isolated, stripped and roughed up some more.

After the arduous booking process is completed, the inmates are moved in large groups to “temporary” dormitories where they can be kept for as long as 72 hours. Here the lights never go off. Imagine bunking with 300 or more men, many of them hard-core criminals. I felt as if I had entered a nightmare world of the survival of the fittest.

The inmates immediately segregate themselves by color and language on one side, with the jailer team, white except for the customary token minority deputy, on the other. Drugs and tobacco are available if you have the contacts. The toilet paper is distributed instead of placed next to the toilets. The phones are divided: half for African Americans and half for everyone else. This disgusting practice is carried out with the tacit but obvious approval of the jailers.

This oppressive environment permeates every aspect of life in the system right up to the moment of your release.

The 1992 Kolts Commission report on the Sheriff’s Department recommended the cleaning up of the deputies’ conduct as a high priority. What I briefly witnessed inside the county jail is corroborated in that report; prisoner treatment by the jail personnel appears not to have changed.

The institution itself as a factor for the recent disturbances should be an integral part of any investigation into the causes.