Doing Time--and Drugs--in Chowchilla

The heroin underground here at the largest women’s prison in America never stops scheming, a nimble supplier of drugs and hypodermic needles and butane lighters, each commanding a swindler’s price.

Officials at the Central California Women’s Facility say they have tried to upset the flow, but the drugs--black tar heroin, crack, speed, marijuana--keep finding a way past the walls of this sprawling compound amid the farm fields of the San Joaquin Valley.

Even in the face of AIDS, they concede, the heroin black market has defied their reach. To shoot the dope, inmates say, they often use dirty syringes stolen out of medical waste bags from the prison infirmary--the same infirmary that treats AIDS patients.

The theft of potentially infectious syringes is taking place even as the prison is beefing up its model AIDS prevention program in which inmates talk straight to other inmates about the perils of dirty needles and other risky behavior.

“It’s just like the free world. There’s no problem getting plenty of dope or needles,” said Deborah Frazier, an inmate with AIDS released last month after serving two years for petty theft. “Instead of throwing away the needles, the inmate janitors are stealing them and selling them on the main yard for $50 or $100 a pop.”

Warden Teena Farmon does not dispute that there is a substantial drug problem and that heroin and other narcotics are flowing into the prison through a variety of means, including food packages, sent from outside, inmate visits with family and friends, and an occasional correctional officer willing to smuggle for a price.

This monthaug, in an attempt to slow the supply, the prison began restricting food packages mailed to inmates--a large source of hidden drugs. No longer can inmates receive candies and other goods sold in the canteen, thereby reducing the material guards must inspect.

“Just like the federal government has had a problem stopping drugs from coming over the border, I’ve had trouble keeping drugs from crossing my border,” said Farmon, a 29-year veteran of the state corrections system who is known for her candid, head-on style. “Every time we plug one hole, the inmates figure out how to make another one.”

Drugs have long been a fact of life inside the nation’s prisons, but corrections officials concede that the problem is especially acute at this remote penitentiary built on an old almond orchard in Madera County. One major reason is the institution’s sheer size.

The prison houses nearly 3,500 inmates, fully half of whom are held incarcerated for drug crimes and thefts related to their addictions--a much larger proportion than in a typical men’s prison, corrections officials say. This burgeoning population is partly a consequence of crack and heroin seizing the inner city and hitting women as hard as men, and partly the outcome of tougher sentencing for drug crimes.

“I was in Chowchilla twice, and this last time there were a lot more girls using heroin,” said Frazier, a longtime heroin user who said she got AIDS by sharing a needle outside prison. “I was surprised by how young a lot of them are. Heroin’s definitely made a comeback.”

Numerous Complaints

While syringes are prized items in the prison’s black market, Warden Farmon said she had no reason to believe that large quantities are being stolen from the infirmary.

“Can I sit here today and tell you that no dirty needle has made it out of the infirmary? I wish I could. But I don’t believe there’s some rampant theft going on.”

Farmon conceded that neither she nor her medical staff has investigated the situation. Inmates and prison watchdog groups say even a cursory look reveals a number of gaps in the disposal of used syringes--gaps that are betraying the prison’s goal of slowing the spread of AIDS.

“You can go out on the main yard on any weekend afternoon and at least a fourth of the inmates are glassy-eyed, scratching and sniffling from a heroin high,” said Janine Biagi, who was released from Chowchilla this month after serving a six-year term for conspiracy to manufacture and distribute speed.

“The women know these needles are dirty, and they’re trying to clean them with prison bleach. But the bleach is powdered and cut with detergents. It’s not strong enough to kill the virus that lives in the barrel of the needle.”

The theft of syringes from the prison infirmary should come as no surprise, according to prison watchdog groups. Over the years, the infirmary at the women’s facility has been beset by the lack of a chief physician and trained staff, and there have been numerous complaints about inadequate care. Last month, in a victory for Chowchilla inmates who brought a class-action lawsuit, the state agreed to pay $1.2 million in fees for attorneys representing the women. The state also agreed to improve care for AIDS and other patients who complained about gaps in receiving protease inhibitors and other medications.

“I’ve talked to 300 inmates over the past four years, and they consistently tell me that women are getting loaded on the yards,” said Catherine Campbell, a Fresno attorney who represented inmates in the lawsuit. “It’s common knowledge that inmates are using dirty needles and contracting AIDS inside Chowchilla.”

Many inmates were reluctant to talk publicly about the heroin underground for fear of angering the gangs that control the traffic. Some drug abusers said they depended on the easy flow of narcotics to numb prison life and didn’t want to say anything that might curtail the supply.

But concern over AIDS prompted 10 current and former inmates to provide an unusual peek at the durability of the drug culture, even behind bars and in the face of death.

For the same reason, Warden Farmon allowed The Times to view a team of AIDS peer counselors as they addressed a group of new inmates, a graphic presentation laced with prison slang and dire warnings to “trust no one.”

It is difficult to determine the overall number of HIV-positive inmates, much less the number who may have contracted the disease from dirty prison needles. The state requires reporting only when an inmate’s immune system deteriorates to full-blown AIDS.

“The extent of the problem is hard to pinpoint. A lot of the women see no advantage in getting tested because there’s no confidentiality and no continuity of medical care,” said Judy Greenspan of the Catholic Charities HIV/AIDS In-Prison Project, based in Oakland. “They prescribe new drugs and the treatment goes on for a while, but then they run out of the drug. A lot of the women with HIV feel it’s best to wait until they’re released so they can seek medical help on the outside.”

State health officials and prison authorities say 14 inmates are being treated for AIDS here while 50 others have been diagnosed with HIV, a caseload that has doubled over the past few years.

Farmon said she believes that most cases were contracted on the outside. But inmate AIDS counselors and prison watchdog groups--who estimate that at least 150 Chowchilla women may be infected with HIV--believe a number contracted the disease from used syringes inside prison.

In the early 1990s, inmate Joanne Walker looked at the prison’s growing population of needle-using addicts and saw an AIDS crisis waiting to explode. A heroin addict fighting the last stages of the disease, she pushed for an education program that would wash away the ignorance and stigma and provide basic health information.

When the prison administration balked, Walker set up her own makeshift program, counseling women that the first step was to get tested. Over time, the warden became an advocate of an inmate-to-inmate education program, and Walker became one of the first peer counselors.

“Joanne fought and fought, and it took the strength of the last of her life to make AIDS an issue at Chowchilla,” said former inmate Cynthia Martin. Walker died in 1995.

Successful Program

The peer counseling program, now operating at seven state prisons, takes its raw style from the streets. On a recent morning, a team of three inmate mentors--one black, one Latino, one white--addressed new inmates in the prison’s orientation unit.

Denise Belmontes, a former drug addict from Santa Fe Springs doing 10 years for carjacking, opened the session in a voice that quieted all chatter. She moved seamlessly from intravenous drug use (“fixing”) to homosexual activity (“homosecting”) to tattooing (“tacking”).

“There’s not supposed to be drugs in prison, but let’s be real,” she told the group. “Drug activity is here, tattooing is here. We’ve got a gang of Mexicans who can tattoo their butts off and give you the virus for free. I’ve seen HIV people get tattooed with my own eyes.

“They have no [liquid] bleach in here, and that needle is contaminated. They’ve stolen contaminated outfits from the infirmary. From little contaminated bags. . . . No one gives a damn about you.”

Alicia Taplett, a Sacramento native serving 16 years to life for murder, wanted the inmates to know that she too used to heed that inner voice that whispered, “Not me.” “I know what you’re saying. ‘I don’t use drugs. I don’t tack. I’m not gay.’ I’m here to tell you that you never know what you’re going to be when you leave this [orientation center] and hit the main yard. There’s a lot of temptation in here, ladies. Trust no one. No one.”

Lynn McCoy, a San Diego grandmother serving a 12-year sentence for kidnapping her grandson from what she contends was an abusive home, ended the session with a plea to get tested. Of the 81 newcomers, 32 signed consent forms.

“That’s a little low. We normally get half,” McCoy said. “There’s 10 of us peer counselors, and we do this twice a week, from here to the main yard. Our work is never finished.”

The program’s success--more than 500 inmates tested for HIV since January--has not gone unnoticed. State officials have agreed to spend $250,000 to fund on-site HIV staff coordinators at Chowchilla and four other prisons.

“The peer counselors at Chowchilla are incredible,” said Kathleen Lofstrom, the state health specialist who helps oversee the program. “With strong support from the warden and the medical and custody staff, the program is serving as a model for other institutions.”

Constant Flow for Drug Users

For all the program’s success, however, its major goal of AIDS prevention is subverted by the easy flow of drugs and syringes, according to inmates and prison watchdog groups.

The drug paths are multiple and ever changing. They estimated that more than half the heroin and other drugs comes in through visitation and the mail. Visitors are allowed to sit with inmates in a cafeteria-like setting. Even though the inmates are later strip searched, they say it is easy to pass and conceal drugs.

Family and friends are equally adept at finding ways past the mail room’s X-ray machines, secreting drugs in cookies and candy, tennis shoe soles and pant seams.

Barbara Williams, a former Kaiser Hospital executive imprisoned for embezzlement, said the stream of drugs was astonishing. “Before I went to prison I saw prison on TV, and as bad as it was portrayed, it came nowhere near the real thing.”

She was in a dorm with eight other women, five of them drug abusers. She said the room stayed dark most of the day, the women passed out on beds. She said guards suspected what was going on but never searched the room.

“Heroin use went on all the time. It’s a business. They make more money in prison selling dope than they do on the streets. They stay loaded all the time. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Like Williams, Cynthia Martin’s middle-class assumptions were shaken by what she saw in three years at the prison. “I’m not a drug user, but I was educated in drugs in a way I never thought possible. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t see inmates involved in some drug activity.

“It was so rampant that women were shooting up all the time in the laundry, right around the corner from the cop shop,” said Martin, who was convicted of arson.

Inmates and prisoner rights groups say some contraband--including marijuana, alcohol and butane lighters--is being brought in by officers. “I’ve seen guards handing girls packages and passing drugs,” Williams said.

Jamie Peterson, a Santa Clara accountant serving time for forgery, said she longed for a fifth of Jim Beam whiskey to get her through the Christmas blues two years ago. An officer, whom she did not name, sneaked in a bottle in a lunch pail. She paid $50 in cash. “A lot of the drugs are brought in the same way. You have organized crime on the outside and organized crime on the inside.”

Farmon acknowledged that a handful of correctional officers had left the prison for other posts after questions were raised about drug trafficking. “Have I actually caught any staff with drugs in seven years? No. Have staff left here while there was the potential for concerns? Certainly.”

Tackling Problem From Within

Prisoner rights advocates, who generally credit Farmon for her willingness to tackle problems, contend the warden is downplaying the extent of the breakdown, especially in the infirmary. They said their work on the medical care lawsuit showed that inmate janitors were filching used syringes from medical waste bags. They contend the practice is ongoing, despite recent infirmary improvements.

“It’s almost like deliberate indifference, ignoring a potentially deadly situation,” said former inmate Biagi. “How much would it cost to get some device that would destroy the syringes like they do in other states? It would be minuscule.”

Besides restricting goods sent in quarterly packages, the warden says she is taking a number of quiet steps to stem the flow of drugs and syringes. These include tracking the lot number of any recovered syringe to determine if it came from the infirmary.

“Whenever I speak in the community, people want to know why we can’t stop drugs,” Farmon said. “I tell them that I understand their frustration, but we’re dealing with a population that has 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to figure out how to beat me.”

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The Prison at a Glance

Background: The Central California Women’s Facility opened in 1990 in Chowchilla, a San Joaquin Valley farm community. It is the nation’s largest women’s prison and is one of five women’s prisons in California.

Inmate Population: Nearly 3,500 in 14 squat dormitory buildings and two more-traditional cellblock units. It houses eight death row inmates.

Staffing: Warden Tenna Farmon, a 29-year veteran of the state corrections system, headsstaff of 500 officers and administrators.

Location: 40 miles north of Fresno. It is one of two relatively new state pentitentiaries-both for women-in Chowchilla, a community with a population of 12,700.