Restricting TV, Smoking in Jail: Harsh or Healthy?

SAN JOSE — Inmates at the Santa Clara County Jail have already lost their freedom. Now they are losing their cigarettes, coffee and sugar too.

The new year signaled the start of the new restrictions, which will also include new limits on the kinds of cable TV channels inmates in the county’s jails will be allowed to watch--and an outright ban on TV news.

The edicts have drawn reactions that vary from outrage to a shrug of the shoulders from advocates for jail inmates, who consist of convicted criminals serving time for offenses that do not merit prison sentences, and arrestees awaiting trials.

“It’s a mean-spirited, demeaning attitude toward the prisoners,” said Donald Specter, director of the Prison Law Office in San Francisco, a group that specializes in prisoner rights.

“It just shows a lack of respect of prisoners as people who are able to process information the same way we all do. Banning TV news, that’s just ridiculous.”

But even advocates for inmate rights acknowledge that the new bans are not, by themselves, cause for great concern when compared to more austere measures taken in other jails, and other issues such as proper access to medical care.

“Put it this way,” said attorney Michael Bien of Rosen, Bien & Asaro. “If someone came to me [complaining] about the coffee, I probably wouldn’t take the case.”

The new measures are the work of Tim Ryan, the county’s jails chief, who modeled them on restrictions in Alameda County, whose jails he used to run.

The smoking ban, he said, brings the county jails in line with health-related prohibitions in offices, stores and just about anywhere people gather indoors throughout the state. Sugar was forbidden in the jails because inmates were using it to make a type of moonshine called “pruno.”

But why coffee? Santa Clara is the only county in the state to have taken the morning shot of caffeine off the breakfast menu. It’s not the money. Cutting coffee saves a mere $50,000 out of the county jail system’s budget of $104 million.

Ryan said the new prohibitions are part of his attempt to foster some lifestyle changes. “We can change their smoking habits, drinking habits and their physical health,” he said. “We tend to get people [in jail] that have abused their bodies the most. It’s good for us to help them change that.”

In fact, inmates craving caffeine can still buy their coffee from the jail commissary. Five packets of instant coffee sell for $1.40, and the economy-sized package of 20 is $3.50. Inmates with a sweet tooth will have to settle for artificial sweeteners: 50 packets for 55 cents.

Ryan’s reform philosophy also requires that when a new cable system is installed a few months from now, shows considered violent or inappropriate will be censored. There will be no Playboy Channel, of course, but inmates can count on Disney and the History Channel to be piped in.

Television news is also out, so inmates will have to get their information from newspapers.

‘The Only Chance We’ve Got’

Ryan concedes that his new policies are not likely to change inmates’ lifestyles during the relatively short time they serve in jail. But he says he still wants to try.

“To a certain extent, it’s idealistic, but it’s the only chance we’ve got,” he said.

Ryan’s efforts fall short of the more severe measures taken by other counties nationwide. Jails in Washington state have brought back chain gangs, taken away television altogether, and used military rations--well known by troops as MREs (Meals Ready to Eat)--to feed inmates. Sentenced inmates in Arizona’s Maricopa County sleep in military-style tents, eat bologna sandwiches instead of hot meals, and wear pink underwear--apparently to deter theft.

“They’re not here to be in a country club,” said Deputy Dave Moyer, spokesman for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department. “The inmates, they understand that when they come here, they’re here to do time.”

Ryan said he has no plans to imitate those policies, and does not want to feed inmate anger at the justice system. “None of us want to damage egos and psyches,” he said. “We just want [inmates] to see another side of the world they may have not seen before.”