Jailhouse Rehabilitation for Batterers

Every inmate in this Los Angeles County jail unit was convicted of a violent crime yet, here, peace and civility reign.

Elsewhere fierce racial divides can spark a stabbing or ignite a riot, but in this lockup African Americans, Latinos and whites share dinner tables and telephones and actually talk to each other.

Inmates routinely break the ultimate jail taboo--they inform on one another--and no one takes revenge.

Here, the hell of county jail doesn’t exist.

Biscailuz Recovery Center is an experiment, an attempt by Sheriff Lee Baca to rehabilitate inmates rather than just house them.

But it also is extremely expensive and labor-intensive with a somewhat uncertain success rate. The Sheriff’s Department spends more than double the amount it spends at other facilities per inmate per day on the felons at Biscailuz, all of whom were convicted of domestic violence charges.

Yet officials remain unsure exactly how to evaluate the 18-month-old program, and examined recidivism and costs only at the request of The Times.

The department reported that only 18.6%, or 24, of the 129 men who completed the domestic violence program were rearrested in Los Angeles County, and that only 24.2%, or 26, of 107 other men who participated in the program but didn’t graduate were rearrested. By comparison, 37.1%, or 43, of 116 domestic violence inmates released from other county jails were rearrested, the department said.

The program at Biscailuz represents a growing trend across the country in batterers intervention programs in jails and prisons.

One of the first, begun about five years ago in a New York state prison, combines chemical dependency and violence treatment in an intensive, six-month program. Jails in Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco also offer some form of treatment for those convicted of domestic violence.

Locally, the program reflects the adventurous spirit of the county sheriff, who, as one judge said recently, talks like a social worker and doesn’t seem to care about recidivism rates. If he can turn around one batterer, the sheriff’s thinking goes, his program is a success.

“I don’t like what they did to get in here but . . . these inmates are not beyond redemption,” Baca said. “I’m looking to turn around these repeat offenders.”

Pressure for Tougher Enforcement

Over the last several years, pressure from victims and their advocates forced the criminal justice system and politicians to respond more seriously to domestic violence. The O.J. Simpson case, in which the former football star’s wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, was murdered, also heightened public consciousness about domestic violence.

Jail sentences were lengthened, community treatment programs mandated and laws changed to encourage victims to expose spousal abuse.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, for example, no longer requires testimony from victims before prosecutors file domestic violence charges.

And the Sheriff’s Department follows a policy stating that domestic violence incidents “shall” result in arrests. It’s a change from the days when police made arrests based on victims’ visible injuries, a practice sometimes referred to as counting stitches.

As a result, jails filled up with increasing numbers of domestic violence offenders.

Inmates with spousal abuse offenses now place third behind those held on robbery and narcotics charges in the Los Angeles County jail system, the largest in the country. The Los Angeles Police Department made nearly 27,000 domestic violence arrests last year.

At Biscailuz, inmates volunteer for the program and are screened by deputies. Once enrolled, they must participate or be returned to other jails.

Currently, 60 men take anger management, violence prevention, drug and alcohol counseling and other classes all day, five days a week, during the six-week curriculum.

“Power and control, that’s what we do,” says James Beard, a former batterer and drug addict who teaches the classes with a blend of passion and compassion. “When I call her up on a Sunday morning, why am I calling? What am I really trying to find out?”

No one hesitates. “Who she’s sleeping with,” says one. “Where she’s been,” says another. “How she’s dressed,” responds a third. “If she’s home,” pipes up another voice from around the circle.

“Straight up,” Beard says, laughing. “Jealousy is a nice word for ‘I don’t want nobody else to have sex with you but me.’ That’s it. That’s why I’m calling.”

Batterers, Beard tells this group of 20 as sunlight streams through barred windows, are jealous, dark, angry. They read negativity into every one of their partners’ actions.

“Say you’ve got a half-hour for lunch and she works 45 minutes away,” Beard says. “What do you do? Drive to her office and sit in the parking lot watching who she’s going to lunch with?”

The group responds almost in unison: “Yeah.”

They take turns telling of stalking, spying, suspicion.

An inmate named Richard says jealousy led him to almost kill his girlfriend--not once but three times. Then he says: “This jealousy is disappearing.”

The men around him clap and one pats his shoulder.

They sit in plastic armchairs without handcuffs or shackles, listening to two teachers hired by the Hacienda La Puente School District, the largest provider of correctional education in the country. The teachers refer to the inmates as students or clients, and model the classes after Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

“It all sounds so ‘Kumbaya,’ ” said Lt. Terry McCarty, who oversees Biscailuz. “And it is. . . . We are really trying to change lives here.”

A veteran of the Sheriff’s Department who said he has spent at least the last 26 of 27 years in his career trying to avoid jail assignments, McCarty is a convert. He’s self-deprecating, readily laughing off the jabs from his colleagues in the department. At a meeting last spring on jailhouse violence, his boss addressed him: “Camp Hug-A-Thug got any problems? Didn’t think so.”

Violence declines in the jails and prisons where domestic violence programs are taught, officials say. Biscailuz hasn’t had any reports of assaults--against staff or inmates--and deputies have never used pepper spray or any other force. Racial tensions aren’t apparent.

“Classic [jail] classification tells us you never house 60 of your most violent offenders together, and if you do, give them each a single cell--not a dorm,” said Eileen Hirst, the chief of staff for the San Francisco sheriff’s office. “But the incidents of violence are so rare, it is amazing.”

In the year before the six-month program began there, officials reported 38 serious acts of violence. In the first year, one report was taken, in the first month.

James Gilligan, the director of the Massachusetts-based Center for the Study of Violence who is evaluating the San Francisco program, said the real question “is what happens when they return to their own house.”

Most experts agree that it takes a substantial amount of exposure to treatment programs before batterers’ behavior changes. Some say one year is the minimum and they scoff at Los Angeles’ six-week jail curriculum.

All agree, however, that inmates need continued treatment after they are released. To that end, Biscailuz officials created programs for the men who graduated, including evening classes and a hotline.

In California, courts mandate that domestic violence offenders participate in a 52-week treatment program after release from jail, but few checks are made to confirm their enrollment.

Some inmates at Biscailuz, all of whom are repeat offenders, say they took a dozen or fewer of those classes on the outside. Many, in fact, were arrested this time on probation violations for failing to attend those classes.

Cmdr. Al Scaduto, who oversees the sheriff’s correctional services division, suggests that the domestic violence offenders need “a hammer over their heads.” Participants in drug court programs, including 60 who are housed in another section at Biscailuz, must return to a judge with proof that they have completed their recovery programs.

The domestic violence community, including victims, shelter providers, therapists and other experts, divides between those who support any attempts at stopping family violence and those who believe batterers should be locked up while precious public dollars are spent elsewhere.

“I would say spend the public money on probation so they increase their ability to closely monitor and do follow up on convicted batterers,” said Connie McFall, executive director of Rainbow Services in San Pedro. That agency provides services to domestic violence victims. “I’m just not sure a six-week program will do it.”

But at a recent graduation ceremony at Biscailuz, inmate after inmate appeared to speak from the heart, saying the program--and particularly their two teachers--has given them a new opportunity.

Some wept. Their teachers, Beard and Nicky Nicholson, also wiping away tears, hugged them. Clinton Dotson went the furthest, saying he felt as if he didn’t have enough time. In jail.

“For the first time in my life, I feel like I have a choice,” Dotson said. “It’s about being able to change.”

That is exactly the message that advocates for these programs hope the men will carry into the community.

“On the one hand, short-term recidivism rates are not encouraging; but on the other hand, these are really important experiments in changing the male culture and leavening the community,” said Paul Kivel, co-founder of the former Oakland Men’s Project who teaches and writes about male violence.

“Can you really build a male culture that has a different set of values where more men come through and change the culture of the community?”

Good Results for Twice the Cost

Whether they change their communities outside Biscailuz’s walls is uncertain. But the difference inside is immediately noticeable.

Deputies and custody assistants say the atmosphere is low stress, helped by the inmate to staff ratio of 30 to 1 compared to a couple hundred to 1 elsewhere.

Staffing is the main reason for the high costs at Biscailuz, where the Sheriff’s Department spends $108 per inmate per day compared to $47 per inmate in other facilities.

“What’s not to like?” said Robert Herrera, a custody assistant. “They respect us, and the feeling is mutual. We don’t cuss and scream and they don’t yell and scream.”

So why can’t that part of the program be replicated in other jails, where tensions arise between the guards and inmates?

“Unfortunately at [Men’s] Central Jail or Twin Towers and all the other places, if you show that kind of kindness, they look at it like weakness,” Herrera said.

The inmates readily acknowledge that they are treated better here and that they aren’t afraid of the deputies. “You’re not treated like a criminal here,” said Mark Camacho, 31. “At county [Men’s Central Jail] sometimes you don’t want to even look at the deputies.”

Jorge Porras, 31, another inmate who has been in and out of county jails for years, agreed.

“This is like Knott’s Berry Farm,” Porras said. “As soon as I got here, I was like ‘whoa, there’s carpet, the dorms are super clean. . . .’ We talk together, we eat together.”

Although long-term success rates for in-custody treatment programs remain undetermined, advocates say they are worth the effort.

“The only way we’re going to learn is through trial and error,” said Gilligan, who spent the last 34 years teaching at Harvard University.

“We’ve been locking people up for thousands of years and the level of violence has only increased. We have to start experimenting with new models.”