New Chief of Prisons Appointed

Besieged by reports of corruption and mismanagement within state prisons, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday named the warden of San Quentin as his director of the Department of Corrections.

Schwarzenegger said Jeanne Woodford, 50, had a “proven ability to lead” and would bring needed reforms to the 32-prison system.

A 25-year veteran of corrections, Woodford would become the second woman to hold the post and would earn $123,000 a year if confirmed by the Senate later this year. She replaces Edward Alameida, who resigned in December.

“She shares my priorities of public safety and accountability and is a tremendous asset to my administration,” Schwarzenegger said.

Woodford, who began her corrections career as a guard at San Quentin in 1978, would take over as California’s $5.7-billion prison system weathers scrutiny on many fronts.

“It is a time of crisis in corrections,” said Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), who is holding oversight hearings on the prisons. “She is coming in at the worst of times....”

However, Romero said, “we have a window of opportunity to scrutinize and reclaim corrections.”

Among the challenges facing Woodford are the strained relations between the Schwarzenegger administration and the prison guards union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn.

In a recent report and in testimony at Romero’s hearings, the 28,000-member union has been accused of encouraging a “code of silence” that protects rogue guards from discipline.

On Thursday, the secretary of youth and adult corrections, Roderick Q. Hickman, made public a memo he had sent to staff this week. In the memo, he said that there was “zero tolerance” for employees who adhere to a code of silence, and warned that those who do could be fired.

In addition, the union is taking heat for a five-year labor contract struck with then-Gov. Gray Davis’ administration that will grant officers a pay hike of as much as 37% by 2006, pushing veteran guards’ salaries to more than $73,000 a year.

Given the state budget crisis, negotiators for Gov. Schwarzenegger are seeking to force union leaders to the bargaining table to accept contract concessions.

In response, the union is flying a skull-and-crossbones flag outside its headquarters in West Sacramento: “We are being portrayed as the Pirates of the Caribbean,” said union Vice President Lance Corcoran, “so we thought it would be fun to rally the troops.”

Despite the testy relations, Corcoran applauded Woodford’s selection, calling her someone who would bring “the type of progressive leadership that will help improve the image of the department.” Praise for Woodford also was heard in the Senate, where President Pro Tem John Burton of San Francisco had pushed her appointment.

“She’s terrific,” Burton said. “The guards liked her, the convicts loved her, families loved her. Victims had respect for her. She believes that people should be better when they come out than when they went in.”

On Thursday, Hickman called Woodford “the most visionary leader in corrections in the country.” He said that, as warden at San Quentin, Woodford had run a prison with multiple missions.

In addition to housing death row and being the site for executions, he said, San Quentin is a center where incoming inmates are screened before being sent to other prisons.

Others were not quite so laudatory.

“I hope she does a better job of running the department than she did running San Quentin,” said San Francisco attorney John Scott.

Scott represents a San Quentin whistle-blower who filed a claim alleging that she had suffered job-related retaliation after protesting problems with the prison’s mixing of minimum- and maximum-security inmates. Among other things, the employee has said, she arrived at work to find a dead mouse with a whistle around its neck.

As the adult prison system digested news of the appointment, the failings of the juvenile system were spotlighted at a Senate hearing that drew about 200 people, including tearful parents, former inmates and sign-toting demonstrators.

Among those testifying were officials from San Mateo and San Francisco counties, who are debating whether to stop sending young offenders to the California Youth Authority.

The officials said they were alarmed by reports from independent experts that depicted the CYA as a violent place where delinquent boys became hardened criminals, and where mental health treatment, education and medical care were sorely lacking.

“When I read what is happening in the CYA, I was outraged,” said San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi. “It’s beyond belief.”

Adachi said the San Francisco Board of Supervisors would vote on a moratorium Tuesday. San Mateo County had temporarily halted its placement of juveniles in the Youth Authority and was sending teams into the youth prisons to examine conditions and interview inmates.

Two other counties -- Santa Clara and San Joaquin -- also are debating a moratorium. And next week, the chief probation officers from 11 Northern California counties will meet to discuss the possible formation of a regional consortium that would take over the CYA’s job.

Perhaps the most compelling testimony, however, came from relatives of two teenagers, Durrell Feaster of Stockton and Deon Whitfield of Los Angeles, who were found dead, hanging from bedsheets, in their cell last month at a youth prison east of Sacramento.

Allen and Gloria Feaster, who adopted Durrell when he was a toddler, called him a “happy-go-lucky boy” who had hope and plans for the future, including launching a landscaping business with his father.

“He had problems, no doubt about it,” Gloria Feaster said outside the hearing, noting that her son’s hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder had required him to use the drug Ritalin. “If his mind told him to do something, he’d do it, even if it wasn’t the right thing.”

The Feasters, along with Whitfield’s aunt, said the CYA should not have placed their loved ones in an isolation cell, where they were locked 23 hours a day and denied most privileges. Medical records, they said, proved that the boys had mental health problems and needed treatment.

Youth Authority Director Walter Allen III would not comment on the case. But he conceded that overall, mental healthcare was deficient.