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Following last weekend’s riots at a southern California prison has reminded authorities just how important it is to ease tensions between Black, White and Hispanic prisoners California’s prison system, the nation’s largest, has segregated populations of inmates by race, realizing that mixing them often triggers racial conflict, even rioting. “<span style="font-weight: bold">It isn’t that everybody in the inmate population is against integration</span> — they like their teeth,” David Miles, a 46-year-old Black inmate at the Sierra Conservation Center prison told The Associated Press. But four years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court found that segregating inmates is discriminatory, citing Brown v. Board of Education. <span style="font-weight: bold">The court said it reinforced a cycle of racial hatred and violence and ordered the state to desegregate its prisons</span>. At the California Institution for Men in Chino, the site of last weekend’s riot, segregation is still in place. The melee started in a dormitory-style housing wing where many races are in a large room, but the sleeping arrangements are segregated. The exact cause of the riot remains under investigation. All the state prisons were supposed to be integrated by the end of last year, but the process is far behind schedule. Last fall, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation began desegregating two prisons in the Sierra foothills, southeast of the state capital. They are not yet fully integrated, and officials haven’t started on any other prisons. The delay is due in part to state budget cuts that have reduced prison staff, corrections department spokesman Seth Unger said. The system has 1,000 vacancies and is to be reduced by 5,000 positions over two years. The beginning of a desegregation effort also has hit a number of obstacles, many of them coming from the inmates themselves. <span style="font-weight: bold">Powerful race-based gangs oppose integration and have threatened inmates who participate</span>. That leads wardens, guards and inmates to predict it will take years to fully integrate the state’s 33 prisons, which hold 150,000 inmates.
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Following last weekend’s riots at a southern California prison has reminded authorities just how important it is to ease tensions between Black, White and Hispanic prisoners California’s prison system, the nation’s largest, has segregated populations of inmates by race, realizing that mixing them often triggers racial conflict, even rioting. “<span style="font-weight: bold">It isn’t that everybody in the inmate population is against integration</span> — they like their teeth,” David Miles, a 46-year-old Black inmate at the Sierra Conservation Center prison told The Associated Press. But four years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court found that segregating inmates is discriminatory, citing Brown v. Board of Education. <span style="font-weight: bold">The court said it reinforced a cycle of racial hatred and violence and ordered the state to desegregate its prisons</span>. At the California Institution for Men in Chino, the site of last weekend’s riot, segregation is still in place. The melee started in a dormitory-style housing wing where many races are in a large room, but the sleeping arrangements are segregated. The exact cause of the riot remains under investigation. All the state prisons were supposed to be integrated by the end of last year, but the process is far behind schedule. Last fall, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation began desegregating two prisons in the Sierra foothills, southeast of the state capital. They are not yet fully integrated, and officials haven’t started on any other prisons. The delay is due in part to state budget cuts that have reduced prison staff, corrections department spokesman Seth Unger said. The system has 1,000 vacancies and is to be reduced by 5,000 positions over two years. The beginning of a desegregation effort also has hit a number of obstacles, many of them coming from the inmates themselves. <span style="font-weight: bold">Powerful race-based gangs oppose integration and have threatened inmates who participate</span>. That leads wardens, guards and inmates to predict it will take years to fully integrate the state’s 33 prisons, which hold 150,000 inmates. -
Re: Desegregating California’s Prisons Presents Problems
mi was watching dis on Lockdown on Nat Geo last nite....it is so crazy behind bars..they have areas where u cant walk based on u race for fear of being jumped by one race...cant use sinks, toilets ...just crazy... -
Re: Desegregating California’s Prisons Presents Problems
So are the law abiding onexs out here obeying the laws of desegregation??
from supremecourt judges down, are they obeyibg those laws?
So why would the lawless be motivated to do so??
I mean we are supposed to be the sharpest thinkers of the society here. Why do we find it a surprize?
what actions hav ebeen done since those laws more tha 50 years go, that have not been fought by the law abiding ones out here?
why would th eones who are known to flout laws abide by them?/ incidentally the prison officers are obly a step higher than the prisoners. That is why they spend more time in there than most prisoners. <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: _______</div><div class="ubbcode-body">mi was watching dis on Lockdown on Nat Geo last nite....it is so crazy behind bars..they have areas where u cant walk based on u race for fear of being jumped by one race...cant use sinks, toilets ...just crazy... </div></div>Comment
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