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"disqusTitle": "Unauthorized Sterilization of Women Prisoners at Issue in State Hearing",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Corey Johnson, \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/\" target=\"_blank\">The Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_102889\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 620px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-102889\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/07/california-institution-for-women-3-664px.jpg\" alt=\" The California Institution for Women in Corona was one of two state prisons where female inmates were sterilized without required state approvals. At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules from 2006 to 2010. (Courtesy California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) \" width=\"620\" height=\"328\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The California Institution for Women in Corona was one of two state prisons where female inmates were sterilized without required state approvals. At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules from 2006 to 2010. (Courtesy California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Top state lawmakers pledged Tuesday to pursue legislation to prevent sterilization abuses in prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Sen. Loni Hancock, chairwoman of the Public Safety Committee, made the announcement during a packed hearing at the state Capitol. It was called in response to an investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting, which found nearly 150 women were sterilized from 2006 to 2010 without required state approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/07/08/female-inmates-sterilized/\" target=\"_blank\">Former inmates told CIR\u003c/a> that prison medical staff had coerced the women, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hancock, D-Oakland, said she hoped a new law would “clarify” state policy on prison sterilizations, which are allowed only in cases of medical necessity and with high-level state approval. Sen. Joel Anderson, R-San Diego, vice chairman of the committee, said such legislation also would send a clear signal that the state’s history of forced sterilizations from the early 1900s through the 1970s should never be repeated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we first heard of this issue, we acted quickly and strongly because we all understand that this is about fairness and dignity. This is at the core of basic dignity and human rights,” Anderson said. “We need as a public safety (committee) to send a clear message to all Californians that we will not accept less.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neither legislator provided details of what the legislation might include or when it would be introduced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Corrections officials who testified at the hearing said they already are working closely with prison advocates and with federal Receiver Clark Kelso’s office to ensure that sterilization won’t occur again without authorization. \u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\u003cstrong>Former inmates have accused prison medical staff of coercing women into sterilizations.\u003c/strong>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Kelso assured legislators that his office took swift action to stop the unauthorized sterilizations in 2010, after it realized they were occurring. He also said he would instruct his staff to continue educating outside doctors who provide medical care on contract.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates expressed skepticism. Courtney Hooks, spokeswoman for Justice Now, in Oakland, said her group continues to receive reports from inmates about prison doctors suggesting sterilization to inmates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hooks asked lawmakers to consider tracking all prison sterilizations and requiring reports to the Medical Board of California about doctors who perform them. She also said statistics on individuals who were sterilized would improve future monitoring by allowing officials to track whether some groups or genders were disproportionally affected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Verbal assurances that abuses have stopped are not sufficient to ensure sterilization abuses will not reoccur. The receivership will not last forever,” Hooks told lawmakers. “There’s an urgent need to clarify the legal obligations of medical and correctional staff as well as to strengthen oversight requirements.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although tubal ligations have been restricted since 1994, Kelso maintains that prison staff may have believed they still were allowed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a July 23 letter to the California Legislative Women’s Caucus, Kelso wrote that staff recently discovered a 1999 memo titled “Revisions to Medical Standards for Inmates,” which directs that “Postpartum Tubal Ligations will be included” as part of pregnant inmate care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kelso said the memo, which went to all the prison medical officials at the time, conflicted with the existing ban on tubal ligation. So far, he said, his staff hasn’t found any documents explaining why it was sent out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s why I determined not to discipline doctors and didn’t refer cases to the medical board,” Kelso said. “It seems to me that we had a real conflict in direction from headquarters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State corrections officials told lawmakers that the newly uncovered document didn’t appear to authorize overriding the restrictions on tubal ligations, but instead provided guidance on billing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nora Wilson, attorney for Justice Now, called the new document “weird” and questioned the interpretation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think they know they have been operating illegally and want cover,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wilson said she and other Justice Now representatives would be meeting with the federal receivership next week. The Joint Legislative Audit Committee also is scheduled to vote next Wednesday on a request for a State Auditor’s Office investigation of the prison sterilization matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was edited by Amy Pyle and copy edited by Pam Hogle and Christine Lee.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The independent, nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting is the country’s largest investigative reporting team. For more, visit www.cironline.org. The reporter can be reached at cjohnson@cironline.org.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"description": "By Corey Johnson, The Center for Investigative Reporting Top state lawmakers pledged Tuesday to pursue legislation to prevent sterilization abuses in prisons. State Sen. Loni Hancock, chairwoman of the Public Safety Committee, made the announcement during a packed hearing at the state Capitol. It was called in response to an investigation by the Center for",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Corey Johnson, \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/\" target=\"_blank\">The Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_102889\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 620px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-102889\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/07/california-institution-for-women-3-664px.jpg\" alt=\" The California Institution for Women in Corona was one of two state prisons where female inmates were sterilized without required state approvals. At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules from 2006 to 2010. (Courtesy California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) \" width=\"620\" height=\"328\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The California Institution for Women in Corona was one of two state prisons where female inmates were sterilized without required state approvals. At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules from 2006 to 2010. (Courtesy California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Top state lawmakers pledged Tuesday to pursue legislation to prevent sterilization abuses in prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Sen. Loni Hancock, chairwoman of the Public Safety Committee, made the announcement during a packed hearing at the state Capitol. It was called in response to an investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting, which found nearly 150 women were sterilized from 2006 to 2010 without required state approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/07/08/female-inmates-sterilized/\" target=\"_blank\">Former inmates told CIR\u003c/a> that prison medical staff had coerced the women, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hancock, D-Oakland, said she hoped a new law would “clarify” state policy on prison sterilizations, which are allowed only in cases of medical necessity and with high-level state approval. Sen. Joel Anderson, R-San Diego, vice chairman of the committee, said such legislation also would send a clear signal that the state’s history of forced sterilizations from the early 1900s through the 1970s should never be repeated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we first heard of this issue, we acted quickly and strongly because we all understand that this is about fairness and dignity. This is at the core of basic dignity and human rights,” Anderson said. “We need as a public safety (committee) to send a clear message to all Californians that we will not accept less.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neither legislator provided details of what the legislation might include or when it would be introduced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Corrections officials who testified at the hearing said they already are working closely with prison advocates and with federal Receiver Clark Kelso’s office to ensure that sterilization won’t occur again without authorization. \u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\u003cstrong>Former inmates have accused prison medical staff of coercing women into sterilizations.\u003c/strong>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Kelso assured legislators that his office took swift action to stop the unauthorized sterilizations in 2010, after it realized they were occurring. He also said he would instruct his staff to continue educating outside doctors who provide medical care on contract.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates expressed skepticism. Courtney Hooks, spokeswoman for Justice Now, in Oakland, said her group continues to receive reports from inmates about prison doctors suggesting sterilization to inmates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hooks asked lawmakers to consider tracking all prison sterilizations and requiring reports to the Medical Board of California about doctors who perform them. She also said statistics on individuals who were sterilized would improve future monitoring by allowing officials to track whether some groups or genders were disproportionally affected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Verbal assurances that abuses have stopped are not sufficient to ensure sterilization abuses will not reoccur. The receivership will not last forever,” Hooks told lawmakers. “There’s an urgent need to clarify the legal obligations of medical and correctional staff as well as to strengthen oversight requirements.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although tubal ligations have been restricted since 1994, Kelso maintains that prison staff may have believed they still were allowed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a July 23 letter to the California Legislative Women’s Caucus, Kelso wrote that staff recently discovered a 1999 memo titled “Revisions to Medical Standards for Inmates,” which directs that “Postpartum Tubal Ligations will be included” as part of pregnant inmate care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kelso said the memo, which went to all the prison medical officials at the time, conflicted with the existing ban on tubal ligation. So far, he said, his staff hasn’t found any documents explaining why it was sent out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s why I determined not to discipline doctors and didn’t refer cases to the medical board,” Kelso said. “It seems to me that we had a real conflict in direction from headquarters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State corrections officials told lawmakers that the newly uncovered document didn’t appear to authorize overriding the restrictions on tubal ligations, but instead provided guidance on billing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nora Wilson, attorney for Justice Now, called the new document “weird” and questioned the interpretation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think they know they have been operating illegally and want cover,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wilson said she and other Justice Now representatives would be meeting with the federal receivership next week. The Joint Legislative Audit Committee also is scheduled to vote next Wednesday on a request for a State Auditor’s Office investigation of the prison sterilization matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was edited by Amy Pyle and copy edited by Pam Hogle and Christine Lee.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The independent, nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting is the country’s largest investigative reporting team. For more, visit www.cironline.org. The reporter can be reached at cjohnson@cironline.org.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Calif. Prison Hunger Strike Leader Targeted in Federal Drug Trafficking Probe",
"title": "Calif. Prison Hunger Strike Leader Targeted in Federal Drug Trafficking Probe",
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"content": "\u003cp>In the month since state inmates \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/news/story/2013/07/17/123431/california_prison_hunger_strike_continues?category=bay+area\" target=\"_blank\">launched a hunger strike\u003c/a> to protest conditions at California’s highest-security lockups, corrections officials have alleged the ringleaders are major players in violent prison gangs and that their motives are far from pure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We're talking about convicted murderers who are putting lives at risk to advance their own agenda of violence,” corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard wrote in the Los Angeles Times earlier this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now the state has more evidence to support those allegations, at least when it comes to inmate Arturo Castellanos, one of four Pelican Bay inmates leading the protest against “indefinite solitary confinement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indictments released Tuesday by federal prosecutors allege Castellanos was part of an elaborate plan to allow Mexican drug cartel members to traffic methamphetamine in Southern California and be protected in state lockups in exchange for money and drugs going to U.S.-based gang leaders, including those currently in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prosecutors describe Castellanos as a Mexican Mafia member and “undisputed leader” of a violent Los Angeles street gang known as Florencia 13, or F13 for short. They allege Castellanos issued edicts and directed criminal operations from his cell at Pelican Bay State Prison, where the hunger strike is centered. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) said on Tuesday that 364 inmates in seven prisons are still on strike, 210 continuously since July 8.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a> profile below, written after a 2011 hunger strike, I looked at similar allegations against Castellanos and his links to drug trafficking, extortion and murder. As is the case currently, federal prosecutors chose not to indict the alleged Mexican Mafia leader, in part because he’s already serving a life sentence. The story also profiles Ernesto Lira, who was accused of far less criminal activity than Castellanos and was serving a sentence for drug possession in a low-security prison. Yet he, too, like the reputed kingpin Castellanos, was sent to a Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit, because of a drawing found in his locker allegedly containing gang symbols.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are their stories ...\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A tale of two inmates at Pelican Bay\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One man was a petty thief mistakenly identified as a player in a violent Latino prison gang. The other was a convicted murderer whose numerous assaults behind bars and continuing influence on the streets earned him a reputation as a ruthless gang leader.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fact that both men were held for years in stark, windowless cells at Pelican Bay State Prison illustrates the challenge that corrections officials face as they overhaul the state’s controversial, high-security units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opened in 1989, Pelican Bay was designed to house California’s most dangerous inmates. The prison’s Security Housing Unit goes a step further, locking inmates identified as prison gang members or associates in a warren of concrete cells where the only view of the outside world is framed on small television sets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some inmates have been housed in the units since Pelican Bay opened its gates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Corrections officials say the lengthy confinement and extreme security measures are necessary to curb the ability of gang leaders to pass orders to subordinates in other prisons and on the streets. And they point to inmates like Arturo Castellanos to make their case. Castellanos was convicted of murder in Los Angeles County in 1979 and sentenced to 26 years to life. But his life of crime flourished behind bars, according to prison records.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As an inmate, Castellanos’ disciplinary record includes six stabbings and various drug violations. In 1990, he was sent to Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit after corrections officials identified him as a member of the Mexican Mafia prison gang.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In spite of Pelican Bay’s harsh conditions, authorities allege Castellanos continued to command gang members on the street through edicts smuggled out of prison on tiny scraps of paper known as “kites.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a 2007 federal \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/249375-indictmentricofinal1-2.html\">indictment\u003c/a>, Castellanos guided a Latino street gang known as F13 as it launched a turf battle against African American rivals. The action triggered a wave of racial violence against African Americans living in the Florence-Firestone area north of Watts, according to court documents. More than 20 people were killed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I was just amazed that an individual who no one has seen for generations was able to control the violence and illegal criminal activity of an area that he hasn't been to in more than three decades,\" said Peter Hernandez, an assistant U.S. attorney for California's Central District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal prosecutors eventually indicted 104 suspects in the case, but not Castellanos. He already was serving a life sentence, and the government concluded it was safer to keep Castellanos in isolation and not pull him out of Pelican Bay for court hearings, which would have been required had he been indicted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It was important that … Castellanos not be let out, because he holds sway over gang members to do things they would otherwise not want to do,\" Hernandez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2006, Castellanos has been housed in a special section of Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit that is reserved for inmates deemed influential gang leaders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that didn’t stop him and three other inmates from organizing a three-week hunger strike in 2011 to demand better conditions and changes in department policy. The same inmates organized the current protest that began on July 8.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pelican Bay Warden Greg Lewis alleges the four hunger strike leaders, including Castellanos, are in the upper echelons of major prison gangs and continue to pose a serious security threat despite being segregated from the general prison population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody's seen the movie 'The Godfather.' Everybody's seen how the godfather himself never pulled a trigger, never strangled anybody, didn't run the rackets, didn't run the booze. These are those men,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While prisoner rights advocates concede that some inmates should be segregated from the regular prison population if they are violent or directly involved in criminal conspiracies, they say the actual number of offenders who fit that criteria is very small.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation always picks the worst-case scenario and uses it as the norm,” said Carol Strickman, a staff attorney at Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A low-security prisoner\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all the inmates locked in the Security Housing Unit are accused of being gang bosses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_106100\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/08/lira.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-106100\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/08/lira-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Ernesto Lira, once housed at Pelican Bay's Security Housing Unit. (Michael Montgomery/Center For Investigative Reporting)\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ernesto Lira, once housed at Pelican Bay's Security Housing Unit. (Michael Montgomery/CIR)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ernesto Lira was serving a sentence for drug possession in a low-security prison when he was sent to Pelican Bay for an “indeterminate” term. Authorities contended Lira was an associate of a violent Latino group known as Nuestra Raza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Lira was not accused of doing anything tangible for the group. The key piece of evidence against him was a drawing found in his locker that allegedly contained gang symbols.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"My first two months, it was hard to get used to the fact that I'm going to be here,\" Lira said. \"I looked and thought, maybe in a month or two, they'll realize that this is all a mistake and kick me out of here.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lira said officials offered him a quick way out of the special unit: He could debrief, or snitch, on other gang members. But as a judge later determined, Lira couldn't do that because he wasn't a member of any gang. He wasn't released from isolation until his release from prison eight years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lira eventually won a judgment in U.S. District Court against the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, in part for psychological damage he suffered while locked in isolation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"In Ernesto's case, I think it's very emblematic of the fact that people can be placed in solitary confinement for the littlest of reasons: for having a drawing, for having an address in an address book, without confirming or denying whether that address was used for furthering gang activity,\" said Charles Carbone, an attorney who has represented dozens of Pelican Bay inmates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the 2011 hunger strike, state officials have made changes to gang policies, which could keep low-level offenders like Lira out of isolation units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials say the new policy focuses on locking down inmates who have committed specific offenses for gangs or who are involved in an active conspiracy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The initiative also provides incentives to allow inmates to work their way out of the units through better behavior. This is known as a step-down program, which usually does not require inmates to debrief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former prison gang leaders like Rene Enriquez say the plan could work. Enriquez was a top leader in the Mexican Mafia who spent 10 years in Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit before deciding to leave the gang.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"That's a wonderful concept,\" Enriquez said. \"It would have saved me a whole lot of grief. It might have taken me off the hit list.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Enriquez’s 2004 debriefing \u003ca href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEvsD7pyp5w\">video\u003c/a> has attracted more than 600,000 hits on YouTube. Since then, Enriquez has cooperated from behind bars in several high-level gang prosecutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the department should stay tough on gang leaders, but it should take a more nuanced approach toward others, including offering another path out of the isolation units that doesn't include debriefing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Fifty percent of the members of the Mexican Mafia would gravitate towards dropping out if it was less traumatic … and didn’t require snitching,\" he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, inmates involved in the current hunger strike and prisoner rights advocates say the policy changes don’t go far enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People can still serve lengthy terms, including life in solitary (under the new policy),” Strickman said.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In the month since state inmates \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/news/story/2013/07/17/123431/california_prison_hunger_strike_continues?category=bay+area\" target=\"_blank\">launched a hunger strike\u003c/a> to protest conditions at California’s highest-security lockups, corrections officials have alleged the ringleaders are major players in violent prison gangs and that their motives are far from pure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We're talking about convicted murderers who are putting lives at risk to advance their own agenda of violence,” corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard wrote in the Los Angeles Times earlier this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now the state has more evidence to support those allegations, at least when it comes to inmate Arturo Castellanos, one of four Pelican Bay inmates leading the protest against “indefinite solitary confinement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indictments released Tuesday by federal prosecutors allege Castellanos was part of an elaborate plan to allow Mexican drug cartel members to traffic methamphetamine in Southern California and be protected in state lockups in exchange for money and drugs going to U.S.-based gang leaders, including those currently in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prosecutors describe Castellanos as a Mexican Mafia member and “undisputed leader” of a violent Los Angeles street gang known as Florencia 13, or F13 for short. They allege Castellanos issued edicts and directed criminal operations from his cell at Pelican Bay State Prison, where the hunger strike is centered. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) said on Tuesday that 364 inmates in seven prisons are still on strike, 210 continuously since July 8.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a> profile below, written after a 2011 hunger strike, I looked at similar allegations against Castellanos and his links to drug trafficking, extortion and murder. As is the case currently, federal prosecutors chose not to indict the alleged Mexican Mafia leader, in part because he’s already serving a life sentence. The story also profiles Ernesto Lira, who was accused of far less criminal activity than Castellanos and was serving a sentence for drug possession in a low-security prison. Yet he, too, like the reputed kingpin Castellanos, was sent to a Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit, because of a drawing found in his locker allegedly containing gang symbols.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are their stories ...\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A tale of two inmates at Pelican Bay\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One man was a petty thief mistakenly identified as a player in a violent Latino prison gang. The other was a convicted murderer whose numerous assaults behind bars and continuing influence on the streets earned him a reputation as a ruthless gang leader.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fact that both men were held for years in stark, windowless cells at Pelican Bay State Prison illustrates the challenge that corrections officials face as they overhaul the state’s controversial, high-security units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opened in 1989, Pelican Bay was designed to house California’s most dangerous inmates. The prison’s Security Housing Unit goes a step further, locking inmates identified as prison gang members or associates in a warren of concrete cells where the only view of the outside world is framed on small television sets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some inmates have been housed in the units since Pelican Bay opened its gates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Corrections officials say the lengthy confinement and extreme security measures are necessary to curb the ability of gang leaders to pass orders to subordinates in other prisons and on the streets. And they point to inmates like Arturo Castellanos to make their case. Castellanos was convicted of murder in Los Angeles County in 1979 and sentenced to 26 years to life. But his life of crime flourished behind bars, according to prison records.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As an inmate, Castellanos’ disciplinary record includes six stabbings and various drug violations. In 1990, he was sent to Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit after corrections officials identified him as a member of the Mexican Mafia prison gang.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In spite of Pelican Bay’s harsh conditions, authorities allege Castellanos continued to command gang members on the street through edicts smuggled out of prison on tiny scraps of paper known as “kites.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a 2007 federal \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/249375-indictmentricofinal1-2.html\">indictment\u003c/a>, Castellanos guided a Latino street gang known as F13 as it launched a turf battle against African American rivals. The action triggered a wave of racial violence against African Americans living in the Florence-Firestone area north of Watts, according to court documents. More than 20 people were killed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I was just amazed that an individual who no one has seen for generations was able to control the violence and illegal criminal activity of an area that he hasn't been to in more than three decades,\" said Peter Hernandez, an assistant U.S. attorney for California's Central District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal prosecutors eventually indicted 104 suspects in the case, but not Castellanos. He already was serving a life sentence, and the government concluded it was safer to keep Castellanos in isolation and not pull him out of Pelican Bay for court hearings, which would have been required had he been indicted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It was important that … Castellanos not be let out, because he holds sway over gang members to do things they would otherwise not want to do,\" Hernandez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2006, Castellanos has been housed in a special section of Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit that is reserved for inmates deemed influential gang leaders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that didn’t stop him and three other inmates from organizing a three-week hunger strike in 2011 to demand better conditions and changes in department policy. The same inmates organized the current protest that began on July 8.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pelican Bay Warden Greg Lewis alleges the four hunger strike leaders, including Castellanos, are in the upper echelons of major prison gangs and continue to pose a serious security threat despite being segregated from the general prison population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody's seen the movie 'The Godfather.' Everybody's seen how the godfather himself never pulled a trigger, never strangled anybody, didn't run the rackets, didn't run the booze. These are those men,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While prisoner rights advocates concede that some inmates should be segregated from the regular prison population if they are violent or directly involved in criminal conspiracies, they say the actual number of offenders who fit that criteria is very small.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation always picks the worst-case scenario and uses it as the norm,” said Carol Strickman, a staff attorney at Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A low-security prisoner\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all the inmates locked in the Security Housing Unit are accused of being gang bosses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_106100\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/08/lira.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-106100\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/08/lira-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Ernesto Lira, once housed at Pelican Bay's Security Housing Unit. (Michael Montgomery/Center For Investigative Reporting)\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ernesto Lira, once housed at Pelican Bay's Security Housing Unit. (Michael Montgomery/CIR)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ernesto Lira was serving a sentence for drug possession in a low-security prison when he was sent to Pelican Bay for an “indeterminate” term. Authorities contended Lira was an associate of a violent Latino group known as Nuestra Raza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Lira was not accused of doing anything tangible for the group. The key piece of evidence against him was a drawing found in his locker that allegedly contained gang symbols.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"My first two months, it was hard to get used to the fact that I'm going to be here,\" Lira said. \"I looked and thought, maybe in a month or two, they'll realize that this is all a mistake and kick me out of here.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lira said officials offered him a quick way out of the special unit: He could debrief, or snitch, on other gang members. But as a judge later determined, Lira couldn't do that because he wasn't a member of any gang. He wasn't released from isolation until his release from prison eight years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lira eventually won a judgment in U.S. District Court against the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, in part for psychological damage he suffered while locked in isolation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"In Ernesto's case, I think it's very emblematic of the fact that people can be placed in solitary confinement for the littlest of reasons: for having a drawing, for having an address in an address book, without confirming or denying whether that address was used for furthering gang activity,\" said Charles Carbone, an attorney who has represented dozens of Pelican Bay inmates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the 2011 hunger strike, state officials have made changes to gang policies, which could keep low-level offenders like Lira out of isolation units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials say the new policy focuses on locking down inmates who have committed specific offenses for gangs or who are involved in an active conspiracy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The initiative also provides incentives to allow inmates to work their way out of the units through better behavior. This is known as a step-down program, which usually does not require inmates to debrief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former prison gang leaders like Rene Enriquez say the plan could work. Enriquez was a top leader in the Mexican Mafia who spent 10 years in Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit before deciding to leave the gang.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"That's a wonderful concept,\" Enriquez said. \"It would have saved me a whole lot of grief. It might have taken me off the hit list.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Enriquez’s 2004 debriefing \u003ca href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEvsD7pyp5w\">video\u003c/a> has attracted more than 600,000 hits on YouTube. Since then, Enriquez has cooperated from behind bars in several high-level gang prosecutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the department should stay tough on gang leaders, but it should take a more nuanced approach toward others, including offering another path out of the isolation units that doesn't include debriefing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Fifty percent of the members of the Mexican Mafia would gravitate towards dropping out if it was less traumatic … and didn’t require snitching,\" he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, inmates involved in the current hunger strike and prisoner rights advocates say the policy changes don’t go far enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People can still serve lengthy terms, including life in solitary (under the new policy),” Strickman said.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_102895\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/07/08/female-inmates-sterilized/califprison/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-102895\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-102895 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/07/califprison-300x199.jpg\" alt=\" Crystal Nguyen, with her 6-year-old son, Neiko, in Pittsburg, Calif., is a former Valley State Prison for Women inmate. She worked in the prison's infirmary in 2007 and says she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized. (Noah Berger for The Center for Investigative Reporting)\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crystal Nguyen, with her 6-year-old son, Neiko, in Pittsburg, Calif., is a former Valley State Prison for Women inmate. She worked in the prison’s infirmary in 2007 and says she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized. (Noah Berger for The Center for Investigative Reporting)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Corey G. Johnson, \u003ca href=\"//cironline.org/%22%20target=%22_blank%22>Center%20For%20Investigative%20Reporting</a></strong>\">The Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State lawmakers called today for an investigation of the physicians involved in the sterilization of women inmates and raised questions about a federal prison overseer’s role in handling the matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/725563-07-10-13-lieu-to-sharon-levine.html\">letter\u003c/a> to the Medical Board of California, state Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Redondo Beach, said that \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/female-inmates-sterilized-california-prisons-without-approval-4917\">The Center for Investigative Reporting’s investigation\u003c/a> raised “troubling allegations that doctors violated State law, disregarded ethical guidelines, and fell well below the Standard of care.” Lieu is chairman of the Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee, which oversees the medical board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve been assured that this practice hasn’t occurred since (2010), but the question of course is why was this occurring?” state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, who also signed Lieu’s letter, told CIR. “We want to make absolutely sure – whether we have to do legislation or what – this procedure never becomes the practice it had in the past.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/07/08/female-inmates-sterilized/\">CIR\u003c/a> found that 148 women received tubal ligations without required state approvals from 2006 to 2010. Former inmates say doctors pressured women into getting sterilized and targeted those deemed likely to commit future crimes.\u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Lieu’s request is accepted, the doctors reviewed could include those inside the prison who made referrals for the surgeries as well as outside contractors at nearby hospitals who performed the procedure in violation of state rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lieu also called for the medical board to recommend ways for the Legislature to ensure unauthorized surgeries don’t occur in the future and to consider whether doctors involved in unauthorized tubal ligations should be disciplined. The federal prison receivership has said it put a stop to all tubal ligations in 2010.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A physician’s sole and only concern should be that of the patient,” Lieu wrote. “Whether a surgical procedure would have any hypothetical effect on welfare rolls should never, ever play a part in a doctor’s decision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chris Valine, public information analyst for the medical board, said the office did receive Lieu’s letter but could not comment further, citing confidentiality requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_102889\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/07/08/female-inmates-sterilized/california-institution-for-women-3-664px/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-102889\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-102889 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/07/california-institution-for-women-3-664px-300x153.jpg\" alt=\" The California Institution for Women in Corona was one of two state prisons where female inmates were sterilized without required state approvals. At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules from 2006 to 2010. (Courtesy California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)\" width=\"300\" height=\"153\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The California Institution for Women in Corona was one of two state prisons where female inmates were sterilized without required state approvals. At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules from 2006 to 2010. (Courtesy California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dr. James Heinrich, a prison OB-GYN who referred women prisoners for the surgery, told CIR the money spent sterilizing inmates was minimal “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children – as they procreated more.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A former top medical official at Valley State Prison for Women, one of two prisons that sterilized female inmates, acknowledged seeking ways around the state’s 1984 ban on tubal ligations. That ban allowed the procedure only in life-threatening situations and with high-level state review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daun Martin said she and Heinrich believed the restriction was “unfair.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martin said she did not allow the procedures once she knew they were banned. But state records show at least 60 occurred under her watch without those approvals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joyce Hayhoe, speaking for the receivership, said officials there also were outraged over comments made by doctors in the CIR story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was clearly a practice that started in the prison system prior to the receivership – that we inherited,” Hayhoe said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Jerry Brown’s office referred requests for comment to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. As of publication, the state prison office had not commented.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a separate \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/725401-california-senators-asks-federal-receiver-for.html\">letter\u003c/a>, Jackson – vice chairwoman of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus – along with top leaders of the Senate and Assembly, told the receivership she would ask the California State Auditor to probe allegations that physicians under the federal receivership have coerced female inmates into sterilization procedures, including during labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The letter sharply criticized the office of the federal receiver, which has controlled prison health care since 2006. It asks the receiver to provide answers within two weeks concerning how women ended up sterilized while under federal control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/05/28/in-california-incarcerated-students-fall-through-gaps-in-special-education-laws/cir-logo-2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-98222\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-98222 alignright\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/05/CIR-logo-300x72.png\" alt=\"CIR logo\" width=\"300\" height=\"72\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documents obtained by CIR show the receiver’s office knew in 2008 that sterilizations were occurring. The office didn’t move to stop the procedures until 2010, after a prisoner advocacy group, Justice Now, filed a public records request and complained to state Sen. Carol Liu, D-Glendale. Liu was the chairwoman of the Select Committee on Women and Children in the Criminal Justice System.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As the federal Receiver, you were appointed by the three-judge panel to implement a lawful standard of medical care in California prisons. These instances of unauthorized tubal ligations under your watch violate California state laws,” the letter Tuesday to the receiver states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Pressuring a vulnerable population – including at least one documented instance of a patient under sedation, to undergo these extreme procedures erodes the ban on eugenics. In our view, such practice violates Constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment; protections that you were appointed to enforce.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former Valley State inmate Kimberly Jeffrey told CIR she was asked repeatedly to get sterilized, including while sedated and strapped to a surgical table for a C-section in 2010. Her hospital medical records indicate she declined the procedure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He said, ‘So we’re going to be doing this tubal ligation, right?’ ” Jeffrey said. “I’m like, ‘Tubal ligation? What are you talking about? I don’t want any procedure. I just want to have my baby.’ I went into a straight panic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jackson told CIR such allegations were “totally unacceptable and very alarming.” She said she wanted the public to know that she and her lawmaker colleagues are working hard to ensure that the unauthorized\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>sterilizations never happen again\u003cstrong>.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hayhoe, with the receivership, said it and members of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus discussed the letter during a meeting today. She said it would be no problem to answer any additional questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was edited by Amy Pyle. It was copy edited by Christine Lee.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"description": "By Corey G. Johnson, The Center for Investigative Reporting State lawmakers called today for an investigation of the physicians involved in the sterilization of women inmates and raised questions about a federal prison overseer’s role in handling the matter. In a letter to the Medical Board of California, state Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Redondo Beach, said that The Center for Investigative Reporting’s investigation raised “troubling allegations that doctors violated State law, disregarded ethical guidelines, and fell well below the Standard of care.” Lieu is chairman of the Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee, which oversees the medical board. “We’ve been assured",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_102895\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/07/08/female-inmates-sterilized/califprison/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-102895\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-102895 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/07/califprison-300x199.jpg\" alt=\" Crystal Nguyen, with her 6-year-old son, Neiko, in Pittsburg, Calif., is a former Valley State Prison for Women inmate. She worked in the prison's infirmary in 2007 and says she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized. (Noah Berger for The Center for Investigative Reporting)\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crystal Nguyen, with her 6-year-old son, Neiko, in Pittsburg, Calif., is a former Valley State Prison for Women inmate. She worked in the prison’s infirmary in 2007 and says she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized. (Noah Berger for The Center for Investigative Reporting)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Corey G. Johnson, \u003ca href=\"//cironline.org/%22%20target=%22_blank%22>Center%20For%20Investigative%20Reporting</a></strong>\">The Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State lawmakers called today for an investigation of the physicians involved in the sterilization of women inmates and raised questions about a federal prison overseer’s role in handling the matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/725563-07-10-13-lieu-to-sharon-levine.html\">letter\u003c/a> to the Medical Board of California, state Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Redondo Beach, said that \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/female-inmates-sterilized-california-prisons-without-approval-4917\">The Center for Investigative Reporting’s investigation\u003c/a> raised “troubling allegations that doctors violated State law, disregarded ethical guidelines, and fell well below the Standard of care.” Lieu is chairman of the Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee, which oversees the medical board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve been assured that this practice hasn’t occurred since (2010), but the question of course is why was this occurring?” state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, who also signed Lieu’s letter, told CIR. “We want to make absolutely sure – whether we have to do legislation or what – this procedure never becomes the practice it had in the past.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/07/08/female-inmates-sterilized/\">CIR\u003c/a> found that 148 women received tubal ligations without required state approvals from 2006 to 2010. Former inmates say doctors pressured women into getting sterilized and targeted those deemed likely to commit future crimes.\u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Lieu’s request is accepted, the doctors reviewed could include those inside the prison who made referrals for the surgeries as well as outside contractors at nearby hospitals who performed the procedure in violation of state rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lieu also called for the medical board to recommend ways for the Legislature to ensure unauthorized surgeries don’t occur in the future and to consider whether doctors involved in unauthorized tubal ligations should be disciplined. The federal prison receivership has said it put a stop to all tubal ligations in 2010.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A physician’s sole and only concern should be that of the patient,” Lieu wrote. “Whether a surgical procedure would have any hypothetical effect on welfare rolls should never, ever play a part in a doctor’s decision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chris Valine, public information analyst for the medical board, said the office did receive Lieu’s letter but could not comment further, citing confidentiality requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_102889\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/07/08/female-inmates-sterilized/california-institution-for-women-3-664px/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-102889\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-102889 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/07/california-institution-for-women-3-664px-300x153.jpg\" alt=\" The California Institution for Women in Corona was one of two state prisons where female inmates were sterilized without required state approvals. At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules from 2006 to 2010. (Courtesy California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)\" width=\"300\" height=\"153\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The California Institution for Women in Corona was one of two state prisons where female inmates were sterilized without required state approvals. At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules from 2006 to 2010. (Courtesy California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dr. James Heinrich, a prison OB-GYN who referred women prisoners for the surgery, told CIR the money spent sterilizing inmates was minimal “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children – as they procreated more.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A former top medical official at Valley State Prison for Women, one of two prisons that sterilized female inmates, acknowledged seeking ways around the state’s 1984 ban on tubal ligations. That ban allowed the procedure only in life-threatening situations and with high-level state review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daun Martin said she and Heinrich believed the restriction was “unfair.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martin said she did not allow the procedures once she knew they were banned. But state records show at least 60 occurred under her watch without those approvals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joyce Hayhoe, speaking for the receivership, said officials there also were outraged over comments made by doctors in the CIR story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was clearly a practice that started in the prison system prior to the receivership – that we inherited,” Hayhoe said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Jerry Brown’s office referred requests for comment to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. As of publication, the state prison office had not commented.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a separate \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/725401-california-senators-asks-federal-receiver-for.html\">letter\u003c/a>, Jackson – vice chairwoman of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus – along with top leaders of the Senate and Assembly, told the receivership she would ask the California State Auditor to probe allegations that physicians under the federal receivership have coerced female inmates into sterilization procedures, including during labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The letter sharply criticized the office of the federal receiver, which has controlled prison health care since 2006. It asks the receiver to provide answers within two weeks concerning how women ended up sterilized while under federal control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/05/28/in-california-incarcerated-students-fall-through-gaps-in-special-education-laws/cir-logo-2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-98222\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-98222 alignright\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/05/CIR-logo-300x72.png\" alt=\"CIR logo\" width=\"300\" height=\"72\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documents obtained by CIR show the receiver’s office knew in 2008 that sterilizations were occurring. The office didn’t move to stop the procedures until 2010, after a prisoner advocacy group, Justice Now, filed a public records request and complained to state Sen. Carol Liu, D-Glendale. Liu was the chairwoman of the Select Committee on Women and Children in the Criminal Justice System.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As the federal Receiver, you were appointed by the three-judge panel to implement a lawful standard of medical care in California prisons. These instances of unauthorized tubal ligations under your watch violate California state laws,” the letter Tuesday to the receiver states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Pressuring a vulnerable population – including at least one documented instance of a patient under sedation, to undergo these extreme procedures erodes the ban on eugenics. In our view, such practice violates Constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment; protections that you were appointed to enforce.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former Valley State inmate Kimberly Jeffrey told CIR she was asked repeatedly to get sterilized, including while sedated and strapped to a surgical table for a C-section in 2010. Her hospital medical records indicate she declined the procedure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He said, ‘So we’re going to be doing this tubal ligation, right?’ ” Jeffrey said. “I’m like, ‘Tubal ligation? What are you talking about? I don’t want any procedure. I just want to have my baby.’ I went into a straight panic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jackson told CIR such allegations were “totally unacceptable and very alarming.” She said she wanted the public to know that she and her lawmaker colleagues are working hard to ensure that the unauthorized\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>sterilizations never happen again\u003cstrong>.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hayhoe, with the receivership, said it and members of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus discussed the letter during a meeting today. She said it would be no problem to answer any additional questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was edited by Amy Pyle. It was copy edited by Christine Lee.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "california-female-inmates-sterilized-without-approval",
"title": "California Female Inmates Sterilized Without State Approval",
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"headTitle": "California Female Inmates Sterilized Without State Approval | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>by Corey G. Johnson, \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Center For Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_102889\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 595px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/07/california-institution-for-women-3-664px.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-102889\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/07/california-institution-for-women-3-664px.jpg\" alt=\" The California Institution for Women in Corona was one of two state prisons where female inmates were sterilized without required state approvals. At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules from 2006 to 2010. (Courtesy California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) \" width=\"595\" height=\"315\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The California Institution for Women in Corona was one of two state prisons where female inmates were sterilized without required state approvals. At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules from 2006 to 2010. (Courtesy California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years – and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From 1997 to 2010, the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform the procedure, according to a database of contracted medical services for state prisoners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The women were signed up for the surgery while they were pregnant and housed at either the California Institution for Women in Corona or Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, which is now a men’s prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former inmates and prisoner advocates maintain that prison medical staff coerced the women, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crystal Nguyen, a former Valley State Prison inmate who worked in the prison’s infirmary during 2007, said she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s not right,’ ” Nguyen, 28, said. “Do they think they’re animals, and they don’t want them to breed anymore?” \u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One former Valley State inmate who gave birth to a son in October 2006 said the institution’s OB/GYN, Dr. James Heinrich, repeatedly pressured her to agree to a tubal ligation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_102895\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 328px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/07/califprison.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-102895\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/07/califprison.jpg\" alt=\" Crystal Nguyen, with her 6-year-old son, Neiko, in Pittsburg, Calif., is a former Valley State Prison for Women inmate. She worked in the prison's infirmary in 2007 and says she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized. (Noah Berger for The Center for Investigative Reporting) \" width=\"328\" height=\"218\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crystal Nguyen, with her 6-year-old son, Neiko, in Pittsburg, Calif., is a former Valley State Prison for Women inmate. She worked in the prison’s infirmary in 2007 and says she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized. (Noah Berger for The Center for Investigative Reporting)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“As soon as he found out that I had five kids, he suggested that I look into getting it done. The closer I got to my due date, the more he talked about it,” said Christina Cordero, 34, who spent two years in prison for auto theft. “He made me feel like a bad mother if I didn’t do it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cordero, released in 2008 and now living in Upland (San Bernardino County) agreed, but she says, “Today, I wish I would have never had it done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The allegations echo those made nearly a half-century ago, when forced sterilizations of prisoners, the mentally ill and the poor were commonplace in California. State lawmakers officially banned such practices in 1979.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During an interview with CIR, Heinrich said he provided an important service to poor women who faced health risks in future pregnancies because of past cesarean sections. The 69-year-old Bay Area physician denied pressuring anyone and expressed surprise that local contract doctors had charged for the surgeries. He described the $147,460 total as minimal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over a 10-year period, that isn’t a huge amount of money,” Heinrich said, “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children – as they procreated more.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The top medical manager at Valley State Prison from 2005 to 2008 characterized the surgeries as an empowerment issue for female inmates, providing them the same options as women on the outside. Daun Martin, a licensed psychologist, also claimed that some pregnant women, particularly those on drugs or who were homeless, would commit crimes so they could return to prison for better health care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Do I criticize those women for manipulating the system because they’re pregnant? Absolutely not,” Martin, 73, said. “But I don’t think it should happen. And I’d like to find ways to decrease that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\u003cstrong>Former inmates and prisoner advocates say prison medical staff coerced women into getting sterilized, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future.\u003c/strong>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Martin denied approving the surgeries, but at least 60 tubal ligations were done at Valley State while Martin was in charge, according to the state contracts database.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martin’s counterpart at the California Institution for Women, Dr. Jacqueline Long, declined to discuss why inmates received unauthorized tubal ligations under her watch. But the Corona prison’s former compliance officer, William Kelsey, said there was disagreement among staff members over the procedure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During one meeting in late 2005, a few correctional officers differed with Long’s medical team over adding tubal ligations to a local hospital’s contract, Kelsey, 57, said. The officers viewed the surgeries as nonessential medical care and questioned whether the state should pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were just fed up,” Kelsey said. “They didn’t think criminals and inmates had a right to the care we were providing them, and they let their personal opinions be heard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The service was included, however, and Kelsey said the grumbling subsided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal and state \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/724320-federal-and-state-law-on-sterilization-using.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">laws\u003c/a> ban inmate sterilizations if federal funds are used, reflecting concerns that prisoners might feel pressured to comply. California used state funds instead, but since 1994 the procedure has \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/724499-cdcr-excluded-medical-services-amp-other.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">required approval\u003c/a> from top medical officials in Sacramento on a case-by-case basis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet no tubal ligation requests have come before the health care committee responsible for approving such restricted surgeries, said Dr. Ricki Barnett, who tracks medical services and costs for the California Prison Health Care Receivership Corp. Barnett, 65, has led the Health Care Review Committee since joining the prison receiver’s office in 2008.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we heard about the tubal ligations, it made us all feel slightly queasy,” Barnett said. “It wasn’t so much that people were conspiratorial or coercive or sloppy. It concerns me that people never took a step back to project what they would feel if they were in the inmate’s shoes and what the inmate’s future might hold should they do this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeffrey Callison, spokesman for the state corrections department, said the department couldn’t comment because it no longer has access to inmate medical files.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All medical care for inmates, and all medical files, past and present, are under the control of the Receiver’s Office,” Callison wrote in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The receiver has overseen medical care in all 33 of the state’s prisons since 2006, when U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson of the Northern District of California ruled that the system’s health care was so poor that it violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The receiver’s office was aware that sterilizations were happening, records show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In September 2008, the prisoner rights group Justice Now received a written response to questions about the treatment of pregnant inmates from Tim Rougeux, then the receiver’s chief operating officer. \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/724322-receiver-response-to-justice-now-on-tubal.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The letter \u003c/a>acknowledged that the two prisons offered sterilization surgery to women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But nothing changed until 2010, after the Oakland-based organization filed a public records request and complained to the office of state Sen. Carol Liu, D-Glendale. Liu was the chairwoman of the Select Committee on Women and Children in the Criminal Justice System.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prompted by a phone call from Liu’s staff, Barnett said the receiver’s top medical officer asked her to research the matter. After analyzing medical and cost records, Barnett met in 2010 with officials at both women’s prisons and contract health professionals affiliated with nearby hospitals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During those meetings, Barnett told them to halt inmate sterilizations. In response, she said, she got an earful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 16-year-old restriction on tubal ligations seemed to be news to prison health administrators, doctors, nurses and the contracting physicians, Barnett recalled. And, she said, none of the doctors thought they needed permission to perform the surgery on inmates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody was operating on the fact that this was a perfectly reasonable thing to do,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Risk factors\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martin, the Valley State Prison medical manager, said she and her staff had discovered the procedure was restricted five years earlier. Someone had complained about the sterilization of an inmate who had at least six children, Martin recalled. That prompted Martin to research the prison’s medical rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After learning of the restrictions, Martin told CIR that she and Heinrich began to look for ways around them. Both believed the rules were unfair to women, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m sure that on a couple of occasions, (Heinrich) brought an issue to me saying, ‘Mary Smith is having a medical emergency’ kind of thing, and we ought to have a tubal ligation. She’s got six kids. Can we do it?’ ” Martin said. “And I said, ‘Well, if you document it as a medical emergency, perhaps.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heinrich said he offered tubal ligations only to pregnant inmates with a history of at least three C-sections. Additional pregnancies would be dangerous for these women, Heinrich said, because scar tissue inside the uterus could tear, resulting in massive blood loss and possible death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a medical problem that we had to make them aware of,” Heinrich said. “It’s up to the doctor who’s delivering (your baby) … to make you aware of what’s going on. We’re at risk for not telling them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former inmates tell a different story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michelle Anderson, who gave birth in December 2006 while at Valley State, said she’d had one prior C-section. Anderson, 44, repeatedly was asked to agree to be sterilized, she said, and was not told what risk factors led to the requests. She refused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nikki Montano also had had one C-section before she landed at Valley State in 2008, pregnant and battling drug addiction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Montano, 42, was serving time after pleading guilty to burglary, forgery and receiving stolen property. The mother of seven children, she said neither Heinrich nor the medical staff told her why she needed a tubal ligation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I figured that’s just what happens in prison – that that’s the best kind of doctor you’re going to get,” Montano said. “He never told me nothing about nothing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Montano eagerly agreed to the surgery and said she still considers it a positive in her life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, an OB-GYN at San Francisco General Hospital who teaches at UC San Francisco, said it is not common practice to offer tubal ligations to women who’ve had one C-section. She confirmed that having multiple C-sections increases the risk of complications, but even then, she said, it’s more appropriate to offer women reversible means of birth control, like intrauterine devices or implants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every C-section, every situation is different,” Sufrin said. “Some people with more prior C-sections have absolutely no problems and no risks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>History in eugenics\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To be sure, tubal ligations represented a small portion of the medical care provided to pregnant inmates. Statistics and a report from the prison receiver’s office show that from 2000 to 2010, 2,423 women gave birth while imprisoned in California, costing the state $2.7 million. Fewer than one in 10 were surgically sterilized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the numbers don’t tell the full story. California still grapples with an ugly past: Under compulsory sterilization laws here and in 31 other states, minority groups, the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill and criminals were singled out as inferior and sterilized to prevent them from spreading their genes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was known as eugenics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 1909 and 1964, about 20,000 women and men in California were stripped of the ability to reproduce – making the state the nation’s most prolific sterilizer. Historians say Nazi Germany sought the advice of the state’s eugenics leaders in the 1930s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2003, the state Senate held two hearings to expose this history, featuring testimony from researchers, academics and state officials. In response, then-Attorney General Bill Lockyer and Gov. Gray Davis issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/724326-eugenic-apologies-from-gov-gray-davis-and-ag.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">formal apologies.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our hearts are heavy for the pain caused by eugenics. It was a sad and regrettable chapter in the state’s history, and it is one that must never be repeated again,” Davis said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Missing from the hearings was the perspective of state prison officials. Then-Corrections Director Edward Alameida Jr. had informed the Senate committee that the prison system lacked records about sterilizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While obviously this was a dark chapter in our State’s history, the CDC (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) played a minuscule role,” Alameida wrote in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/724327-state-corrections-director-snubs-eugenics.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">June 2003 letter\u003c/a>. “Thus our participation in your hearing would provide no substantial information on that role and I do not believe our presence would contribute in any way toward your objectives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Alexandra Minna Stern, a professor at the University of Michigan and leading expert on California sterilization, cited state prison activity among the lingering questions from that era. \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/724329-dr-alexandra-minna-stern-testimony-on-ca.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stern testified\u003c/a> during the hearings that she found in private hands and university archives evidence of 600 sterilizations at San Quentin State Prison prior to 1941 that were not included in official numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California sterilizers, Stern told the committee, consistently viewed their work as humane and cost saving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the goals … and this is critical to understanding the history of eugenics in California – was to save money: how to limit welfare and relief,” Stern told them, according to a transcript of her presentation. “And sterilization is very much tied up in this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Seeking patient consent\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawsuits, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling and public outrage over eugenics and similar sterilization abuses in Alabama and New York spawned new requirements in the 1970s for doctors to fully inform patients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, it’s been illegal to pressure anyone to be sterilized or ask for consent during labor or childbirth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, Kimberly Jeffrey says she was pressured by a doctor while sedated and strapped to a surgical table for a C-section in 2010, during a stint at Valley State for a parole violation. Jeffrey, 43, was horrified, she said, and resisted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He said, ‘So we’re going to be doing this tubal ligation, right?’ ” Jeffrey said. “I’m like, ‘Tubal ligation? What are you talking about? I don’t want any procedure. I just want to have my baby.’ I went into a straight panic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeffrey provided copies of her official prison and hospital medical files to CIR. Those records show Jeffrey rejected a tubal ligation offer during a December 2009 prenatal checkup at Heinrich’s office. \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/724494-kimberly-jeffrey-declines-tubal-ligation.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A medical report\u003c/a> from Jeffrey’s C-section a month later noted that she again refused a tubal ligation request made after she arrived at Madera Community Hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At no time did anyone explain to her any medical justifications for tubal ligation, Jeffrey said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That experience still haunts Jeffrey, who lives in San Francisco with her 3-year-old son, Noel. She speaks to groups seeking to improve conditions for female prisoners and has lobbied legislators in Sacramento. Jeffrey recently completed her ACT college-entrance test and hopes to pursue a degree at San Francisco State University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Being treated like I was less than human produced in me a despair,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State prison officials “are the real repeat offenders,” Jeffrey added. “They repeatedly offended me by denying me my right to dignity and humanity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dorothy Roberts, a University of Pennsylvania law professor and expert on sterilization, said courts have concluded that soliciting approval for sterilization during labor is coercive because pain and discomfort can impair a woman’s ability to weigh the decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If this was happening in a federal prison, it would be illegal,” Roberts said. “There are specific situations where you cannot say it’s informed consent, and one of them is during childbirth or labor. No woman should give consent on the operating table.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heinrich considers the questions raised about his medical care unfair and said he is suspicious about the women’s motives. Heinrich insists he worked hard to give inmates high-quality medical treatment, adding that hundreds of appreciative prisoners could vouch for that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They all wanted it done,” he said of the sterilizations. “If they come a year or two later saying, ‘Somebody forced me to have this done,’ that’s a lie. That’s somebody looking for the state to give them a handout.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My guess is that the only reason you do that is not because you feel wronged, but that you want to stay on the state’s dole somehow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barnett declined to say whether Heinrich’s practices had been reviewed by the receiver’s office, citing employee confidentially laws. Initially, she said she believed Heinrich had left the prison system. However, shortly after retiring in 2011, Heinrich returned in another role. He’s currently listed as one of the prison’s contract physicians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barnett stressed thaft she sought only to end prison sterilizations, not to investigate officials or interview inmates to discover whether abuses occurred.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Did Dr. Heinrich say improper things? I can’t say,” she added. “Is our process sufficiently draconian enough to weed out bad actors? We have a lot of civil service processes. Is it 100 percent effective? Is it the best process we can come up with? No, of course not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was edited by Amy Pyle. It was copy edited by Nikki Frick and Christine Lee.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"title": "California Female Inmates Sterilized Without State Approval | KQED",
"description": "by Corey G. Johnson, Center For Investigative Reporting Doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, the Center for Investigative Reporting has found. At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years – and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews. From 1997 to 2010, the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform the procedure, according to a database of contracted medical services for state prisoners. The women",
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"headline": "California Female Inmates Sterilized Without State Approval",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>by Corey G. Johnson, \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Center For Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_102889\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 595px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/07/california-institution-for-women-3-664px.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-102889\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/07/california-institution-for-women-3-664px.jpg\" alt=\" The California Institution for Women in Corona was one of two state prisons where female inmates were sterilized without required state approvals. At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules from 2006 to 2010. (Courtesy California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) \" width=\"595\" height=\"315\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The California Institution for Women in Corona was one of two state prisons where female inmates were sterilized without required state approvals. At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules from 2006 to 2010. (Courtesy California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years – and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From 1997 to 2010, the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform the procedure, according to a database of contracted medical services for state prisoners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The women were signed up for the surgery while they were pregnant and housed at either the California Institution for Women in Corona or Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, which is now a men’s prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former inmates and prisoner advocates maintain that prison medical staff coerced the women, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crystal Nguyen, a former Valley State Prison inmate who worked in the prison’s infirmary during 2007, said she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s not right,’ ” Nguyen, 28, said. “Do they think they’re animals, and they don’t want them to breed anymore?” \u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One former Valley State inmate who gave birth to a son in October 2006 said the institution’s OB/GYN, Dr. James Heinrich, repeatedly pressured her to agree to a tubal ligation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_102895\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 328px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/07/califprison.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-102895\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/07/califprison.jpg\" alt=\" Crystal Nguyen, with her 6-year-old son, Neiko, in Pittsburg, Calif., is a former Valley State Prison for Women inmate. She worked in the prison's infirmary in 2007 and says she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized. (Noah Berger for The Center for Investigative Reporting) \" width=\"328\" height=\"218\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crystal Nguyen, with her 6-year-old son, Neiko, in Pittsburg, Calif., is a former Valley State Prison for Women inmate. She worked in the prison’s infirmary in 2007 and says she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized. (Noah Berger for The Center for Investigative Reporting)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“As soon as he found out that I had five kids, he suggested that I look into getting it done. The closer I got to my due date, the more he talked about it,” said Christina Cordero, 34, who spent two years in prison for auto theft. “He made me feel like a bad mother if I didn’t do it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cordero, released in 2008 and now living in Upland (San Bernardino County) agreed, but she says, “Today, I wish I would have never had it done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The allegations echo those made nearly a half-century ago, when forced sterilizations of prisoners, the mentally ill and the poor were commonplace in California. State lawmakers officially banned such practices in 1979.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During an interview with CIR, Heinrich said he provided an important service to poor women who faced health risks in future pregnancies because of past cesarean sections. The 69-year-old Bay Area physician denied pressuring anyone and expressed surprise that local contract doctors had charged for the surgeries. He described the $147,460 total as minimal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over a 10-year period, that isn’t a huge amount of money,” Heinrich said, “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children – as they procreated more.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The top medical manager at Valley State Prison from 2005 to 2008 characterized the surgeries as an empowerment issue for female inmates, providing them the same options as women on the outside. Daun Martin, a licensed psychologist, also claimed that some pregnant women, particularly those on drugs or who were homeless, would commit crimes so they could return to prison for better health care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Do I criticize those women for manipulating the system because they’re pregnant? Absolutely not,” Martin, 73, said. “But I don’t think it should happen. And I’d like to find ways to decrease that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\u003cstrong>Former inmates and prisoner advocates say prison medical staff coerced women into getting sterilized, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future.\u003c/strong>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Martin denied approving the surgeries, but at least 60 tubal ligations were done at Valley State while Martin was in charge, according to the state contracts database.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martin’s counterpart at the California Institution for Women, Dr. Jacqueline Long, declined to discuss why inmates received unauthorized tubal ligations under her watch. But the Corona prison’s former compliance officer, William Kelsey, said there was disagreement among staff members over the procedure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During one meeting in late 2005, a few correctional officers differed with Long’s medical team over adding tubal ligations to a local hospital’s contract, Kelsey, 57, said. The officers viewed the surgeries as nonessential medical care and questioned whether the state should pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were just fed up,” Kelsey said. “They didn’t think criminals and inmates had a right to the care we were providing them, and they let their personal opinions be heard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The service was included, however, and Kelsey said the grumbling subsided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal and state \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/724320-federal-and-state-law-on-sterilization-using.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">laws\u003c/a> ban inmate sterilizations if federal funds are used, reflecting concerns that prisoners might feel pressured to comply. California used state funds instead, but since 1994 the procedure has \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/724499-cdcr-excluded-medical-services-amp-other.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">required approval\u003c/a> from top medical officials in Sacramento on a case-by-case basis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet no tubal ligation requests have come before the health care committee responsible for approving such restricted surgeries, said Dr. Ricki Barnett, who tracks medical services and costs for the California Prison Health Care Receivership Corp. Barnett, 65, has led the Health Care Review Committee since joining the prison receiver’s office in 2008.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we heard about the tubal ligations, it made us all feel slightly queasy,” Barnett said. “It wasn’t so much that people were conspiratorial or coercive or sloppy. It concerns me that people never took a step back to project what they would feel if they were in the inmate’s shoes and what the inmate’s future might hold should they do this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeffrey Callison, spokesman for the state corrections department, said the department couldn’t comment because it no longer has access to inmate medical files.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All medical care for inmates, and all medical files, past and present, are under the control of the Receiver’s Office,” Callison wrote in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The receiver has overseen medical care in all 33 of the state’s prisons since 2006, when U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson of the Northern District of California ruled that the system’s health care was so poor that it violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The receiver’s office was aware that sterilizations were happening, records show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In September 2008, the prisoner rights group Justice Now received a written response to questions about the treatment of pregnant inmates from Tim Rougeux, then the receiver’s chief operating officer. \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/724322-receiver-response-to-justice-now-on-tubal.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The letter \u003c/a>acknowledged that the two prisons offered sterilization surgery to women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But nothing changed until 2010, after the Oakland-based organization filed a public records request and complained to the office of state Sen. Carol Liu, D-Glendale. Liu was the chairwoman of the Select Committee on Women and Children in the Criminal Justice System.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prompted by a phone call from Liu’s staff, Barnett said the receiver’s top medical officer asked her to research the matter. After analyzing medical and cost records, Barnett met in 2010 with officials at both women’s prisons and contract health professionals affiliated with nearby hospitals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During those meetings, Barnett told them to halt inmate sterilizations. In response, she said, she got an earful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 16-year-old restriction on tubal ligations seemed to be news to prison health administrators, doctors, nurses and the contracting physicians, Barnett recalled. And, she said, none of the doctors thought they needed permission to perform the surgery on inmates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody was operating on the fact that this was a perfectly reasonable thing to do,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Risk factors\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martin, the Valley State Prison medical manager, said she and her staff had discovered the procedure was restricted five years earlier. Someone had complained about the sterilization of an inmate who had at least six children, Martin recalled. That prompted Martin to research the prison’s medical rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After learning of the restrictions, Martin told CIR that she and Heinrich began to look for ways around them. Both believed the rules were unfair to women, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m sure that on a couple of occasions, (Heinrich) brought an issue to me saying, ‘Mary Smith is having a medical emergency’ kind of thing, and we ought to have a tubal ligation. She’s got six kids. Can we do it?’ ” Martin said. “And I said, ‘Well, if you document it as a medical emergency, perhaps.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heinrich said he offered tubal ligations only to pregnant inmates with a history of at least three C-sections. Additional pregnancies would be dangerous for these women, Heinrich said, because scar tissue inside the uterus could tear, resulting in massive blood loss and possible death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a medical problem that we had to make them aware of,” Heinrich said. “It’s up to the doctor who’s delivering (your baby) … to make you aware of what’s going on. We’re at risk for not telling them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former inmates tell a different story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michelle Anderson, who gave birth in December 2006 while at Valley State, said she’d had one prior C-section. Anderson, 44, repeatedly was asked to agree to be sterilized, she said, and was not told what risk factors led to the requests. She refused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nikki Montano also had had one C-section before she landed at Valley State in 2008, pregnant and battling drug addiction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Montano, 42, was serving time after pleading guilty to burglary, forgery and receiving stolen property. The mother of seven children, she said neither Heinrich nor the medical staff told her why she needed a tubal ligation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I figured that’s just what happens in prison – that that’s the best kind of doctor you’re going to get,” Montano said. “He never told me nothing about nothing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Montano eagerly agreed to the surgery and said she still considers it a positive in her life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, an OB-GYN at San Francisco General Hospital who teaches at UC San Francisco, said it is not common practice to offer tubal ligations to women who’ve had one C-section. She confirmed that having multiple C-sections increases the risk of complications, but even then, she said, it’s more appropriate to offer women reversible means of birth control, like intrauterine devices or implants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every C-section, every situation is different,” Sufrin said. “Some people with more prior C-sections have absolutely no problems and no risks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>History in eugenics\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To be sure, tubal ligations represented a small portion of the medical care provided to pregnant inmates. Statistics and a report from the prison receiver’s office show that from 2000 to 2010, 2,423 women gave birth while imprisoned in California, costing the state $2.7 million. Fewer than one in 10 were surgically sterilized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the numbers don’t tell the full story. California still grapples with an ugly past: Under compulsory sterilization laws here and in 31 other states, minority groups, the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill and criminals were singled out as inferior and sterilized to prevent them from spreading their genes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was known as eugenics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 1909 and 1964, about 20,000 women and men in California were stripped of the ability to reproduce – making the state the nation’s most prolific sterilizer. Historians say Nazi Germany sought the advice of the state’s eugenics leaders in the 1930s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2003, the state Senate held two hearings to expose this history, featuring testimony from researchers, academics and state officials. In response, then-Attorney General Bill Lockyer and Gov. Gray Davis issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/724326-eugenic-apologies-from-gov-gray-davis-and-ag.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">formal apologies.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our hearts are heavy for the pain caused by eugenics. It was a sad and regrettable chapter in the state’s history, and it is one that must never be repeated again,” Davis said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Missing from the hearings was the perspective of state prison officials. Then-Corrections Director Edward Alameida Jr. had informed the Senate committee that the prison system lacked records about sterilizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While obviously this was a dark chapter in our State’s history, the CDC (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) played a minuscule role,” Alameida wrote in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/724327-state-corrections-director-snubs-eugenics.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">June 2003 letter\u003c/a>. “Thus our participation in your hearing would provide no substantial information on that role and I do not believe our presence would contribute in any way toward your objectives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Alexandra Minna Stern, a professor at the University of Michigan and leading expert on California sterilization, cited state prison activity among the lingering questions from that era. \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/724329-dr-alexandra-minna-stern-testimony-on-ca.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stern testified\u003c/a> during the hearings that she found in private hands and university archives evidence of 600 sterilizations at San Quentin State Prison prior to 1941 that were not included in official numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California sterilizers, Stern told the committee, consistently viewed their work as humane and cost saving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the goals … and this is critical to understanding the history of eugenics in California – was to save money: how to limit welfare and relief,” Stern told them, according to a transcript of her presentation. “And sterilization is very much tied up in this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Seeking patient consent\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawsuits, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling and public outrage over eugenics and similar sterilization abuses in Alabama and New York spawned new requirements in the 1970s for doctors to fully inform patients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, it’s been illegal to pressure anyone to be sterilized or ask for consent during labor or childbirth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, Kimberly Jeffrey says she was pressured by a doctor while sedated and strapped to a surgical table for a C-section in 2010, during a stint at Valley State for a parole violation. Jeffrey, 43, was horrified, she said, and resisted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He said, ‘So we’re going to be doing this tubal ligation, right?’ ” Jeffrey said. “I’m like, ‘Tubal ligation? What are you talking about? I don’t want any procedure. I just want to have my baby.’ I went into a straight panic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeffrey provided copies of her official prison and hospital medical files to CIR. Those records show Jeffrey rejected a tubal ligation offer during a December 2009 prenatal checkup at Heinrich’s office. \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/724494-kimberly-jeffrey-declines-tubal-ligation.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A medical report\u003c/a> from Jeffrey’s C-section a month later noted that she again refused a tubal ligation request made after she arrived at Madera Community Hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At no time did anyone explain to her any medical justifications for tubal ligation, Jeffrey said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That experience still haunts Jeffrey, who lives in San Francisco with her 3-year-old son, Noel. She speaks to groups seeking to improve conditions for female prisoners and has lobbied legislators in Sacramento. Jeffrey recently completed her ACT college-entrance test and hopes to pursue a degree at San Francisco State University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Being treated like I was less than human produced in me a despair,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State prison officials “are the real repeat offenders,” Jeffrey added. “They repeatedly offended me by denying me my right to dignity and humanity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dorothy Roberts, a University of Pennsylvania law professor and expert on sterilization, said courts have concluded that soliciting approval for sterilization during labor is coercive because pain and discomfort can impair a woman’s ability to weigh the decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If this was happening in a federal prison, it would be illegal,” Roberts said. “There are specific situations where you cannot say it’s informed consent, and one of them is during childbirth or labor. No woman should give consent on the operating table.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heinrich considers the questions raised about his medical care unfair and said he is suspicious about the women’s motives. Heinrich insists he worked hard to give inmates high-quality medical treatment, adding that hundreds of appreciative prisoners could vouch for that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They all wanted it done,” he said of the sterilizations. “If they come a year or two later saying, ‘Somebody forced me to have this done,’ that’s a lie. That’s somebody looking for the state to give them a handout.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My guess is that the only reason you do that is not because you feel wronged, but that you want to stay on the state’s dole somehow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barnett declined to say whether Heinrich’s practices had been reviewed by the receiver’s office, citing employee confidentially laws. Initially, she said she believed Heinrich had left the prison system. However, shortly after retiring in 2011, Heinrich returned in another role. He’s currently listed as one of the prison’s contract physicians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barnett stressed thaft she sought only to end prison sterilizations, not to investigate officials or interview inmates to discover whether abuses occurred.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Did Dr. Heinrich say improper things? I can’t say,” she added. “Is our process sufficiently draconian enough to weed out bad actors? We have a lot of civil service processes. Is it 100 percent effective? Is it the best process we can come up with? No, of course not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A panel of federal judges refused Wednesday to delay its order that California release nearly 10,000 additional inmates by the end of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_94046\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/04/chinoprison.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-94046\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/04/chinoprison-300x194.jpg\" alt=\"An inmate at Chino State Prison sleeps on his bunk bed in a gymnasium that was modified to house prisoners on December 10, 2010 in Chino, California. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)\" width=\"300\" height=\"194\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An inmate at Chino State Prison sleeps on his bunk bed in a gymnasium that was modified to house prisoners on December 10, 2010 in Chino, California. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The decision rejecting a request by Gov. Jerry Brown pushed the long-running court battle back to the U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether poor medical and mental health care violate the constitutional rights of inmates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Brown administration has said it would seek a stay from Justice Anthony Kennedy if the delay was denied. Kennedy oversees appeals from western states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Kennedy declines to intervene, the state has said it will begin freeing inmates to comply with the lower court order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"After this long history of defendants' noncompliance, this court cannot in good conscience grant a stay that would allow defendants to both not satisfy the population reduction order and re-litigate the Supreme Court's emphatic decision in the very case before us,\" the court said in its 24-page ruling. \u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown and corrections officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lower court last month instructed the Democratic governor to immediately begin taking steps that include expanding good time credits leading to early release to reduce crowding and improve inmate care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The three judges again rejected Brown's argument that doing so would threaten public safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other states have used similar measures to reduce their inmate populations, the judges said, and the early release credits were endorsed by experts including Jeffrey Beard before he became California's corrections secretary.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A panel of federal judges on Thursday rejected Gov. Jerry Brown's attempt to circumvent its long-standing order for reducing California's prison population, the latest step in an ongoing legal drama over how to improve the medical and mental health care for state inmates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_100716\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-100716\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/06/RS50_ChinoStatePrisonInmates20130108-scr-300x215.jpg\" alt=\"File photo. An inmate at Chino State Prison. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)\" width=\"300\" height=\"215\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">File photo. An inmate at Chino State Prison. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The judges stopped short of citing the Democratic governor for contempt of court, as they had threatened earlier this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan submitted by the Brown administration in May to further reduce the inmate population failed to meet the judges' mandate because it fell short of the court-ordered population cap by 2,300 inmates, the judges said in their 51-page order. That order has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The judges reiterated in their ruling that the governor must comply with the original order to reduce the population to 110,000 inmates by the end of the year. They ordered Brown to take all the steps he outlined in May, as well as one more step — the expansion of good-time credits leading to early release. Brown had offered that as an option, but it was not one he was willing to embrace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The governor's plan for getting closer to the required level called for sending more inmates to firefighting camps, leasing cells at county jails, slowing the return of thousands of inmates now housed in private prisons in other states, increasing early release credits for nonviolent inmates and paroling elderly felons. \u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The judges said they want the administration to implement all the measures regardless of whether they conflict with any state or local laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ruling from the three-judge panel was expected, and the governor already has filed notice that he intends to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deborah Hoffman, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said the administration is reviewing the order and had no immediate comment. However, the administration is expected to ask the courts to stay the judges' order while its appeal is underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At issue is how far the state must go in reducing its inmate population to meet a previous court order to improve medical and mental health treatment. The courts have said that prison overcrowding is the main cause of care that fails to meet the constitutional guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>“I haven’t seen the moon since 1998.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s inmate Jeremy Beasley, talking to me while sitting–shackled–in an interview room at Pelican Bay State Prison, California’s highest security lockup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beasley, a convicted murderer, was clearly surprised by my presence—he told me he hadn’t met with a visitor since 1994, when he was incarcerated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not just the moon Beasley hadn’t seen in 15 years. During that time, in fact, Beasley rarely glimpsed the outside world. Before being transferred to another prison, he was held in Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit, a windowless, bunker-like facility that houses more than 1,000 California inmates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For 22-and-a-half hours a day, each inmate here is locked, usually alone, in an 8-by-10 feet cell. For 90 minutes the inmate is allowed to exercise in an adjacent room with 25-30 feet high walls. And that’s their entire day — every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve seen guys lose their minds back here,” Beasley tells me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRO9BHbF9GA&w=800&h=450]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isolation Unit Conditions: Torture?\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monday in Sacramento lawmakers are delving into a growing national controversy over special security units like Pelican Bay’s that are used to isolate thousands of inmates from the regular prison population. Civil rights groups say long-term isolation amounts to torture, while state corrections officials say the units are necessary and the conditions are humane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around the state there are four of these Security Housing Unit facilities. Pelican Bay’s is the most controversial.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\u003cstrong>For 22-and-a-half hours a day, each inmate is locked, usually alone, in an 8-by-10 feet cell. They get 90 minutes of exercise in an adjacent room. That’s their entire day — every day\u003c/strong>.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Conditions in the units are one part of the debate. Many inmates are held in windowless cells and have been denied everything from calendars and sweatpants to phone calls. Also at issue: criteria that determine which prisoners are placed there and how they can get back into the regular population again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there is the long amount of time some inmates spend in the facilities. More than 500 California prisoners have been locked in the special units for 10 years or longer, according to state data. Of those, 78 prisoners have been held inside for more than 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the years, authorities have allowed media into Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit, but access has been limited and the inmates carefully selected by the prison staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, top corrections officials granted unusual access to a team of reporters and videographers from the Center for Investigative Reporting and KQED. We visited all areas of Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit except for a section that houses leaders of a 2011 hunger strike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using a small camera mounted to a wall, our team recorded Beasley exercising with a rubber handball in the small concrete pen (prison staff began allowing the balls last year). At all other times–day and night—he was held in his cell, alone. While skylights allow filtered sunlight into the units, there are no windows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://www.scribd.com/doc/127065819/Ruiz-Amended-Complaint-May-31-2012\" target=\"_blank\">class action lawsuit\u003c/a> filed last year by a coalition of civil rights groups states:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>California’s uniquely harsh regime of prolonged solitary confinement at Pelican Bay is inhumane and debilitating. Plaintiffs and class members languish, typically alone, in a cramped, concrete, windowless cell, for 22 and one-half to 24 hours a day. They are denied telephone calls, contact visits, and vocational, recreational or educational programming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Defendants persistently deny these men the normal human contact necessary for a person’s mental and physical wellbeing. These tormenting and prolonged conditions of confinement have produced harmful and predictable psychological deterioration among Plaintiffs and class members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solitary confinement regime at Pelican Bay, which renders California an outlier in this country and in the civilized world, violates the United States Constitution’s requirement of due process and prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, as well as the most basic human rights prohibitions against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Indeed, the prolonged conditions of brutal confinement and isolation at Pelican Bay cross over from having any valid penological purpose into a system rightly condemned as torture by the international community.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>But state corrections officials maintain that conditions in the special units are humane; that they do not practice solitary confinement; that inmates are “segregated” but not “isolated”; and that there is a valid purpose for keeping prisoners in the units—protecting other inmates, staff and the public from men who have been linked to violent prison gangs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are the men who are propagating the violence, the drug trafficking, the extortions and the murders throughout the larger communities of our state,” said Pelican Bay warden Greg Lewis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>New prison policy\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_90081\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/prison+isolation+video/_mg_0800/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-90081\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-90081\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/02/MG_0800-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Units at Pelican Bay's Security Housing Units have no windows, so inmates' only regular view of the outside world is through the top of the exercise pens. (Monica Lam/CIR)\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Units at Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Units have no windows so inmates’ only regular view of the outside world is through the top of the exercise pens. (Monica Lam/CIR)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Without conceding any shortcomings, however, corrections officials are embarking on a new policy to bring in more educational and self-help programs, and to reduce the amount of time some inmates spend in the units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since last October, officials have reviewed the cases of 144 inmates and determined that 75 should be transferred immediately to regular prisons because they were not active in gangs. Some of the inmates have been held in the special units for more than 20 years, according to Kelly Harrington, an associate corrections director.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pelican Bay inmates who led the 2011 hunger strike, as well as some prisoner rights groups, have denounced the new policy and are threatening more protests this summer. Amid a long list of demands, they are seeking shorter, fixed terms for inmates in the special units (currently, most are held there on “indeterminate” terms), more programs and more frequent visits with family members.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\u003cstrong>I believe that some people should be isolated. If they were to cut me loose before I debriefed and I went back to the mainline, I would have killed somebody…”\u003c/strong>\n\u003cp>–Convicted murderer Jeremy Beasley\u003c/p>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>For his part, Jeremy Beasley said that while the conditions at Pelican Bay are awful, he doesn’t think they amount to solitary confinement. Although he can’t see other inmates from his cell (doors are made of perforated steel and face a wall), Beasley says he can carry on conversations with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “It sucks in here. I hate it. But some prisoners have found that they can get a lot of attention by exaggerating how bad it is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beasley said he was an active member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a white-power gang, and committed assaults on behalf of the group. He agreed to drop out and provide authorities with incriminating information about other members, a process known as “debriefing.” In exchange, officials recently transferred Beasley to a different prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I believe that some people should be isolated. If they were to cut me loose before I debriefed and I went back to the mainline,” he said, using the term for the general prison population, “I would have killed somebody or at the very least I would have stabbed somebody else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other Pelican Bay inmates see it differently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is only one option to get out of here and that is to make up lies about other people,” said 39-year-old Henry Albanez, who is serving a 27-year sentence for kidnapping. Albanez said he expected the department’s new policies would fail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_90082\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/prison+isolation+video/_mg_0830/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-90082\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-90082\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/02/MG_0830-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Pelican Bay's Security Housing Unit is organized into small pods housing eight cells set side-by-side on two tiers. Through the perforated steel doors inmates can only see a blank wall. (Monica Lam/CIR)\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit is organized into small pods housing eight cells set side-by-side on two tiers. Through the perforated steel doors inmates can only see a blank wall. (Monica Lam/CIR)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“How do you expect to take all of these guys out of the SHU (Security Housing Unit) and throw them in the same yard and expect them to get along when you have all this sensory deprivation,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Albanez said he probably would take part in a new step-down program that begins later this year. Corrections officials have said the program allows inmates to earn their way out of the special units in 2-4 years without being required to renounce the gangs they have been affiliated with. Instead, they must declare that they won’t participate in gang activity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who visited Pelican Bay early this month, said he found the prison clean and professionally staffed but was troubled thinking that some inmates are locked up for decades in small cells with little or no regular human contact. Inmates must also be shackled whenever they are outside their cells and in the presence of another individual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do think it’s psychologically devastating to be in such a tight space for so long,” Ammiano said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What, then, about the question of torture?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ammiano said the strangest thing he saw at the prison was a group therapy room where inmates are locked in small cages during sessions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Could I say that’s torture? Perhaps I could,” he said. “But did we witness any torture? No.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>You can listen to Michael Montgomery report from California’s most controversial, highest security lockup on Monday morning on The California Report, on the \u003ca href=\"http://www.californiareport.org/tunein/\" target=\"_blank\">following stations\u003c/a> around the state. The report will also be \u003ca href=\"http://www.californiareport.org/\" target=\"_blank\">archived at the show’s web site\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was produced in collaboration with the Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"title": "Does 22 1/2 Hours Alone in an 8 x 10 Cell Every Day Amount to Torture? Video From Inside Pelican Bay Prison | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>“I haven’t seen the moon since 1998.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s inmate Jeremy Beasley, talking to me while sitting–shackled–in an interview room at Pelican Bay State Prison, California’s highest security lockup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beasley, a convicted murderer, was clearly surprised by my presence—he told me he hadn’t met with a visitor since 1994, when he was incarcerated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not just the moon Beasley hadn’t seen in 15 years. During that time, in fact, Beasley rarely glimpsed the outside world. Before being transferred to another prison, he was held in Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit, a windowless, bunker-like facility that houses more than 1,000 California inmates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For 22-and-a-half hours a day, each inmate here is locked, usually alone, in an 8-by-10 feet cell. For 90 minutes the inmate is allowed to exercise in an adjacent room with 25-30 feet high walls. And that’s their entire day — every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve seen guys lose their minds back here,” Beasley tells me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/wRO9BHbF9GA'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/wRO9BHbF9GA'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isolation Unit Conditions: Torture?\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monday in Sacramento lawmakers are delving into a growing national controversy over special security units like Pelican Bay’s that are used to isolate thousands of inmates from the regular prison population. Civil rights groups say long-term isolation amounts to torture, while state corrections officials say the units are necessary and the conditions are humane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around the state there are four of these Security Housing Unit facilities. Pelican Bay’s is the most controversial.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\u003cstrong>For 22-and-a-half hours a day, each inmate is locked, usually alone, in an 8-by-10 feet cell. They get 90 minutes of exercise in an adjacent room. That’s their entire day — every day\u003c/strong>.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Conditions in the units are one part of the debate. Many inmates are held in windowless cells and have been denied everything from calendars and sweatpants to phone calls. Also at issue: criteria that determine which prisoners are placed there and how they can get back into the regular population again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there is the long amount of time some inmates spend in the facilities. More than 500 California prisoners have been locked in the special units for 10 years or longer, according to state data. Of those, 78 prisoners have been held inside for more than 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the years, authorities have allowed media into Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit, but access has been limited and the inmates carefully selected by the prison staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, top corrections officials granted unusual access to a team of reporters and videographers from the Center for Investigative Reporting and KQED. We visited all areas of Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit except for a section that houses leaders of a 2011 hunger strike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using a small camera mounted to a wall, our team recorded Beasley exercising with a rubber handball in the small concrete pen (prison staff began allowing the balls last year). At all other times–day and night—he was held in his cell, alone. While skylights allow filtered sunlight into the units, there are no windows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://www.scribd.com/doc/127065819/Ruiz-Amended-Complaint-May-31-2012\" target=\"_blank\">class action lawsuit\u003c/a> filed last year by a coalition of civil rights groups states:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>California’s uniquely harsh regime of prolonged solitary confinement at Pelican Bay is inhumane and debilitating. Plaintiffs and class members languish, typically alone, in a cramped, concrete, windowless cell, for 22 and one-half to 24 hours a day. They are denied telephone calls, contact visits, and vocational, recreational or educational programming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Defendants persistently deny these men the normal human contact necessary for a person’s mental and physical wellbeing. These tormenting and prolonged conditions of confinement have produced harmful and predictable psychological deterioration among Plaintiffs and class members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solitary confinement regime at Pelican Bay, which renders California an outlier in this country and in the civilized world, violates the United States Constitution’s requirement of due process and prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, as well as the most basic human rights prohibitions against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Indeed, the prolonged conditions of brutal confinement and isolation at Pelican Bay cross over from having any valid penological purpose into a system rightly condemned as torture by the international community.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>But state corrections officials maintain that conditions in the special units are humane; that they do not practice solitary confinement; that inmates are “segregated” but not “isolated”; and that there is a valid purpose for keeping prisoners in the units—protecting other inmates, staff and the public from men who have been linked to violent prison gangs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are the men who are propagating the violence, the drug trafficking, the extortions and the murders throughout the larger communities of our state,” said Pelican Bay warden Greg Lewis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>New prison policy\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_90081\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/prison+isolation+video/_mg_0800/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-90081\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-90081\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/02/MG_0800-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Units at Pelican Bay's Security Housing Units have no windows, so inmates' only regular view of the outside world is through the top of the exercise pens. (Monica Lam/CIR)\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Units at Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Units have no windows so inmates’ only regular view of the outside world is through the top of the exercise pens. (Monica Lam/CIR)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Without conceding any shortcomings, however, corrections officials are embarking on a new policy to bring in more educational and self-help programs, and to reduce the amount of time some inmates spend in the units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since last October, officials have reviewed the cases of 144 inmates and determined that 75 should be transferred immediately to regular prisons because they were not active in gangs. Some of the inmates have been held in the special units for more than 20 years, according to Kelly Harrington, an associate corrections director.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pelican Bay inmates who led the 2011 hunger strike, as well as some prisoner rights groups, have denounced the new policy and are threatening more protests this summer. Amid a long list of demands, they are seeking shorter, fixed terms for inmates in the special units (currently, most are held there on “indeterminate” terms), more programs and more frequent visits with family members.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\u003cstrong>I believe that some people should be isolated. If they were to cut me loose before I debriefed and I went back to the mainline, I would have killed somebody…”\u003c/strong>\n\u003cp>–Convicted murderer Jeremy Beasley\u003c/p>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>For his part, Jeremy Beasley said that while the conditions at Pelican Bay are awful, he doesn’t think they amount to solitary confinement. Although he can’t see other inmates from his cell (doors are made of perforated steel and face a wall), Beasley says he can carry on conversations with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “It sucks in here. I hate it. But some prisoners have found that they can get a lot of attention by exaggerating how bad it is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beasley said he was an active member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a white-power gang, and committed assaults on behalf of the group. He agreed to drop out and provide authorities with incriminating information about other members, a process known as “debriefing.” In exchange, officials recently transferred Beasley to a different prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I believe that some people should be isolated. If they were to cut me loose before I debriefed and I went back to the mainline,” he said, using the term for the general prison population, “I would have killed somebody or at the very least I would have stabbed somebody else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other Pelican Bay inmates see it differently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is only one option to get out of here and that is to make up lies about other people,” said 39-year-old Henry Albanez, who is serving a 27-year sentence for kidnapping. Albanez said he expected the department’s new policies would fail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_90082\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/prison+isolation+video/_mg_0830/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-90082\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-90082\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/02/MG_0830-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Pelican Bay's Security Housing Unit is organized into small pods housing eight cells set side-by-side on two tiers. Through the perforated steel doors inmates can only see a blank wall. (Monica Lam/CIR)\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit is organized into small pods housing eight cells set side-by-side on two tiers. Through the perforated steel doors inmates can only see a blank wall. (Monica Lam/CIR)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“How do you expect to take all of these guys out of the SHU (Security Housing Unit) and throw them in the same yard and expect them to get along when you have all this sensory deprivation,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Albanez said he probably would take part in a new step-down program that begins later this year. Corrections officials have said the program allows inmates to earn their way out of the special units in 2-4 years without being required to renounce the gangs they have been affiliated with. Instead, they must declare that they won’t participate in gang activity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who visited Pelican Bay early this month, said he found the prison clean and professionally staffed but was troubled thinking that some inmates are locked up for decades in small cells with little or no regular human contact. Inmates must also be shackled whenever they are outside their cells and in the presence of another individual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do think it’s psychologically devastating to be in such a tight space for so long,” Ammiano said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What, then, about the question of torture?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ammiano said the strangest thing he saw at the prison was a group therapy room where inmates are locked in small cages during sessions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Could I say that’s torture? Perhaps I could,” he said. “But did we witness any torture? No.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>You can listen to Michael Montgomery report from California’s most controversial, highest security lockup on Monday morning on The California Report, on the \u003ca href=\"http://www.californiareport.org/tunein/\" target=\"_blank\">following stations\u003c/a> around the state. The report will also be \u003ca href=\"http://www.californiareport.org/\" target=\"_blank\">archived at the show’s web site\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://calchannel.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=7&clip_id=826\">\u003cstrong>Watch Brown’s press conference\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> (California Channel)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://www.scribd.com/doc/119420665/California-Asks-Court-to-Cancel-Prison-Population-Cap\">\u003cstrong>Read the state’s court filing\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Gov. Jerry Brown is challenging federal oversight of state prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The prison emergency is over,” Brown said in a press conference Tuesday morning. “After decades of work, the job is now complete.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He filed court documents late Monday night arguing that efforts to reduce prison populations have already succeeded and don’t need to go any further.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition he is asking the court to end its receivership of the prison’s mental health program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By god, let those judges give us our prisons back,” he said. “We’ll run them right.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown has also issued an executive order ending a state of emergency that his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, declared. That state of emergency allowed California to transfer thousands of prisoners involuntarily out of state. With the order lifted, those prisoners may return to California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_84954\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/01/Chino-Prison-inmates.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-84954\" title=\"Chino Prison inmates\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/01/Chino-Prison-inmates.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"202\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">State prison inmates in Chino (Kevork Djansezian)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The courts have given California until next June to shrink its prison population to about 110,000 as part of a plan to improve medical care for inmates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown said that cap should be lifted because the prisons have addressed the problem by shedding about 43,000 inmates. “I don’t believe it’s wise or sound public policy to release any more people out of our prisons other than in accordance with state laws.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although some of the prisons still exceed their “designed capacity,” Brown said they are not overcrowded. Independent experts have assured him that conditions in the prisons are good enough to protect the inmates’ health. \u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have gone from serious constitutional problems to one of the finest prison systems in the United States,” he said. “Most of the people in the prisons get far better care… inside the prison than they will get once they are on the streets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Rebekah Evenson of the Prison Law Office, which is suing the state, told KQED’s Michael Montgomery that California can meet the court order safely and on time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The state can reduce prison crowding through a number of mechanisms including increasing good time credits for prisoners who follow the rules,” she said. “So the only question now is whether the state has the will to comply.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to satisfying the courts, Evenson says the measures could save California hundreds of millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown said it was unreasonable demands from court overseers that are costing the state too much money. With the major problems fixed, the new demands amount to “gold plating,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also defended the “realignment” process through which the state transferred thousands of prisoners from state custody to county jails. “We want the community that spawns the crime to handle the crime,” he said. On the other hand, transferring anymore prisoners from the state to the counties would overwhelm local officials, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown said he would take his arguments to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. In imposing its cap on the prison population in 2011, the court did not take into consideration improvements in prison conditions, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The American Civil Liberties Union of California disagrees with the governor’s assessment of prison conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any suggestion that the over-incarceration crisis in California has been remedied belies reality, and it is imperative that state leaders remain committed to ending the state’s decades-long addiction to incarceration that has cost taxpayers billions of dollars and eroded public safety,” said Allen Hopper, director of criminal justice and drug policy for the ACLU of California in a written statement.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown has also issued an executive order ending a state of emergency that his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, declared. That state of emergency allowed California to transfer thousands of prisoners involuntarily out of state. With the order lifted, those prisoners may return to California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_84954\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/01/Chino-Prison-inmates.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-84954\" title=\"Chino Prison inmates\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/01/Chino-Prison-inmates.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"202\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">State prison inmates in Chino (Kevork Djansezian)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The courts have given California until next June to shrink its prison population to about 110,000 as part of a plan to improve medical care for inmates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown said that cap should be lifted because the prisons have addressed the problem by shedding about 43,000 inmates. “I don’t believe it’s wise or sound public policy to release any more people out of our prisons other than in accordance with state laws.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although some of the prisons still exceed their “designed capacity,” Brown said they are not overcrowded. Independent experts have assured him that conditions in the prisons are good enough to protect the inmates’ health. \u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have gone from serious constitutional problems to one of the finest prison systems in the United States,” he said. “Most of the people in the prisons get far better care… inside the prison than they will get once they are on the streets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Rebekah Evenson of the Prison Law Office, which is suing the state, told KQED’s Michael Montgomery that California can meet the court order safely and on time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The state can reduce prison crowding through a number of mechanisms including increasing good time credits for prisoners who follow the rules,” she said. “So the only question now is whether the state has the will to comply.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to satisfying the courts, Evenson says the measures could save California hundreds of millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown said it was unreasonable demands from court overseers that are costing the state too much money. With the major problems fixed, the new demands amount to “gold plating,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also defended the “realignment” process through which the state transferred thousands of prisoners from state custody to county jails. “We want the community that spawns the crime to handle the crime,” he said. On the other hand, transferring anymore prisoners from the state to the counties would overwhelm local officials, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown said he would take his arguments to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. In imposing its cap on the prison population in 2011, the court did not take into consideration improvements in prison conditions, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The American Civil Liberties Union of California disagrees with the governor’s assessment of prison conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any suggestion that the over-incarceration crisis in California has been remedied belies reality, and it is imperative that state leaders remain committed to ending the state’s decades-long addiction to incarceration that has cost taxpayers billions of dollars and eroded public safety,” said Allen Hopper, director of criminal justice and drug policy for the ACLU of California in a written statement.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Facing a federal \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2012/12/Ruiz-Amended-Complaint-May-31-2012.pdf\">lawsuit\u003c/a>, state corrections officials are moving forward with a plan to transfer hundreds of alleged prison gang members from controversial isolation units to regular lockups around the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_44853\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2011/10/Pelican-Bay-prison.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-44853\" title=\"Pelican Bay prison\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2011/10/Pelican-Bay-prison-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clustered cells in C unit of Pelican Bay State Prison's Security Housing Unit. (Michael Montgomery)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The first group of 45 inmates will be removed from the state’s Security Housing Units in the coming weeks, said Kelly Harrington, associate director of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He said some of the inmates have spent more than 20 years locked in the special units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The priority has been to look at individuals who have been in the Security Housing Units the longest,” he said. “The goal is to reduce the number of inmates in the security housing units as safely as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of a new policy announced earlier this year, the inmates are not being required to renounce the gangs or snitch on other members, a practice known as “debriefing.” Instead, the prisoners must show they are no longer involved in gang-related activity as defined by new departmental guidelines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another 21 inmates will be placed in a “step-down” program that focuses on improving behavior and reintegrating inmates into the general prison population. Harrington said inmates could pass through the program within four years. \u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since October, corrections officials have reviewed the files of 77 inmates currently housed in five security housing units, including 16 prisoners being held at Pelican Bay State Prison, the focus of a class-action lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights and several other legal organizations on behalf of 10 inmates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The suit claims that prolonged solitary confinement violates Eighth Amendment prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment, and that the absence of meaningful review for placement in the Security Housing Units violates the prisoners’ right to due process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit alleges that...\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>California’s uniquely harsh regime of prolonged solitary confinement at Pelican Bay is inhumane and debilitating. Plaintiffs and class members languish, typically alone, in a cramped, concrete, windowless cell, for 22 and one-half to 24 hours a day. They are denied telephone calls, contact visits, and vocational, recreational or educational programming. Defendants persistently deny these men the normal human contact necessary for a person’s mental and physical well-being. These tormenting and prolonged conditions of confinement have produced harmful and predictable psychological deterioration among Plaintiffs and class members.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Corrections officials insist conditions at Pelican Bay are humane and have withstood legal challenges. Now, they are trying to show that no inmate will spend more than four years in the special unit unless he is actively involved in gangs. Officials hope to complete the review of nearly a thousand cases within the next six months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In February, a federal judge is expected to rule on a motion to dismiss the suit.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Facing a federal \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2012/12/Ruiz-Amended-Complaint-May-31-2012.pdf\">lawsuit\u003c/a>, state corrections officials are moving forward with a plan to transfer hundreds of alleged prison gang members from controversial isolation units to regular lockups around the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_44853\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2011/10/Pelican-Bay-prison.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-44853\" title=\"Pelican Bay prison\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2011/10/Pelican-Bay-prison-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clustered cells in C unit of Pelican Bay State Prison's Security Housing Unit. (Michael Montgomery)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The first group of 45 inmates will be removed from the state’s Security Housing Units in the coming weeks, said Kelly Harrington, associate director of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He said some of the inmates have spent more than 20 years locked in the special units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The priority has been to look at individuals who have been in the Security Housing Units the longest,” he said. “The goal is to reduce the number of inmates in the security housing units as safely as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of a new policy announced earlier this year, the inmates are not being required to renounce the gangs or snitch on other members, a practice known as “debriefing.” Instead, the prisoners must show they are no longer involved in gang-related activity as defined by new departmental guidelines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another 21 inmates will be placed in a “step-down” program that focuses on improving behavior and reintegrating inmates into the general prison population. Harrington said inmates could pass through the program within four years. \u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday appointed a retired corrections chief from Pennsylvania to head California's prison system as it transitions to a smaller institution with more violent prisoners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_76393\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2012/09/Chino-Prison-inmates.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2012/09/Chino-Prison-inmates.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Chino Prison inmates\" width=\"300\" height=\"202\" class=\"size-full wp-image-76393\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">State prison inmates in Chino (Kevork Djansezian)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Democratic governor named Jeffrey Beard, 65, as secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beard oversaw a much smaller department as corrections secretary in Pennsylvania from 2001 until he retired in 2010, serving under both Republican and Democratic governors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown said Beard has the experience California needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"In the face of a plethora of Federal court decisions and the bold realignment enacted by the Legislature, Jeff Beard has arrived at the right time to take the next steps in returning California's parole and correctional institutions to their former luster,\" Brown said in a statement announcing the appointment. \u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The position pays $225,000 a year and requires Senate confirmation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has about 133,000 inmates and more than 46,000 employees but is reducing the size of both as it tries to cut costs and reduce the population in crowded prisons to comply with federal court orders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 2011 law Brown approved has been sending less serious offenders to local jails instead of state prisons, leaving behind a more violent inmate population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Pennsylvania, Beard oversaw about 51,000 inmates and 16,000 employees, but he also is familiar with California's prison system and has helped guide many of its recent changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was a member of an expert panel in 2007 that advised California prison officials on ways to improve their prison and parole programs and has been a consultant for California's prison system since 2011 as it works to improve mental health treatment for inmates. In those roles, he already has visited many of California's 33 adult prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beard is a licensed psychologist who has master's and doctorate degrees in counseling. Since he retired, Beard has advised state agencies, private companies and the National Institute of Corrections on corrections, security and mental health issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prison officials said he was not available to comment on Wednesday. He issued a statement saying he is honored by the appointment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beard replaces Matthew Cate, who resigned last month to become executive director of the California State Association of Counties. Cate served 4 1/2 years under Brown and his Republican predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday appointed a retired corrections chief from Pennsylvania to head California's prison system as it transitions to a smaller institution with more violent prisoners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_76393\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2012/09/Chino-Prison-inmates.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2012/09/Chino-Prison-inmates.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Chino Prison inmates\" width=\"300\" height=\"202\" class=\"size-full wp-image-76393\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">State prison inmates in Chino (Kevork Djansezian)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Democratic governor named Jeffrey Beard, 65, as secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beard oversaw a much smaller department as corrections secretary in Pennsylvania from 2001 until he retired in 2010, serving under both Republican and Democratic governors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown said Beard has the experience California needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"In the face of a plethora of Federal court decisions and the bold realignment enacted by the Legislature, Jeff Beard has arrived at the right time to take the next steps in returning California's parole and correctional institutions to their former luster,\" Brown said in a statement announcing the appointment. \u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The position pays $225,000 a year and requires Senate confirmation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has about 133,000 inmates and more than 46,000 employees but is reducing the size of both as it tries to cut costs and reduce the population in crowded prisons to comply with federal court orders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 2011 law Brown approved has been sending less serious offenders to local jails instead of state prisons, leaving behind a more violent inmate population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Pennsylvania, Beard oversaw about 51,000 inmates and 16,000 employees, but he also is familiar with California's prison system and has helped guide many of its recent changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was a member of an expert panel in 2007 that advised California prison officials on ways to improve their prison and parole programs and has been a consultant for California's prison system since 2011 as it works to improve mental health treatment for inmates. In those roles, he already has visited many of California's 33 adult prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beard is a licensed psychologist who has master's and doctorate degrees in counseling. Since he retired, Beard has advised state agencies, private companies and the National Institute of Corrections on corrections, security and mental health issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prison officials said he was not available to comment on Wednesday. He issued a statement saying he is honored by the appointment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beard replaces Matthew Cate, who resigned last month to become executive director of the California State Association of Counties. Cate served 4 1/2 years under Brown and his Republican predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A doctor at California Medical Facility was paid more than $410,000 last year, while a registered nurse at High Desert State Prison made nearly $236,000 — more than twice the statewide average in both cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_59316\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2012/03/pelicanbay1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2012/03/pelicanbay1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"pelicanbay1\" width=\"300\" height=\"257\" class=\"size-full wp-image-59316\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pelican Bay Prison in California\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A pharmacist at Corcoran State Prison was paid more than $196,000, nearly double what is typical across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compensation for medical providers has soared in the prison system since a federal judge seized control of inmate health care in 2006 and appointed an overseer with the power to hire and set pay levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the official begins to wind down his oversight, the medical hiring and salary increases have helped lead to an improvement in inmate care, but it has increased the bill for taxpayers too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has also led to criticism that the official — called a receiver — provided a “Cadillac” level of care for convicted felons. A state review found that only Texas pays its state prison doctors more that California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The problem that we had is that the receiver was not accountable to anybody,” said former state Sen. George Runner, a Republican who has frequently criticized the program. \u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So the receiver could just do or choose to spend whatever amount of money he thought was necessary to solve his problem, and unfortunately now the state is stuck with that,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The receiver for medical care, J. Clark Kelso, said the state has been free to collectively bargain health care providers’ salaries since a court order increasing their wages expired three years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The receiver’s goal was to correct a prison medical system that was ruled unconstitutional for its substandard care and, at one point, contributed to an inmate death each week through negligence or malfeasance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To do that, the receivership increased salaries, created new positions at high pay and hired hundreds of employees to fill longtime vacancies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Total spending on medical, dental and mental health care for inmates, numbering 124,700, has more than doubled over the last decade, from $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2003-04 to a projected $2.3 billion this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The number of medical, mental health and dental workers in the prisons more than doubled over six years, from 5,100 in 2005, the year before the receivership was created, to 12,200 last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 1,400 were administrators who don’t directly treat inmates, according to a state Assembly oversight committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. David M. Mathis at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, between Sacramento and San Francisco, was paid about $410,000 last year, the most of any prison doctor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mathis treats some of the sickest inmates and is the acting medical director at the prison hospice, where terminally ill prisoners go to die. He is a board certified physician who had a solo practice for 25 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to his $239,572 base salary, Mathis was paid $169,548 for working nights and weekends. His pay topped other doctors because he also worked overnight, weekend and holiday shifts 10 to 15 times a month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prison doctors said they deserve higher pay because they face the constant threat of assault from inmates and because prisons, generally, are located in the most remote regions of the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re doing it well now because we’ve got better docs who are willing to work in these less-than-ideal situations and are being adequately compensated,” said Mathis, who also worked in prisons in Maryland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nancy Kincaid, a spokeswoman for the federal receiver, said paying doctors to work nights and weekends is cheaper than hiring additional doctors with full salaries and benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has cut its costs for outside medical care in half by having more sick inmates treated by the prison doctors instead of being sent to hospitals. That also reduces the cost of transporting and guarding them while they are treated outside of the prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can save the taxpayer a lot of money by coming in to handle things,” said Dr. Vache Chakmakian, who works 90 miles from Ironwood State Prison near Blythe, a southern desert city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chakmakian was paid $358,645 last year — his regular pay of $239,572 plus $119,072 for frequently working overnight and holidays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal judges and receivers who oversee medical and mental health care said boosting pay significantly was the only way to attract quality employees to such jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One result is that of the top 100 highest-paid state employees outside the University of California system last year, 44 worked in the prisons, according to an Associated Press analysis of state payroll data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They averaged nearly $379,000 in salary and were led by the $803,271 paid to a psychiatrist at Salinas Valley State Prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Base salaries for prison psychiatrists range from $126,000 to $281,952, depending on seniority and other factors, with chief psychiatrists paid more. Dentists’ salaries can be as high as $288,000\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compared with the other most populous states, California had higher base salaries for prison doctors than New York, Florida and Pennsylvania.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But base salaries for prison doctors were higher in Texas, particularly when salaries were adjusted for California’s higher cost of living, according to a state Department of Finance report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The prison receiver does not control mental health or dental care, but the finance department counts those in the overall cost of providing inmate medical care, which has risen from $7,747 per inmate the year before the federal receivership began to more than $18,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The courts have directed the receivership to wind down while ensuring the state prison system maintains adequate health care for inmates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The order reignited a debate between Kelso and Gov. Jerry Brown, who has fought the receiver’s efforts to provide what the governor once derided as “Cadillac care” for convicts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kelso said the prisons provide “minimally necessary medical care.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A doctor at California Medical Facility was paid more than $410,000 last year, while a registered nurse at High Desert State Prison made nearly $236,000 — more than twice the statewide average in both cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_59316\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2012/03/pelicanbay1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2012/03/pelicanbay1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"pelicanbay1\" width=\"300\" height=\"257\" class=\"size-full wp-image-59316\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pelican Bay Prison in California\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A pharmacist at Corcoran State Prison was paid more than $196,000, nearly double what is typical across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compensation for medical providers has soared in the prison system since a federal judge seized control of inmate health care in 2006 and appointed an overseer with the power to hire and set pay levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the official begins to wind down his oversight, the medical hiring and salary increases have helped lead to an improvement in inmate care, but it has increased the bill for taxpayers too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has also led to criticism that the official — called a receiver — provided a “Cadillac” level of care for convicted felons. A state review found that only Texas pays its state prison doctors more that California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The problem that we had is that the receiver was not accountable to anybody,” said former state Sen. George Runner, a Republican who has frequently criticized the program. \u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So the receiver could just do or choose to spend whatever amount of money he thought was necessary to solve his problem, and unfortunately now the state is stuck with that,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The receiver for medical care, J. Clark Kelso, said the state has been free to collectively bargain health care providers’ salaries since a court order increasing their wages expired three years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The receiver’s goal was to correct a prison medical system that was ruled unconstitutional for its substandard care and, at one point, contributed to an inmate death each week through negligence or malfeasance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To do that, the receivership increased salaries, created new positions at high pay and hired hundreds of employees to fill longtime vacancies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Total spending on medical, dental and mental health care for inmates, numbering 124,700, has more than doubled over the last decade, from $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2003-04 to a projected $2.3 billion this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The number of medical, mental health and dental workers in the prisons more than doubled over six years, from 5,100 in 2005, the year before the receivership was created, to 12,200 last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 1,400 were administrators who don’t directly treat inmates, according to a state Assembly oversight committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. David M. Mathis at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, between Sacramento and San Francisco, was paid about $410,000 last year, the most of any prison doctor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mathis treats some of the sickest inmates and is the acting medical director at the prison hospice, where terminally ill prisoners go to die. He is a board certified physician who had a solo practice for 25 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to his $239,572 base salary, Mathis was paid $169,548 for working nights and weekends. His pay topped other doctors because he also worked overnight, weekend and holiday shifts 10 to 15 times a month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prison doctors said they deserve higher pay because they face the constant threat of assault from inmates and because prisons, generally, are located in the most remote regions of the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re doing it well now because we’ve got better docs who are willing to work in these less-than-ideal situations and are being adequately compensated,” said Mathis, who also worked in prisons in Maryland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nancy Kincaid, a spokeswoman for the federal receiver, said paying doctors to work nights and weekends is cheaper than hiring additional doctors with full salaries and benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has cut its costs for outside medical care in half by having more sick inmates treated by the prison doctors instead of being sent to hospitals. That also reduces the cost of transporting and guarding them while they are treated outside of the prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can save the taxpayer a lot of money by coming in to handle things,” said Dr. Vache Chakmakian, who works 90 miles from Ironwood State Prison near Blythe, a southern desert city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chakmakian was paid $358,645 last year — his regular pay of $239,572 plus $119,072 for frequently working overnight and holidays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal judges and receivers who oversee medical and mental health care said boosting pay significantly was the only way to attract quality employees to such jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One result is that of the top 100 highest-paid state employees outside the University of California system last year, 44 worked in the prisons, according to an Associated Press analysis of state payroll data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They averaged nearly $379,000 in salary and were led by the $803,271 paid to a psychiatrist at Salinas Valley State Prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Base salaries for prison psychiatrists range from $126,000 to $281,952, depending on seniority and other factors, with chief psychiatrists paid more. Dentists’ salaries can be as high as $288,000\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compared with the other most populous states, California had higher base salaries for prison doctors than New York, Florida and Pennsylvania.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But base salaries for prison doctors were higher in Texas, particularly when salaries were adjusted for California’s higher cost of living, according to a state Department of Finance report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The prison receiver does not control mental health or dental care, but the finance department counts those in the overall cost of providing inmate medical care, which has risen from $7,747 per inmate the year before the federal receivership began to more than $18,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The courts have directed the receivership to wind down while ensuring the state prison system maintains adequate health care for inmates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The order reignited a debate between Kelso and Gov. 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"tagline": "The flip side of gentrification, told through one town",
"info": "Gentrification is changing cities across America, forcing people from neighborhoods they have long called home. Call them the displaced. Now those priced out of the Bay Area are looking for a better life in an unlikely place. American Suburb follows this migration to one California town along the Delta, 45 miles from San Francisco. But is this once sleepy suburb ready for them?",
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"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"order": 8
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},
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"order": 1
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
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"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
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},
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"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
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"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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