sunkissed
09-21-2003, 04:51 PM
To officers at Pelican Bay State Prison it's about respect
The Sac Bee
By Marjie Lundstrom -- Bee Columnist
Saturday, September 20, 2003
CRESCENT CITY -- Inside the gray walls of Pelican Bay State Prison, where politics is all about staying alive, Correctional Officer Doug Burrell is sensing trouble brewing in the B Yard.It is the same place where a bloody riot broke out 3 1/2 years ago. On this day, tensions seem to be building between rival Latino gangs, whose truce is straining.
Burrell scans the yard. The inmates aligned with the "Southern Hispanics" (from south of Fresno) are doing pull-ups. The "Northern Hispanics" suddenly rise from a concrete table and head that direction.
The officer tenses.
"There are a lot of variables in this yard," he says, eyes fixed on the bulky, tattooed young men. "Today we could have any number of things kick off."
In this spectacularly beautiful place along the state's northernmost coast is a whole other world most Californians have never seen and cannot imagine. Opened in 1989 north of Crescent City, near the Oregon border, Pelican Bay State Prison is home to the worst of the worst -- the last stop for more than 3,200 inmates with long histories of violence.
Overseeing these prisoners are 948 correctional officers, men and women who suddenly find themselves a political hot button in the effort to recall Gov. Gray Davis.
As usual, the matter is about money, and whether these public employees are worth the hefty pay raises Davis secured for them -- a deal the embattled governor has since tried to renegotiate.
The governor has largely enjoyed the support of law enforcement, and especially prison guards, whose powerful union has in the past contributed heavily to Davis. The 31,000-member California Correctional Peace Officers Association has denounced the recall and has not endorsed any replacement candidate.
But some candidates in the recall have made the Department of Corrections and prison guards' pay an object of derision, with independent Arianna Huffington vowing to freeze guards' pay. Republican Tom McClintock, the only lawmaker to vote against the guards' new contract, has said he would cut prison costs and reduce pensions for newly hired guards.
It is an unwelcome spotlight for the correctional officers at Pelican Bay who, like their counterparts at other California prisons, resist being called prison guards, which they feel distances them from the greater law-enforcement community.
"We're not a bunch of knuckle-dragging gorillas," said 44-year-old Bobby Rice, a sergeant at Pelican Bay.
The job today entails "extreme amounts of training," he said, and can be exceptionally dangerous.
Under the new five-year contract, correctional officers -- whose last pay raise was in 2000 -- could eventually see their top annual salary go from $53,000 to $73,000. But the Davis administration, which recently said it got salary concessions from the California Highway Patrol, has asked for the same from the California Correctional Peace Officers Association -- or risk layoffs.
CCPOA spokesman Lance Corcoran said the union's most recent cost-savings proposal was rejected by the state, and negotiations are at a standstill.
"They always look at the people doing the work," said Rick Newton, president of the union's Pelican Bay chapter. "We feed the inmates. We deal with the inmates. We do the work.
"We agree there's fat in the Department of Corrections. So look at the fat," he said. "Don't look at the people doing the work."
Pelican Bay Correctional Officer Paul Wenning said his disapproval of the recall is not about money.
"Our opinion is not based on whether Davis gave us our raises," said the 43-year-old officer. "It isn't right. A recall just isn't right."
"The Legislature," chimed in fellow officer Tim Borges, "has to take some responsibility, too."
All four Pelican Bay officers have been at the maximum-security prison practically since its opening in December 1989, an event that still gets mixed reviews in this impoverished city of 7,325. Before then, the biggest news on this isolated stretch of coastline was the devastating tsunami that crashed ashore in 1964, washing away 29 city blocks and killing 11 people.
In later years, the city and surrounding Del Norte County experienced economic devastation as sawmill after sawmill closed and the fishing industry suffered.
And so the prison stepped in.
"The town's dead without it. That prison saved us," said Crescent City native Monty Gonsalves, 62, standing aboard his fishing boat, The Cheryl M.
"The spotted owl took our logging. The federal government and do-gooders took our fishing away. Now that's what supports our town."
But Debra Bauman, who makes and sells chain saw redwood sculptures along Highway 101 in town, isn't so sure the prison has been all good. She considers the guards to be cliquish, and she is so concerned about the influx of inmate families that she is home-schooling her 7-year-old son.
"The whole community's just changing," said the 40-year-old woman, who was born and raised in Crescent City, tourism gateway to the surrounding redwood forests.
How the recall -- whatever the date -- will play out in this county is anybody's guess because the number of registered Republicans and Democrats is virtually even. But the trend is clearly conservative. The county went with Davis in 1998 but favored Republican Bill Simon in 2002. In presidential races, Del Norte County voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, chose Bob Dole by just 18 votes in 1996, then went with George W. Bush by a wide margin in 2000.
If the addition of more than 1,500 prison workers and an untold number of inmate families has changed the region's fabric -- the prison is the county's largest employer -- many here think that lines between the old and new are beginning to blur.
"In my opinion, it's a fairly happy marriage," said Rice, who was born and raised in the community and was a logger and sawmill worker before becoming a correctional officer.
This summer, Pelican Bay guards fingerprinted 1,600 children at the county fair. And the group bought a pig from a local 4-H kid, donating it back again for a raffle.
Still, there is no denying that life on the other side of the razor-wire fence is starkly different than in town.
Here, officers still talk about the 2000 prison riot with a mixture of anger and revulsion. As in most prisons, the inmates segregate themselves into racial groups, passing the time plotting against the others.
A third of the inmates are serving life terms.
On the morning of Feb. 23, the B Yard -- a place for outdoor exercise -- erupted into a racial battlefield as some 200 African American and Latino inmates punched and stabbed each other. The melee, recorded by prison video cameras, was described then as the state's worst prison riot in more than a decade.
"I've been in a lot of riots, but that was the worst I'd ever seen," said Correctional Officer Jim Dagenais, 60, who rushed into the yard -- engulfed in gas -- to try to break up the fighting. "Every place you looked, they were rioting. ... It was complete chaos.
"Of all the places I wanted to be that day," he said, "it wasn't out in that yard."
When it was over, one inmate was dead, killed by gunfire from guards, and 35 inmates were injured.
That prisoners came up with weapons was no surprise to guards here, who have seen their wards devise deadly instruments using everything from shampoo bottles to toothbrushes to underwear elastic.
But what many officers here say they dread most is a "gassing," inmates hurling bodily fluids -- urine, feces, saliva -- often into their faces. Many of the inmates are infected with HIV and hepatitis.
Rice said he was "gassed" with urine seven years ago by an inmate with hepatitis C; he still gets routinely screened.
Sgt. Don Gallian, 34, has been attacked so many times -- and stepped in and around its aftermath -- that he's adopted a family rule: No work shoes in the house.
"It's very stressful," said Gallian, who was supervising five inmate housing units this week near the B Yard. "I have a wife and two kids and you go, 'Man, what am I taking home?' "
Despite the daily work perils, many correctional officers say they are frustrated by the public's perception of them. Huffington, for instance, has continued to pound her message that prison guards are overpaid, especially when compared with teachers.
"The public in general can't get in here, so the only time you hear about us is when something goes horribly wrong," said Lt. Steve Perez, Pelican Bay spokesman.
As it turned out, the rival gangs that Burrell watched warily this week did not end up fighting. The day passed without any serious assaults.
But peace is generally short-lived. Since Jan. 1, the prison has recorded 566 inmate incidents -- from indecent exposures to gassings to deadly assaults. Since the prison opened, 14 inmates have been killed by fellow inmates.
To detractors, upset by the prospect of a sizable pay hike for California's prison guards, Officer Tim Borges says only this:
"Come and walk in my shoes for a day -- if not a week -- and see what we go through. We're worth every penny."
The Sac Bee
By Marjie Lundstrom -- Bee Columnist
Saturday, September 20, 2003
CRESCENT CITY -- Inside the gray walls of Pelican Bay State Prison, where politics is all about staying alive, Correctional Officer Doug Burrell is sensing trouble brewing in the B Yard.It is the same place where a bloody riot broke out 3 1/2 years ago. On this day, tensions seem to be building between rival Latino gangs, whose truce is straining.
Burrell scans the yard. The inmates aligned with the "Southern Hispanics" (from south of Fresno) are doing pull-ups. The "Northern Hispanics" suddenly rise from a concrete table and head that direction.
The officer tenses.
"There are a lot of variables in this yard," he says, eyes fixed on the bulky, tattooed young men. "Today we could have any number of things kick off."
In this spectacularly beautiful place along the state's northernmost coast is a whole other world most Californians have never seen and cannot imagine. Opened in 1989 north of Crescent City, near the Oregon border, Pelican Bay State Prison is home to the worst of the worst -- the last stop for more than 3,200 inmates with long histories of violence.
Overseeing these prisoners are 948 correctional officers, men and women who suddenly find themselves a political hot button in the effort to recall Gov. Gray Davis.
As usual, the matter is about money, and whether these public employees are worth the hefty pay raises Davis secured for them -- a deal the embattled governor has since tried to renegotiate.
The governor has largely enjoyed the support of law enforcement, and especially prison guards, whose powerful union has in the past contributed heavily to Davis. The 31,000-member California Correctional Peace Officers Association has denounced the recall and has not endorsed any replacement candidate.
But some candidates in the recall have made the Department of Corrections and prison guards' pay an object of derision, with independent Arianna Huffington vowing to freeze guards' pay. Republican Tom McClintock, the only lawmaker to vote against the guards' new contract, has said he would cut prison costs and reduce pensions for newly hired guards.
It is an unwelcome spotlight for the correctional officers at Pelican Bay who, like their counterparts at other California prisons, resist being called prison guards, which they feel distances them from the greater law-enforcement community.
"We're not a bunch of knuckle-dragging gorillas," said 44-year-old Bobby Rice, a sergeant at Pelican Bay.
The job today entails "extreme amounts of training," he said, and can be exceptionally dangerous.
Under the new five-year contract, correctional officers -- whose last pay raise was in 2000 -- could eventually see their top annual salary go from $53,000 to $73,000. But the Davis administration, which recently said it got salary concessions from the California Highway Patrol, has asked for the same from the California Correctional Peace Officers Association -- or risk layoffs.
CCPOA spokesman Lance Corcoran said the union's most recent cost-savings proposal was rejected by the state, and negotiations are at a standstill.
"They always look at the people doing the work," said Rick Newton, president of the union's Pelican Bay chapter. "We feed the inmates. We deal with the inmates. We do the work.
"We agree there's fat in the Department of Corrections. So look at the fat," he said. "Don't look at the people doing the work."
Pelican Bay Correctional Officer Paul Wenning said his disapproval of the recall is not about money.
"Our opinion is not based on whether Davis gave us our raises," said the 43-year-old officer. "It isn't right. A recall just isn't right."
"The Legislature," chimed in fellow officer Tim Borges, "has to take some responsibility, too."
All four Pelican Bay officers have been at the maximum-security prison practically since its opening in December 1989, an event that still gets mixed reviews in this impoverished city of 7,325. Before then, the biggest news on this isolated stretch of coastline was the devastating tsunami that crashed ashore in 1964, washing away 29 city blocks and killing 11 people.
In later years, the city and surrounding Del Norte County experienced economic devastation as sawmill after sawmill closed and the fishing industry suffered.
And so the prison stepped in.
"The town's dead without it. That prison saved us," said Crescent City native Monty Gonsalves, 62, standing aboard his fishing boat, The Cheryl M.
"The spotted owl took our logging. The federal government and do-gooders took our fishing away. Now that's what supports our town."
But Debra Bauman, who makes and sells chain saw redwood sculptures along Highway 101 in town, isn't so sure the prison has been all good. She considers the guards to be cliquish, and she is so concerned about the influx of inmate families that she is home-schooling her 7-year-old son.
"The whole community's just changing," said the 40-year-old woman, who was born and raised in Crescent City, tourism gateway to the surrounding redwood forests.
How the recall -- whatever the date -- will play out in this county is anybody's guess because the number of registered Republicans and Democrats is virtually even. But the trend is clearly conservative. The county went with Davis in 1998 but favored Republican Bill Simon in 2002. In presidential races, Del Norte County voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, chose Bob Dole by just 18 votes in 1996, then went with George W. Bush by a wide margin in 2000.
If the addition of more than 1,500 prison workers and an untold number of inmate families has changed the region's fabric -- the prison is the county's largest employer -- many here think that lines between the old and new are beginning to blur.
"In my opinion, it's a fairly happy marriage," said Rice, who was born and raised in the community and was a logger and sawmill worker before becoming a correctional officer.
This summer, Pelican Bay guards fingerprinted 1,600 children at the county fair. And the group bought a pig from a local 4-H kid, donating it back again for a raffle.
Still, there is no denying that life on the other side of the razor-wire fence is starkly different than in town.
Here, officers still talk about the 2000 prison riot with a mixture of anger and revulsion. As in most prisons, the inmates segregate themselves into racial groups, passing the time plotting against the others.
A third of the inmates are serving life terms.
On the morning of Feb. 23, the B Yard -- a place for outdoor exercise -- erupted into a racial battlefield as some 200 African American and Latino inmates punched and stabbed each other. The melee, recorded by prison video cameras, was described then as the state's worst prison riot in more than a decade.
"I've been in a lot of riots, but that was the worst I'd ever seen," said Correctional Officer Jim Dagenais, 60, who rushed into the yard -- engulfed in gas -- to try to break up the fighting. "Every place you looked, they were rioting. ... It was complete chaos.
"Of all the places I wanted to be that day," he said, "it wasn't out in that yard."
When it was over, one inmate was dead, killed by gunfire from guards, and 35 inmates were injured.
That prisoners came up with weapons was no surprise to guards here, who have seen their wards devise deadly instruments using everything from shampoo bottles to toothbrushes to underwear elastic.
But what many officers here say they dread most is a "gassing," inmates hurling bodily fluids -- urine, feces, saliva -- often into their faces. Many of the inmates are infected with HIV and hepatitis.
Rice said he was "gassed" with urine seven years ago by an inmate with hepatitis C; he still gets routinely screened.
Sgt. Don Gallian, 34, has been attacked so many times -- and stepped in and around its aftermath -- that he's adopted a family rule: No work shoes in the house.
"It's very stressful," said Gallian, who was supervising five inmate housing units this week near the B Yard. "I have a wife and two kids and you go, 'Man, what am I taking home?' "
Despite the daily work perils, many correctional officers say they are frustrated by the public's perception of them. Huffington, for instance, has continued to pound her message that prison guards are overpaid, especially when compared with teachers.
"The public in general can't get in here, so the only time you hear about us is when something goes horribly wrong," said Lt. Steve Perez, Pelican Bay spokesman.
As it turned out, the rival gangs that Burrell watched warily this week did not end up fighting. The day passed without any serious assaults.
But peace is generally short-lived. Since Jan. 1, the prison has recorded 566 inmate incidents -- from indecent exposures to gassings to deadly assaults. Since the prison opened, 14 inmates have been killed by fellow inmates.
To detractors, upset by the prospect of a sizable pay hike for California's prison guards, Officer Tim Borges says only this:
"Come and walk in my shoes for a day -- if not a week -- and see what we go through. We're worth every penny."