Better management of gang members urged in report on 2009 prison riot in California

State issues report on 2009 Calif prison riot

LOS ANGELES — A state report issued Tuesday on a gang and racially motivated riot at a California prison last year recommends changes in managing inmate gang members as well as improvements in communication and use of technology to identify inmates during disturbances.

The report by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation analyzed a two-hour rampage that erupted at the California Institution for Men in Chino on Aug. 8 as a result of Hispanic and white inmates attacking black inmates at a portion of the facility where inmates are received into the prison.

Nearly 1,200 inmates were involved, including 249 who required medical treatment for injuries. Six dormitories at CIM’s Reception Center West were heavily damaged.

Nine staff members reported injuries in the riot, which was quelled with help from local police agencies and San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies.

Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate said in a statement the report showed prison staff “acted heroically and bravely to stop the violence amidst a chaotic scene of fire and destruction.”

No prisoners escaped, and no one was killed during the riot, Cate noted.

The report contained many redactions but identified a wide range of recommended improvements.

The review urged expansion of a pilot program the prison developed to identify, classify and transfer parole violators from Los Angeles County to permanent prison housing, bypassing the Reception Center.

Evidence indicates the riot “was mainly driven by gang behavior and racial hatred of street gang members,” the report said. “Mixing multi-level Reception Center inmates in a dormitory environment, especially parole violators with gang histories, is a recipe for conflict.”

The report also urged an update to a policy created in the 1970s to identify members or associates of prison gangs in order to place them in so-called security housing units.

The report said that over 35 years, prison gangs have “extended their reach into prison disruptive groups, and have become much more sophisticated in maintaining control of criminal activities as well as inmate populations.”

Noting that graffiti and intelligence reports indicated clear racial hatred behind the violence, the report said the prison and the Corrections Department have historically dealt with such incidents “merely as riots” and have charged inmates with participation in a riot.

The report said that has little deterrent value and recommended that such incidents be considered hate crimes, with prosecutions of leaders on that basis.

It asked the department to consider seeking legislation to impose significant sentences for inmates convicted of committing hate crimes in prison.

Other recommendations dealt with communications and coordination problems during the emergency response, and sought a technical solution to identifying inmates during such a situation.

The report said few, if any, injured inmates had identification, and they could not be transported from a medical triage area to hospitals without being identified.

Local law enforcement officers who responded to the riot used handheld wireless thumb scanners to do the identifications, the report said, urging the Corrections Department to consider buying some of the units at a cost of $700 to $3,500 apiece in addition to computer system integration expenses.