Incarcerated: Visions of California in the 21st Century Death Valley and the Amargosa: A Land of Illusion A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer Water and Power Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the Twenty-First Century 1500 California Place Names: Their Origin and Meaning [ABRIDGED] Dark City : The Lost World of Film Noir The Hooterville Handbook : A Viewer's Guide To Green Acres The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West

• Corcoran State Prison guards acquitted in gladiator case.

• Construction is starting on the Corcoran page.   Two articles, The Legacy of Corcoran and CORCORAN STATE PRISON 2001-2002: Inside California’s Brutal Maximum Security Prison, can be accessed by choosing one of the links located below. ...
• The Legacy of Corcoran.
• CORCORAN STATE PRISON 2001-2002: Inside California’s Brutal Maximum Security Prison.

• August 14 - Legal investigators and advocates for prisoners with HIV/AIDS today called for immediate action by California State Prison at Corcoran Warden George Galaza to prevent a "life threatening medical crisis. " In a strongly worded letter sent to Chairman Ruben Ayala, Senate Select Committee on Prison Management, the three Bay area prisoner advocacy groups also called for a legislative investigation of the care and treatment of HIV+ prisoners at Corcoran state prison. ...
• Following the completion of their third investigative visit on August 8-9, members of California Prison Focus, the HIV/AIDS in Prison Project of Catholic Charities of the East Bay and Women's Positive Legal Action Network (Women's PLAN), faxed a five-page letter to Warden Galaza outlining the "serious problems with medical care delivery and living conditions" for more than 160 HIV+ prisoners in both the HIV and the Security Housing Units at Corcoran state prison, and urging immediate action to remedy: .
• The investigative team also made an urgent appeal to the Prison Subcommittee led by Senator Ayala. "We believe that the situation at Corcoran state prison has reached a crisis point and HIV+ prisoners may die due to the poor care they are receiving and the hazardous conditions they are living in," the group stated. ...
• "The abuses suffered by prisoners with HIV are a significant part of the brutal conditions at Corcoran. ... , of California Prison Focus. ...
• According to Judy Greenspan, the Director of Catholic Charities' HIV/AIDS in Prison Project, the HIV Unit at Corcoran should be closed down and the more than 160 prisoners transferred to medical facilities around the state like the California Medical Facility at Vacaville where the men will receive appropriate care. ...
• "I am appalled by the conditions faced by the HIV+ prison population at Corcoran," stated Attorney Cynthia Chandler, Director of Women's PLAN. "Conditions at Corcoran for HIV+ prisoners are as bad as conditions at the women's prisons around this state," Chandler noted. ...
• For copies of letters to Warden Galaza and State Senator Ayala, and statements by Corcoran's HIV+ prisoners contact: Judy Greenspan, HIV/AIDS in Prison Project (510) 834-5656, ext. ...
• For background information about Security Housing Unit conditions and brutality at Corcoran state prison, contact Corey Weinstein, California Prison Focus, (415) 821-6545; voice mail: (415) 452-3359. ...
• Investigative team exposes medical neglect and brutality at Corcoran state prison August 14, 1997 Brought to you by the Global Reproductive Health Forum Issues at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts: Exploring the Intersection of Health, Rights, and Gender Issues. ...

• Subject: The sudden death of Jennifer (Jeffrey) Sutton at Corcoran state prison .
• org> Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 11:17:54 -0700 Subject: The sudden death of Jennifer (Jeffrey) Sutton at Corcoran state prison Dear Friends, Please take a minute to read the information below and send a letter of protest to California Department of Corrections Director Ed Alameida demanding an immediate investigation into Jennnifer Sutton's death -- a sample letter is attached at the end. For those of you who can, please also fax copies to Senator Richard Polanco of the Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations. Judy Greenspan HIV/Hepatitis C in Prison Committee California Prison Focus ____________________________________________________ Another Death at Corcoran state prison: Jennifer Lynn Sutton, Trangender Prisoner with HIV/hepatitis C "I have full blown AIDS and can catch anything at any time. ... " This statement was part of a larger article written by Jennifer (aka Jeffrey) Sutton, a transgender woman prisoner living with HIV and hepatitis C at Corcoran state prison in California back in 1998. ... Corcoran staff did not even try to diagnose her failing kidneys or her rapid deterioration. ... After our last visit with Jennifer in October 2001, the HIV/Hepatitis C in Prison Committee of California Prison Focus wrote to the warden and chief medical officer about her deteriorating condition. The return letter we received was typical of the lies consistently received from the Corcoran prison adminstration. ... I wonder if Warden George Galaza and Chief Physician Nandan Bhatt think Jennifer is still getting good care? Jennifer was not the only prisoner receiving criminally negligent care at Corcoran. We have always maintained that Corcoran is a punishment prison not a medical care facilty (despite its sparkling new Acute Care Hospital) .

• Feds indict Calif prison gang members .
• Los Angeles -- A dozen members and associates of a white supremacist prison gang known as the Nazi Low Riders were indicted by a federal grand jury on racketeering charges, it was announced Thursday.
• Attorney's office in Los Angeles said the indictment targeted members of the gang who are imprisoned in California state penitentiaries, including a number of so-called bosses known as "seniors" who allegedly head Nazi Low Riders factions at various facilities.
• While not even officially recognized as a gang by California prison officials until 1999, the NLR has been able to grow into a dominant force in several state prisons in recent years when state officials cracked down on the Aryan Brotherhood and the Aryan Brotherhood leadership.
• "To maintain control over the Caucasian prison population, the AB needed to give authority and power to another group that had the accessibility and mobility to continue committing crimes in prison," the indictment alleged. "Accordingly, the NLR took over the control and the power of the Caucasian inmates within California's prison system. ...
• The 17-count indictment issued late Wednesday alleges the defendants were involved in 19 attempted murders that occurred inside prison walls, and the 1996 slaying of one Karl Hennings in the town of Devore.
• "The NLR controls a significant portion of the illegal activities committed by white inmates in California's prisons, however, the organization's criminal influence and activities are not bound by prison walls," the U. ... The crimes committed on the outside are done at the direction of and for the benefit of the NLR and the members who remain in prison. ...
• The defendants include Joseph "Blue" Lowery, 28, of Lomita, who was described as "one of the highest-ranking Seniors in the NLR who has orchestrated numerous violent acts throughout California's prisons and jails from his cell at Pelican Bay State Prison where he is serving a sentence stemming from a murder conviction. ...
• Most of the other defendants were inmates at the high-security prison at Pelican Bay or at the Corcoran and Tehachapi state prisons. The lone female named in the indictment is a 28-year-old gang associate named Jennifer D'Anna, who is an inmate at the women's prison in Chino. ...

• Flaunting a banner that read "Corcoran = Death for Prisoners with HIV/AIDS, Shut It Down!," hundreds of prisoner advocates in October protested inhumane conditions, including brutality, beatings, and serious medical neglect of inmates with HIV and AIDS, at California state prisons. The action began with a "Caravan for Prisoner's Human Rights" that ended in front of Corcoran maximum-security state prison, considered the most barbaric institution in California. Corcoran also houses, in specially segregated units, more than 230 HIV-positive men who face discrimination and bias as well as violence. Since 1989, there have been more fatal shootings of prisoners at Corcoran than at all the other prisons in the country combined. The protest took place a week after five Corcoran guards were indicted for their role in a prison rape. ...
• At rallies held at Corcoran and the world's largest women's prison, Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla (CCWF), speakers also highlighted the stark conditions facing HIV-positive women prisoners, who must wait up to 45 days to see a doctor for serious health problems and are denied overnight visits with their spouses, work releases, and access to mother-infant care programs. ...
• "Being HIV/AIDS in prison and having to put up with the callousness of medical staff is the toughest sentence any judge could hand down. ...

• National Prison News.
• Welcome to recent this site which features recent news pertaining to Prison News. ...
• Woodard to head the California Prison System? God Help Us!.
• Woodford, who worked her way up from prison guard to warden at San Quentin State Prison during a 27-year career, was tapped Thursday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to head the state's troubled prison system.
• Described as quiet but tough -- called a "velvet hammer'' by one prison official -- Woodford inherits a department in disarray.
• Last month several whistle-blowers delivered dramatic testimony at a state Senate hearing accusing department officials of condoning the cover-up of improper behavior behind prison walls. ... Jackie Speier, D- Hillsborough, one of two lawmakers leading the charge to reform the state's correctional system.
• Speier, former prison officials and the state's powerful prison guards union all applauded the appointment of Woodford.
• "We think Jeanne Woodford brings a progressive and forward-thinking style of leadership,'' said Lance Corcoran, executive vice president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.
• Housing more than 160,000 inmates, it's the largest state correctional system in the nation.
• Corcoran said she had done a "remarkable'' job at San Quentin, where Woodford has been charged with carrying out four executions since becoming warden in 1999. ...
• Known for promoting inmate education, Woodford led efforts to allow inmates to receive Associate of Arts degrees, and Corcoran said she was an excellent communicator.
• A native of rural Sonoma County, Woodford started as a guard at San Quentin in 1978, just two weeks after earning a degree in criminal justice from Sonoma State University.
• Prison watchdogs had hoped the new director would be an outsider, suggesting the department needed a fresh perspective.
• Woodford faces several immediate tasks: The department faces legal problems over the mishandling of a nearly decade-old lawsuit alleging inhumane conditions at Pelican Bay State Prison; and Schwarzenegger has called for a $400 million reduction in corrections spending for a department that has for years overspent its budget. ...

• LAW AND attention deficit disORDER: The prison system refuses to medicate people with ADD/ADHD.
• Garrett fought a costly battle with the courts to argue that he was correctly diagnosed in prison to have ADD/ADHD but, in spite of this, denied medication treatment. ...
• After his trial began, the State of California did for a while provide him with Ritalin. ... Garrett claimed in his trial, the prison policy to prohibit the dispensing of stimulant drugs, even though approved by the FDA for the treatment of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, was again enforced. ...
• The explanation for such a prohibition is said to be that Ritalin is too dangerous a drug to dispense to inmates of a high security State prison. ...
• You be the judge of whether or not allowing teenage children to have access to Ritalin is more or less "dangerous" than to have a nurse dispense Ritalin to incarcerated men in a high security prison. ...
• State of California.
• CSP-Corcoran .
• As a follow-up of our phone conversation of May 26, 1995 let me reiterate that stimulant-type drugs such as Ritalin, Dexadrine sic , Cylert and related medications will no longer be dispensed here at CSP-Corcoran to inmates. ...
• After June 14, 1995 none of these stimulant-type drugs will be dispensed here at CSP-Corcoran. ...
• CSP-Corcoran .

• Although Manson's behavior from his 1969 killing spree to his current incarceration preclude any rational person from considering releasing him into society, Manson was both "shocked and dismayed" by the decision of the Board of Prison Terms.
• "And when the prison cook drowned my precious mashed potatoes in gravy, I only gouged out one of his eyes with my soup spoon. ...
• Johnny Castro, spokesman for Corcoran State Prison where Manson currently resides, the rejection of Manson's parole was anticipated by "everyone with half a brain in his head. ...
• Manson claims that accounts of his psychopathic behavior have been exaggerated by a hostile and intrusive police state. ...
• U2 or A Shitty Local Band to Headline at Sun God Freshman Disappointed to Discover Boyfriend Using Her for Meal Points, Not Sex You Know, Eskimos Have Sex to Keep From Freezing Freshman to Hook Up With Britney Activist Group Protests Its Own Non-Diverse Ethnic Makeup Student Triple Majors in Mechanical Engineering, Depression, and Suicide SDSU to Begin Offering Classes, Giving Diplomas Energizer's New Ad Campaign to Feature Arab-Israeli Conflict Charles Manson Denied Parole; Nobody Surprised Except Manson I've Been PLaying This Game for 48 Hours Straight — Where's My Damn Seizure?! Bush Includes Skeletor in Axis of Evil Fatty Pressured by Peers to Eat Whole Carton of Ice Cream Rumsfeld Declares Santa Claus Threat to National Security Rabbi Accused of Giving Hundreds of Children Sound Financial Advice Jewish MQ Editor Satirizes Catholic Church With Article About Jews Teen Expresses Depression Through AIM Away Messages Prison Cell Phones .

• "Remember those in Prison .
• as if you were in Prison with them. ...
• California State Capitol .
• Los Angeles, Alta California - (ACN) The slamming, at 70 mph, of an 18 wheel truck into the California State Capitol on Tuesday night was an act of political terrorism. The kamikaze action by 37 year old Michael Bowers against the state government was a result of, according to Bowers' mother, the California corrupt penal system's ill treatment of her son.
• Michael Bowers' problems began when, at age 22, he was accused of battery on a police officer and sent to the notorious California state prison system for 2 years. In California, being incarcerated for assaulting a police officer carries extra penalties, penalties that are inflicted by the particularly brutal California prison guards. According to family friends, once Bowers was put in the corrupt prison system, he could not escape it and his continuous protests and complaints of his treatment resulted in getting him more hard time behind bars. ...
• When the correctional system was mandated to release Bowers on constitutional rights of citizens, prison authorities would find ways of bringing him back on parole violations. ... There are now huge state bureaucracies whose budgets, number of employees and level of salaries are determined by the number of prisoners in the system. ...
• When Bowers was brought in for his last parole violation, he was sent to Corcoran State Prison for six years. Corcoran is the notorious California prison where guards were indicted recently for holding "Gladiator" type fights between rival prison gangs. These prison guard sponsored matches resulted in the brutal death of inmates both at the hands of guards and at the hands of other inmates who were put in the prison yard with rival gang members. When Michael Bowers alerted the press of what was going on, prison authorities retaliated by placing Bowers in solitary confinement for an entire year. ...
• " According to Bowers' mother, the one year in solitary confinement in the brutal Corcoran prison broke Michael's mind. Soon after, prison authorities labeled Bowers a "mentally disturbed offender" and committed him to various prison mental wards. ...

• Corcoran Ruling May Escalate Crime Wave By Enforcers.
• Last week's acquittal of eight California prison guards of federal charges of violating prisoners' civil rights may accelerate the trend. PNS associate editor Joe Loya is working on a memoir about his years in federal prison. ...
• If you are a sadist, now is a good time to become a California State prison guard.
• The Corcoran prison guards were accused of staging gladiator-like fights between inmates, then shooting and killing some of them in the name of prison security.
• In fact, I recently disagreed with an ex-con who sees prison guards as the only problem in prisons.
• My TV show wouldn't distinguish between cops and prison guards, mostly because cops and prison guards don't. ...
• And cop brutality, like prison guard brutality, occurs while someone is confined or in custody -- like in one's living room; or hunched over a toilet in a police station's bathroom.
• Of course the prison guards in the Corcoran trial call the case against them a witch hunt. ...
• How else to explain why the jury ignored what a State legislative hearing in 1998 confirmed to be a pattern of brutality at Corcoran? And another panel confirmed that nearly 80% of the shootings of inmates by prison guards were unjustified.
• It really shouldn't be so difficult for the public to imagine how vicious guards with guns can intentionally kill men in prison. ...
• That's because there's no better place to get jiggy with one's vigilante fantasies than in a prison.
• A New Orleans state judge removed six boys from a state juvenile facility because they were kept in solitary confinement without shoes, blankets and medical attention. In California's largest youth prison, investigators found some wards had been handcuffed and slammed into walls, shot at close range with potentially lethal riot guns and forcibly injected with anti-psychotic drugs.
• The Central Valley jury has, for a time, made prison guard brutality invincible as well.

• Workers paint the interior of one of the units at the new prison nicknamed Corcoran II near Fresno.
•      If the 1960s and 1970s saw the rise of a powerful military-industrial complex, the last decade of the second millennium may come to be known as the era of the prison-industrial complex. Prisons are the fastest growing item in most state budgets. ...
•      In California,  with the largest and most costly prison system, a web of alliances involving Wall Street bankers, politicians, bureaucrats, private corporations and a powerful prison guard union now fuels a system, say critics, that has no incentive but to grow.
• With interest payments, taxpayers will fork over $9 billion -- or about $280 per resident of the state -- over 30 years for prisons already built or under construction, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office.
•      The players in the web of businesses connected to California prison growth range from financial giants like Goldman Sachs and Co. ...
•      Some officials refute the existence of any prison-industrial complex. ...
•      "I don't think there's such a thing, and if there was a prison-industrial complex in California, it's been nipped in the bud because voters won't pass prison bond issues any more," says Robert Presley, the former state senator from Riverside and now chairman of the Youthful Offender Parole Board. ...
•      All the same, Marion Composites was just one of 600 vendors at the 126th Congress of Corrections last summer an annual convention that brings together corporations involved in, or seeking to enter, the nation's booming prison market. ...
•      Louis Nelson, a Fresno-based company, and Fluor-Daniel are two firms to benefit from prison construction. They received contracts to build and oversee construction, respectively, of Corcoran II, the state's newest, largest and most expensive prison yet, estimated to cost $380 million, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office. The prison is now under construction near Fresno.
•      Among those doing business with the state prison system are scores of high-priced consultants. ...
• Louis-based prison health care company was looking to expand.
•      "California doesn't contract out their health care, but they might start at Corcoran II," marketing director Susan Adams said. ...
• But for author Mike Davis, who denounced the state's failed prison policies in a recent essay entitled "The Politics of  Super Incarceration," the prison-industial complex, with its accompanying "law-and-order hysteria," is fundamentally reshaping the face of  California. Davis points to Kern County with one private prison, three state prisons and three more prisons planned over the next four years.

• The prison health crisis.
• The first few official reports on the now notorious guard-sponsored brutality and violence at Corcoran State Prison covered up the problems too. And like the problems at Corcoran, the failures of prison health care won't be cleared up without considerable further investigation. ...
• Given the long list of horror stories coming out of women's prisons in California (see "Dying behind Bars," 2/5/97), it's hard to believe that a supposedly independent panel of health experts could conclude that the prison system is in compliance with most legal standards of care. But the investigation was flawed from the start: The report itself notes that investigators conducted no surprise visits to prison facilities. Instead, they informed the prison staff in advance and asked in advance for copies of medical records and files. ...
• Protecting the rights of prison inmates isn't at the top of most state officials' priority list. But the state spends billions of dollars on the prison system, and the state of health care behind bars in California is becoming a national scandal. ... Gray Davis and the state legislature need to order a comprehensive, truly independent audit of the prison health system – one that includes random, unannounced visits and extensive, confidential interviews with inmates. ...
• The prison health crisis also brings up the issue of compassionate release. ... And they can get better medical treatment for a lot less money outside of the prison walls. ...

• Abuse in the California prison system.
• The first of the two, appearing on page A29, concerns a civil rights lawsuit brought by an inmate at California's Corcoran State Prison against five of the prison's guards. ... Dewberry's suit, it is necessary to review the recent history of Corcoran Prison.
• Corcoran is probably the most brutal of all of California's prisons, a state that leads the nation in the rush to incarcerate ever greater numbers of people in increasingly harsh conditions. Nowhere in the world is the prison population rising faster than in California. In December of 1998, the Atlantic Monthly reported that in just 20 years the inmate population in the state had grown from 19,600 to 159,000, an eight fold increase, and that the "state holds more inmates in its jails and prisons than do France, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and the Netherlands combined. ...
• The Los Angeles Times reported on August 16, 1999 that California is in the midst of the nation's largest prison building program. This $5 billion plan is scheduled to give the state an additional 64,000 prison beds. The key role that the prison system increasingly plays in US social policy, particularly in the state of California, can be judged from a report by the Justice Policy Institute, from October 1996, which stated: "From 1984 to 1994, California built 21 prisons, and only one state university. ... the prison system realized a 209% increase in funding, compared to a 15% increase in state university funding. ...
• And yet even within the vastness of California's penal system, Corcoran State Prison managed to stand out. It first attained notoriety a few years ago when allegations began surfacing that guards at the prison had forced prisoners to stage "gladiator" fights in the prison yard, and that these same guards had regularly shot those prisoners who did not perform adequately. ... Esquire magazine added, in September of 1999, that "forty three more Corcoran prisoners were shot and seriously wounded, some paralyzed. ...
• Other reports on Corcoran tell of the prison's so-called "Booty Bandit," a very large and sadistically violent inmate. ... Other witnesses have charged that new arrivals at the prison were routinely forced to run a gauntlet of prison guards, who savagely beat, kicked and clubbed the new inmates as an initiation into the prison.
• All of this was rather candidly acknowledged in the Esquire piece by former Corcoran guard Roscoe Pondexter, the most feared and respected of the prison's guards, nicknamed "Bonecrusher. " Interviewed for the article, Pondexter candidly admits that all such activities were indeed standard procedure at the prison, and that he was an active participant. ...

• Story: TURKISH JOURNALIST FACES PRISON FOR WRITINGS ON KURDS, AS CLINTON MEETS WITH TURKISH PREMIER .
• As the two leaders meet, Turkey plans to try a reporter with the Inter-Press Service on charges of insulting the State. Nadire Mater, a journalist based in Istanbul, faces one to six years in prison for publishing a book of interviews with Turkish soldiers based in the Southeastern area of Turkey known as Kurdistan - a name banned from use in Turkey. ...
• Story: CORCORAN PRISON GUARDS TRIED FOR RAPE IN PRECEDENT-SETTING TRIAL .
• Jury selection began yesterday in the trial of four Corcoran Prison correctional officers charged as accessories to rape: they are accused of punishing a prisoner by placing him a cell with a prisoner who was a known rapist. The men facing trial are correctional guards Robert Allan Decker, Anthony James Silva, Dale Shawn Brakebill and Joe Sanchez of Corcoran State Prison in Fresno. ...
• The March 1993 rape of inmate Eddie Dillard, a 23-year-old Los Angeles gang member imprisoned for assault with a deadly weapon, had been investigated two years ago by a state Corrections Department team and the Kings County district attorney's office. Convicted murderer Wayne Robertson, known as the "booty bandit," had told state investigators that he raped Dillard at the behest of prison staff, in part because Dillard had kicked a female guard at another prison. ...
• Then, last year, former prison guard Roscoe Pondexter came forward, and described how he witnessed fellow officers transferring Dillard into Robertson's cell, knowing that the 6-foot-3, 230-pound Robertson would probably rape the 5-foot-7, 118 pound Dillard. ...
• Meanwhile, in 1997, the regular Kings County grand jury, known for its conservative, pro-law enforcement bent, had refused to indict officers in another Corcoran case in which a busload of black inmates was allegedly beaten during a transfer to Corcoran. ...
• Catherine Campbell, civil rights attorney and president of California Prison Focus. ...
• Tom Quinn, private investigator and prison advocate who has worked on a number of cases similar to Corcoran. ...

• Corcoran Ruling May Escalate Crime Wave By Enforcers .
• Last week's acquittal of eight California prison guards of federal charges of violating prisoners' civil rights may accelerate the trend. PNS associate editor Joe Loya is working on a memoir about his years in federal prison. ...
• If you are a sadist, now is a good time to become a California State prison guard.
• The Corcoran prison guards were accused of staging gladiator-like fights between inmates, then shooting and killing some of them in the name of prison security.
• In fact, I recently disagreed with an ex-con who sees prison guards as the only problem in prisons.
• My TV show wouldn't distinguish between cops and prison guards, mostly because cops and prison guards don't. ...
• And cop brutality, like prison guard brutality, occurs while someone is confined or in custody -- like in one's living room; or hunched over a toilet in a police station's bathroom.
• Of course the prison guards in the Corcoran trial call the case against them a witch hunt. ...
• How else to explain why the jury ignored what a State legislative hearing in 1998 confirmed to be a pattern of brutality at Corcoran? And another panel confirmed that nearly 80% of the shootings of inmates by prison guards were unjustified.
• It really shouldn't be so difficult for the public to imagine how vicious guards with guns can intentionally kill men in prison. ...
• That's because there's no better place to get jiggy with one's vigilante fantasies than in a prison.
• A New Orleans state judge removed six boys from a state juvenile facility because they were kept in solitary confinement without shoes, blankets and medical attention. In California's largest youth prison, investigators found some wards had been handcuffed and slammed into walls, shot at close range with potentially lethal riot guns and forcibly injected with anti-psychotic drugs.
• The Central Valley jury has, for a time, made prison guard brutality invincible as well.

• Metro/State.
• State Colleges.
• Eight prison guards acquitted of setting up inmate gladiator fights.
• -- Eight California prison guards were acquitted Friday of federal charges that they entertained themselves by staging gladiator-style fights among inmates, including a brawl in which a prisoner was shot to death. ...
• They said the fights erupted when inmates of different ethnic and geographic backgrounds were forced to exercise together in the prison's highest-security unit, as part of a since-rescinded "integrated yard" policy. ...
•    The two 1994 fights at Corcoran state prison were exposed by two guards who blew the whistle on colleagues after inmate Preston Tate was fatally shot. ...
•    The Department of Corrections also revised its policy on the use of deadly force, which had resulted in seven inmate deaths at Corcoran and dozens of woundings during prison yard fights from 1989 to 1994. ...
•    Since the allegations surfaced against the eight guards, not one Corcoran prisoner has been shot. ...
•    In November, four Corcoran guards were acquitted of setting up the rape of an inmate by a notoriously violent prisoner known as the "Booty Bandit. " State prosecutors argued that the rape was in retaliation for an attack on a female guard. ...
•    Prosecutors in both cases faced the daunting task of trying prison guards in California's Central Valley. Jurors in the state's rural heartland tend to be sympathetic to guards because prisons provide much of the region's nonfarm employment, as many as 10,000 jobs. ...
•    The state's powerful prison guard union ran TV and radio commercials before and during both trials, describing inmates as violent predators and Corcoran State Prison as the "toughest beat in the state. ...
• Truman Jennings and officers Michael Gipson, Timothy Dickerson, and Raul Tavarez faced lesser charges in connection with another prison yard fight. ...
• In a five-and-a-half-month period, there were 84 fights during the guards' shift -- 300 percent more than the next-most violent area of the prison. ...
•    None of the guards still works at Corcoran. Six transferred to other jobs in the prison system and two have retired. ... Steve Riggs and guard Richard Caruso, both went on disability leave for stress-related problems and also no longer work for the prison. ...

• Crips Target of Prison Lockdown.
• SACRAMENTO — Authorities at Corcoran State Prison have locked 1,300 African American general-population inmates in their cells with limited privileges as they investigate whether incarcerated members of the Crips street gang are conspiring to attack prison staffers in retaliation for the anticipated execution of the gang's co-founder.
• Stanley "Tookie" Williams, 49, has been on death row at San Quentin State Prison since 1981, condemned after his conviction in the 1979 murders of four people during robberies at a convenience store and a motel in Los Angeles.
• Last month, correctional officers at Corcoran discovered a so-called "kite," or written message, directing Crips to attack and kill high-ranking prison staff members. Corcoran officials say the anonymous kite may have been sent on behalf of Williams, whose court appeals are winding down, though they caution that their inquiry is not complete.
• Johnny Castro, a Corcoran spokesman. ...
• Locking down inmates by race is a common practice within the prison system, where competing ethnic or gang affiliations can lead to violence. The 1,300 African Americans locked down at Corcoran make up about 35% of the general prison population. Separately housed in maximum security units are 1,200 of the prison's most dangerous inmates. ...
• For years, the penal system has periodically been abuzz with speculation that Williams might direct Crips systemwide to attack prison officials when his execution drew near, said Russ Heimerich, a Department of Corrections spokesman in Sacramento. ...
• The investigation was spawned by a series of events at Corcoran on June 19, beginning with the discovery of the unsigned kite and its link to a Crip inmate believed to have been a courier or to have been connected in some other way, Castro said.
• Initially, Corcoran officials locked down, or placed on cell restriction, only those inmates in the housing unit where the incident occurred. As the investigation continued, however, new evidence prompted authorities to extend the lockdown to all black inmates in the prison's high-security buildings, Castro said. ...
• Prison spokesman Eloy Medina said officials are searching cells and interviewing inmates as part of a "threat assessment" triggered by the incident. The three suspects have been transferred to segregation cells at another prison. ...
• Steven Perez, a prison spokesman, said the officer was stabbed seven times in the head and neck by an inmate wielding a makeshift knife.

• California State Prison Sacramento .
• Folsom State Prison(Old Folsom) .
• Folsom State Prison (Camp) .
• CSATF State Prison (Corcoran) .
• Salinas Valley State Prison .
• Mule Creek State Prison .
• Chuckawalla Valley State Prison .
• Pleasant Valley State Prison .
• Solano State Prison .
• Centinela State Prison .

• When Prison Guards Attack! .
• In Anaheim, screws say screw you to prison privatizers .
• Four years ago, the powerful California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) quashed a state investigation into abuses at Corcoran State Prison. ...
• But that powerful position hasn’t been enough to erase the bad reputation nationally for Corcoran State Prison, which is not accredited by the American Correctional Association (ACA), the prison-industry group that has provided its seal of approval to hundreds of U. ...
• No worries: California’s prison guards don’t want ACA accreditation. According to CCPOA spokesman Lance Corcoran—no relation to the prison—the ACA is "lowering the standards of the profession. ...
• To drive home the point, Corcoran and about 100 other off-duty California prison guards and members of CCPOA protested Aug. ... They marched in solemn circles for several hours in the bright sun, while, inside the mostly empty convention center, display booths were being set up for that afternoon’s convention traffic of wardens, prison industry officials, private vendors and contractors. ...
• Lest anyone think that the squabble between CCPOA and ACA is as shallow or self-serving as the one currently brewing between Major League Baseball players and owners, Corcoran asserted that their squabble is over such basic ideas as killing people. ...
• "First of all, ACA is in opposition to the death penalty," Corcoran explained. ...
• As I tried to count in my head how many cops have been murdered since the state’s death penalty was reinstated in 1976—and reconcile CCPOA’s pro-execution stand with the recent Field Poll results showing 73 percent of Californians favor a death-penalty moratorium—Corcoran moved on to his group’s main beef: ACA’s push to privatize prisons. ...
• "Contrary to the image of the CCPOA that has been painted in the media, we don’t see prisoners as a commodity," Corcoran said. "Inside a California prison, the badge worn by the guards should represent the people of California, not some private entity, like Disney’s Prison World. ...
• Brian Dawe, a former prison guard from Massachusetts, explained why he supports CCPOA’s campaign against the ACA. Dawe, the executive director of Corrections USA, said his Wyoming-based nonprofit organization represents 98,000 prison guards in 40 states—far more than the 21,000 individual members claimed by ACA. ...
• "The ACA is for prison privatization and for selling out public safety to the lowest bidder," he said. ...

•       SACRAMENTO -- The Senate approved a 12 percent pay-and-benefits increase for California's prison guards Friday, despite complaints that their union had hobbled investigations of inmate abuse allegations. ...
•       The pact has come under fire for a couple of reasons: the union's role in investigations of allegations that some guards abused prisoners at Corcoran State Prison and the fact that Gov. Pete Wilson recently vetoed a 9 percent pay raise for all rank-and-file state employees. ...
•       Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, said he disagreed with Wilson's failure to support pay raises for other state workers, but he said prison guards shouldn't be penalized because of it. ...
• Quentin Kopp, I-San Francisco, Ruben Ayala, D-Rancho Cucamonga, and Tom Hayden, D-Los Angeles, protested that approving the raises now would appear to condone the union's conduct at Corcoran. ...
•       "If they see they can sit through those hearings and that publicity and there is no effect on this package, it will be a sign that nobody is really serious about reforming the prison system," said Kopp, referring to hearings the Senate held on the Corcoran allegations. ...
•       Corcoran Prison, located 170 miles north of Los Angeles, is one of California's two highest-security prisons and has housed such notorious inmates as Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan. ...
•       Eight Corcoran officers were indicted in April on federal charges of deliberately staging gladiator-style fights between inmates, one of whom was shot to death by a guard during a 1994 fight. ...
•       There also have been allegations that as punishment Corcoran guards put inmates into a cell with a 6-foot-3, 230-pound inmate who raped them. ...
•       The union asked for the order after state agents interviewed more than 20 prison officers but barred union representatives or attorneys from sitting in on the questioning. ...
•       And earlier this month a state investigator testified that an internal investigation of conditions at Corcoran was stymied after officials with the union met with top Wilson administration officials. ...
•       Burton defended the union, saying it was protecting the rights given guards under state law. ...
• Jim Costa, D-Fresno, said all guards should not be denied a raise because of the action of a few officers at Corcoran. ...

• Address: Cory Edward Gummo  #P96673 D-1  129 L CSatF/sp Corcoran P. ... Box 5242 Corcoran, CA  93212   Years remaining in prison:    17   years   Sex:    Male         Age: 27          Race:    Guamanian/Caucasian           Birthday:  8-6-74   Desired age range:     Any age   Sex Preference:     Either   Inmate's Religion:     Studying with Jehovah Witnesses     Hello, my name is Cory Gummo.   I am a 27 year old, brown hair, hazel eyed, 5'9", 170 pound Guamanian/Caucasian male and I am currently serving time at Corcoran State Prison. ...   This state may be able to lock me away physically, but mentally I am free and I find that as an advantage to benefit myself as well as others who are in need of someone to talk to.   I'm also in need of someone to talk to, there are many things behind these walls that are not commonly spoke of and if you have any questions or would just like to know about the prison system, I would be more than happy to share with you. ...

• Charles Manson is still being held in disciplinary custody in the California State Prison (CSP)-Corcoran's Security Housing Unit (SHU) for allegedly threatening staff. ...
• If this schedule holds up and he is not released sooner because of good behavior (or sooner or later because of the caprice of prison staff), Manson will have served a two-year SHU term for the incident wherein he allegedely threatened prison staff in February, 2000. ...
• Most of Manson's time at CSP-Corcoran has been spent in the SHU. ...
• Previous to Manson's March 1989 transfer to CSP-Corcoran he was held in the SHU at San Quentin after a bullet was found in the pocket of one of his visitors. ...
• Below is a chronology of Manson's SHU terms, and the reasons for them, since his arrival at CSP-Corcoran. ...
• March 1989 to mid-May 1994: Manson enters CSP-Corcoran and is immediately confined in SHU as a result of the bullet incident at San Quentin. While in SHU he earns more lockup time for destruction of state property (ripping a telephone receiver from the phone unit), an alleged assassination plot against the President of the United States, and for a fart that was misinterpreted by a Correctional Officer as a threat. ...
• May 1994: Manson is transferred CSP-Corcoran's Political/Protective Housing Unit (PHU). ...
• After intially being sent to SHU Manson receives further 115s for allegedly threatening staff and for using the United States mail to harass prison staff, thus lengthening his term. ...
• November 9, 1996 to November 23, 1996: Manson is confined to Ad Seg for allegedly swinging a chair at a member of prison staff. ...
• It is during this epsiode that Manson is transferred to the CDC's toughest facility, the notorious Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, California (from August 27, 1997 to February 12, 1998). Although tabloid papers report that Manson is running a multi-million dollar marijuana and heroin operation inside the prison, no drugs are ever found. Finally, Manson is moved back to CSP-Corcoran and into PHU. ...

• Luis "Bato" Talamantez is a human rights activist and artist who speaks on the prison–industrial complex. ... Drawing on his experiences of 30 years behind bars, he works to expose conditions at maximum security prisons like California’s infamous Pelican Bay, Corcoran State Prison and Valley State Prison for Women. Talamantez is co-founder of California Prison Focus and currently pens a column for their publication. ...

• US CA: Prison System Out Of Control.
• PRISON SYSTEM OUT OF CONTROL .
• The eight Corcoran State Prison guards indicted on federal cruelty charges must, of course, be held personally responsible for their own actions, whatever they were. ...
• But the semi-official line from the state Department of Corrections and the Governor's Office -- that if there was wrongdoing, it was solely the misdeeds of rogue guards -- is not acceptable. ...
• As any business executive knows, one of the most perilous circumstances is unbridled, unmanaged growth, and the Department of Corrections has been, by a wide margin, the state government's fastest-growing segment. ...

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