By C1 Staff
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — State corrections officials are moving forward with a plan for handling prison gangs and other violent groups, including changing rules that have kept some inmates locked in special isolation units for decades.
The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will begin modifying operations in the four Security Housing Units, designed to isolate the state’s most dangerous inmates, under a plan that has been in development for more than a year, according to California Watch.
The department has asserted that nearly all 3,000 inmates being held in the facilities are active in prison gangs.
Under the plan, inmates are eligible to work their way out of the special units in three to four years if they complete special programs alongside prisoners from rival groups and do not engage in gang “behavior or activities.”
The Department of Correction’s undersecretary of operations said inmates will not be required to divulge inside information about the gangs in order to earn transfers out of the units, according to California Watch.
Advocacy groups have long complained that the evidence used by the corrections department, like tattoos and drawings, often is vague and inaccurate. They also say the process does not always identify men involved in violent or illegal acts, the report said.
“The department’s approach continues to be guilt by association,” said Don Specter, director of the Berkeley-based Prison Law Office.
“There’s nothing I can see in this policy that will change the flow of inmates into these very expensive facilities,” said David Ward, a retired University of Minnesota sociologist who served on an influential 2007 expert panel appointed by the state to study how California manages prison gangs.