This is a photograph of a room where people have died:
It is in a building next to other buildings filled with hallways where bodies have disappeared only to reappear — perforated, lifeless and jammed under bed bunks exactly like this one:
A fence surrounds these buildings. It looks exactly like this:
To stand inside this fence is to stand in the prison where the notorious Mexican Mafia gang first spilled blood in 1957.
To stand inside this fence is to stand where, in the early 1980s, more tear gas was sprayed on inmates annually than in the entire rest of the nation's prison systems combined.
To stand inside this fence is to stand in the Deuel Vocational Institution (DVI) of Tracy, Calif., or as it used to be known, "The Gladiator School".
But this story isn't about DVI.
And it isn't about pepper-sprayed inmates.
It's about the people paid to do the spraying.
Bob Walsh was hired as a correctional officer at DVI between Christmas and New Years of 1980.
At that time, Walsh said, the prison was, "statistically one of the most dangerous places on the planet."
And though it had been opened to house 18 to 24-year-olds deemed capable of rehabilitation, DVI became somewhat of a warehouse for youths too violent for youth facilities.1
It was as if bushels of violent teenagers were gathered like dead wood and tossed together in a concrete shed.
Gang members rubbed shoulders like dry sticks. Knives struck like matches.
Tear gas canisters doused like fire extinguishers.
"Places like Folsom and (San) Quentin had gun coverage inside the institution. We didn't," Walsh said. "So when the shit hit the fan, we pumped in tear gas."
"Gas 'em 'till they puke" became the unofficial officers' motto back then -- so much so that, "You can still see it written on license plate frames in the parking lot," Walsh said.
Chemicals clung to concrete walls, drifted down hallways, swelled in eye sockets and lingered on laundry.
Officers were unable to trade in their cars because the upholstery stunk so badly of the throat-swelling stuff.
After work, they'd change clothes in the garage.
But like all problems, this one faded.
In the mid 1980s, California opened new prisons. Gang members were separated. DVI's violence declined.
People weren't dying anymore.
But now there wasn't enough room for all the living.
"Gradually, you end up with almost the whole institution double celled," Walsh said.
"Then you're putting people in the day rooms... And then in the gymnasium... And then in the old laundry room."
"Eventually, you're putting bodies where ever you can put them."
With time, all this affects the way an officer operates.
"But I don't think it's particularly negative," Walsh said. "You get to the point where you spent a lot of your day on condition orange."
Condition orange is a common term in law enforcement. It is a state of mind, an elevated level of awareness.
"You're not just sitting there," Walsh said. "You're actively looking around — listening, planning... where is my avenue of escape?"
"You get two correctional officers on the yard talking to each other," Walsh said, "they don't stand face to face, they stand offset so they can watch each others backs."
"You don't stand at the edge of the tier overhangs. That way people can't drop things like batteries or garbage cans on you."
"Once you are used to it," he said, "you can function in condition orange for hours and hours and hours at a time."
Of course, there are drawbacks.
The old DVI alarm system, for instance, sounded distinctly similar to the alarm on McDonalds' French fry cookers.
"You'd be sitting around eating a burger, the French fry alarm would go off and all of a sudden you jump up."
Referee whistles at athletic events trigger "Pavlovian" responses, Walsh said. "You have to remind yourself, it's ok — I'm not at work."
Condition orange becomes more than an occupational precaution. For those that know it best, it becomes a way of life. And that's the way they like it.
Walsh retired in 2005. No longer does he need to operate on condition orange. But he chooses to.
"I think it's prudent rather than paranoid," he said.
"In school," Walsh said, referring to the class he now takes at San Joaquin Delta College, "I sit at the far wall, almost all the way back. I can see the door and I've still got room to move if I want to."
"Sitting in the corner I don't like because it limits your options too much. Lateral movement is at times a perfectly valid defensive. When you are in a corner you can't do that."
"Little things, I get suspicious about. You get a guy with a long coat during the middle of the summer. Why the hell is a guy wearing that?"
"When I'm on the streets," he said. "There is a 99 percent chance I have a gun on me."
Walsh lives alone on the south side of the city of Stockton.
His wife passed away recently. The remnants of her battle with illness can be seen in the wheelchair pathways he cut into the living room carpet. They never had children.
His house has a security door -- dead bolts, motion sensors and alarm systems. The windows are treated with a film that prevents them from breaking easily. Cameras are positioned around the home's outside.
I know this because I've slept on his couch.
During my visit, we ate steak on TV dinner trays together in his living room.
And as we ate, I thought to myself about how the two of us fell into the modern story of the "Land of the Free".
Here I am, exercising my freedoms by hitchhiking around California with just a notepad and a penknife, choosing to live in a backpack.
And here he is, a man who spent much of his life protecting those freedoms by locking up the people that threaten them, choosing to live behind a deadbolt.
That night, I lay awake on the couch, tossing restlessly and staring at images from the security cameras flickering on the monitor at my feet.
America can be a funny place.
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putting people in a cell and out of the society is enough punishment but guards look for extra ways to torture inmates.
The unions in CA are so powerful that they will never get a budget cut. Teachers are no where near as well compensated not even CHP officers are. We are talking 50k plus for a rookie with OT they could top at well over a 100k a year. Prisons are for locking people up not for drug rehab. Get that straight you want to curb drug issues then send people to lock down treatment centers for their prison term. These same non violent people you speak of are the drug users the white collar people and so forth. In prison you either ride with you people or you die. Very few inmates can stand the pressure not hang by themselves and not find trouble.
In CA there is a work program called PIA we do make the clothes, in some prisons they run dairys or other types of work operations. If you think this is going to boost self esteen I have a bridge for you for cheap. Saving money for you would be if the system and the laws where cleaned up. Make drug offense for use non prison terms. Make more offense life terms such as child molesters.
Prison systems need to figure out if we are going to wear house or give time served. Personally after being in prison I look at it this way. Child Molesters, Murders, Rapists, Confirmed Gang Members, those with life sentences or death sentences should just be given the $2 bullet and carted off their is no point to where house these people. Once on the street what do you do with a person that has spend so much time locked up they no nothing else retrain them to be product citizens come on lets face facts they are gladiator due to survival in the prison system.
If we really want to protect people and cut costs you get rid of them. Sadly here in America we have so many rights that is great but so do prisoners. Like 3 appeals of a death sentence. With DNA and many other modern tools it is really not needed 1 will do.
It's like why do we sent a swat team to sit and wait 9 hours for some idiot to give up after he/she has killed 3 people? Fair trial? Why waist the money and time its millions of dollars spent just to prove something society already knows. So let the swat team go green and take the subject out. Also see a decrease in crime. Actions bring reductions. Like in a gang infested area known gang members should be dealt with much simpler and cost effective.
http://www.readnrock.com/?p=22
Now, I'd show them our prison system.
America's punishment fetish is one of the most grotesque things about it.
It costs an average of $47,000 a year to house an inmate.
Just think how much overcrowing and financial issues in CA would be addressed if someone actually enforced our immigration laws.
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/3/27/114208.shtml
By the way, you are correct. At least one in five does mean 20% or more. Nice job.
Like the old tv show saying went. ' If you canit do the time, dont do the crime.'
The majority of the men and woman in prision chose to live a violent crime filled life and got caught.
I do not believe in the death penelty tho, too many innocent people have died already to overzealous procutators who whould rather have a conviction then seeing true Justice done.
2. If you go to prison, there should be a 23 hour a day lock down. No mail, no visitors. Nothing.
3. Do the first two, you can reduce your prison sentences and over time, crime.
you forgot to add drugs /.
She is not a "bleeding heart liberal", has experience, PHd and is well versed in criminals, corrections and rehab to prevent returns.She is very scared at what "out source for profit" is doing to this nation, where probably 20-40% are innocent, but no money to defend selves, and only a glance needed to show racially bias in legal systems. As she said during visit, we are going to pay big time for what we are doing now, it is simply making a few very rich, and a big danger to nation.
Riots ensued at CCA, CO's were stabbed and it got so bad that the State Police came in and took over for awhile until new Administration came in. The citizens found out that CCA was takeing prisoners from other states which caused major overcrowding.
Last I heard the prision was running a little better, but it's been a while since I last followed up on it.