Why Are California’s Prisons Still Segregated?

The days of Jim Crow are long gone. So why are 165,000 inmates in California segregated by race?

After a black inmate sued the state on the basis that living in segregated prison quarters violated his civil rights, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that race couldn’t be the sole factor California prisons use to assign inmates to cells. Instead, prisons in the state were to consider other criteria — such as the crime the inmate committed or gang affiliations — when making housing assignments.

But five years later, a staggering amount of California correctional facilities continue to make race-based cell assignments, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. A mere 13 percent of the 30 men’s prisons in the state consider factors other than race when assigning inmates to cells, although two more are slated to adopt the new policies before year’s end and three more are set to implement the new standards in 2011. Women’s prisons aren’t a factor, as the state hasn’t racially segregated them.

So, why has it taken so long for prisons to initiate these changes? Prison reps say that the state of California, in debt for years now, lacks the funds required to train prison workers on how to devise new methods for cell assignments. Then, there’s the state’s massive gang problem and the fact that most California gangs aren’t the diverse lot shown in films such as “The Warriors” but made up of members with a common heritage. This means that black gangs take on Latino gangs and Latino gangs take on Asian gangs and so forth both in and outside of prison.

In fact, as recently as August 12, about 10 Latino inmates began brawling with 10 black inmates at the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco. During the fight, two prisoners were slashed and required hospitalization to treat their injuries.

Because of such scuffles, it’s easy to side with California Corrections Department Spokeswoman Terry Thornton when she explained to the Chronicle that prison segregation came about as “a desire to keep people from killing each other.”

But the Chronicle points out that states with prison populations comparable to California’s have racially integrated their cells successfully. In Texas, for instance, 62 percent of cells are now integrated — and, get this, violence is actually lower in those cells.

You mean that inmates from different races can actually get along? If that’s the case, California has little reason to maintain a segregationist policy in prisons. What message does such a policy send to the inmates it’s trying to rehabilitate — that how one is treated in life depends on race or that people can’t overcome their differences? These ideas are antithetical to justice, the reason those behind bars are doing time in the first place.

Photo Credit: Biggunben