State's New Top Jailer Must Answer Old Questions
Pacific News Service, Commentary, Julia Reynolds, Posted: Jun 23, 2004
Editor's Note: The reputation of former San Quentin warden Jeanne Woodford, newly appointed to head the California Department of Corrections and seen as a reformer, is marred by recent prison staff complaints.
SAN FRANCISCO--She's been called "The Good Jailer" by the New York Times and hailed as a reformer.
Jeanne Woodford, the former San Quentin warden, was appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in February to run the California Department of Corrections (CDC) the nation's largest -- and possibly most troubled -- prison system.
"I look forward to working with [the governor] to re-establish public confidence in California's prison system through real reform," she is quoted as saying on a Schwarzenegger Web site.
During 25 years at San Quentin State Prison, Woodford emphasized rehabilitating prisoners, not just warehousing them.
But all is not perfect in Woodford's old fiefdom.
Behind the iron gate of picturesque San Quentin, which from outside has the appearance of a Camelot-by-the-Sea, quiet testimony has been taking place since April, in hearings stemming from a 2002 lawsuit alleging whistleblower retaliation against inmate case analyst Kathy DeoCampo. Testimony from San Quentin staff members is providing a look inside an administration plagued by problems.
While Woodford was warden in 2002, there was a tremendous backlog of incoming inmates. Staff counselors and analysts have testified that some processing steps required by the department manual were bypassed in order to speed inmate transfers into the "mainline" of the prison -- with potentially dangerous results.
According to staff testimony, high-security prisoners were accidentally mixed with lower security inmates in San Quentin's reception center, putting the safety of prisoners and staff at risk. Inmates were also processed into San Quentin's lower-security H unit without seeing a counselor or receiving a security level classification.
A counselor described a riot that took place in a gym in 2003, and some staff believe it was caused by the improper mixing of inmates of different levels. Another "mini-riot" took place in April 2002. Staff say they tried to warn supervisors that the situation could be dangerous, but were told the problem had been taken care of.
Medical and psychological records were often missing from files, delaying inmates' classification and transfer to appropriate facilities.
Two counselors testified that they received instruction from supervisors to process prisoners without certain required paperwork. One said he had done "hundreds" of cases that way.
Some San Quentin staff members testified that skipping the paperwork was an appropriate response to an emergency backlog that was rampant throughout the system, and that inmate and community safety were never compromised.
Outside of the hearings, warden's assistant Eric Messick said that Woodford allowed counselors to bypass certain paperwork called "intake audits" because placing inmates in regular prison cells was preferable to crowding hallways and gyms, even if it went against normal procedures.
"It was the lesser of two evils," Messick says. He insists that safety and security were never at risk.
Early in the hearings, a prison official testified that the problem of unclassified inmates turning up in San Quentin's "mainline" had been quickly identified and resolved in 2002.
But others say it's still going on.
As if to prove the point, on June 10 a counselor testified that during the previous day's hearing she learned that one of her as-yet-unprocessed inmates was found in San Quentin's H unit.
At best, the DeoCampo hearing testimony points to a system in disarray. At worst, it may be exposing serious mismanagement and violation of regulations.
The contradictory testimony certainly invites deeper investigation from outside the prison walls.
If allegations by staff prove true, "this is very serious," says Richard Steffen, an aide and investigator for Sen. Jackie Speier. He has spent the year digging into problems of the state's prison system for the Senate's government oversight committee.
Steffen says his office has received reports of other San Quentin processing problems, including inmates being released after their legal date, in violation of state law, because of misplaced paperwork from files.
Woodford has been subpoenaed to testify in the San Quentin hearings, but according to the state's attorney in the case, she couldn't appear in June due to a heavy schedule before her June 23 state senate confirmation. She has declined repeated requests for interviews on this subject.
That's too bad. When institutions such as the CDC become accustomed to functioning behind closed doors, officials tend to fumble and panic when outside scrutiny finally comes along. The allegations in the San Quentin hearings have the classic signs of a system suffering from a deadly lack of oversight.
Woodford, on the other hand, has proposed to shine light into some of the department's darkest corners. Enjoying the support of both liberals and conservatives, she has a real opportunity to set a new course for a department weighed down by decades of mismanagement, secrecy and cronyism.
Now is her chance to send a signal that she is serious about reform.
Why not set the tone by publicly investigating the claims made by her former staff at San Quentin?
PNS contributor Julia Reynolds is a California-based investigative reporter specializing in criminal justice.
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