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Isn’t this…unconstitutional?
I mean, separating prisoners by race? Doesn’t that violate a clause about treating people equally without regard to race, or some such?
In cotton-comes-to-Harlem fashion, the California-style black-hispanic race war isn’t confined to California. It’s occurring wherever there are significant enough numbers of blacks and hispanics fighting over scraps, which, incidentally, neither group even owns.
The Washington Post found out about an internal memo at the Prince George’s County Detention Center calling for segregation of blacks and hispanics during recreation. (Play nicely, boys!) There’s also an “unofficial” policy of assigning prisoners to cells based on race.
Referring to the practice as “jailhouse law,” a supervisor at the prison said, “It’s nothing written, but you try to keep the calm.” (The article states that blacks and hispanics in the PG prison “found themselves in conflict over relatively minor issues.” That’s PC euphemism for “fighting over stupid sh**.” )
If you recall, the government once mandated separation of black and white prisoners. That, as well as separating black and white children in government schools, was declared unconstitutional. Should prison safety override the Constitution and ignore decades of blood, sweat, and tears spilled to dismantle government-mandated racial segregation? If black and hispanic prisoners are at each others throats and segregating them during recreation time eases some of the tension, what’s the harm?
Apparently, the U.S. Supreme Court sees the harm. In Johnson v. California (2005), the court said such a practice is suspect and requires strict scrutiny by the courts. Courts apply different levels of review when deciding cases involving federal law: rational basis, intermediate scrutiny, and strict scrutiny. Where skin color is involved, courts review the matter at the highest level of scrutiny.
California has (had?) an unwritten policy of separating prisoners by race for the first 60 days, a temporary “reception” period during which new prisoners are evaluated before being placed in permanent cells. Officials do this to determine whether the new thug is a gang member, etc.
A black man named Garrison Johnson brought suit against the state, alleging that the practice was unconstitutional. A murderous thug serving a 36-year sentence, Johnson said each time he was sent to a new prison, he was housed with another black thug.
(As an aside, isn’t it comical, in a perverse way, that blacks are always complaining about being segregated with other blacks? Can you imagine a white prisoner suing because he’s always housed with a white inmate, even if the state had unlawfully assigned him to a white cell mate? What’s Johnson got against black people? Why is it so awful to share a cell with a black man? It’s prison, for crying out loud. How pleasant does it have to be? If Johnson were assigned to a cell with a white man every time he was transferred, would he stop whining? Would he have complained in the first place? Bingo.)
The lower court and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit both found in favor of California, with the higher court ruling that the policy of racially segregating for the first 60 days was constitutional, based on a standard less than strict scrutiny. In other words, temporarily segregating prisoners by race was OK if it prevented violence.
The Supreme Court disagreed, holding that strict scrutiny was the proper standard, and sent the case back to the state. Under a strict scrutiny test, it’s doubtful the policy will survive.
Since I don’t have a thug in this fight, I don’t care one way or another. 
You?
Update: Commenter Radish makes a good point: “If they’re assigning EVERY prisoner who gets processed into a racial group, isn’t that treating them all equally? Or do they let the whites and Asians mix (as if there aren’t white or Asian gangs…).”
…as does commenter Shade: “Don’t you forfeit many of your civil rights by committing crimes? I mean, the Constitution protects you from unwarranted searches and seizures, yet prisoners can be and are searched routinely. People with criminal records don’t have the right that the rest of us have to vote…So I can’t see why laws against racial segregation should apply to prisons.”
Perhaps the state’s lawyers made those arguments. If some inquisitive reader wants to do the research and find out, let us know the results.
Update II (11:31 a.m.): My site host has been having server issues for the past hour. This blog may be inaccessible at times throughout the day.
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{ 37 comments }
So let us straighten this out.
The racism of the inmates is forcing the guards/ wardens to act in a racist manner. Thereby encouraging more racism.
Solution, each cell should have a quota. One black, one hispanic, and one white.
If there are too many blacks and not enough whites, then we’ll just have to arrest more whites to fill in the empty spots! Call it affirmative action.
Logical, no?
I don’t have a thug in the fight either, but I’d have to say that if I were working in a prison, I would be FOR anything that keeps the peace. I don’t believe prisoners should have the same rights that law abiding citizens have.
Well, if they didn’t do stupid things to end up in the hole, this wouldn’t be an issue.
If they’re assigning EVERY prisoner who gets processed into a racial group, isn’t that treating them all equally? Or do they let the whites and Asians mix (as if there aren’t white or Asian gangs…).
I’d file the original complaint under “prisoners filing frivolous lawsuits because they’re bored and they don’t have to pay the bill.”
Don’t you forfeit many of your civil rights by committing crimes? I mean, the Constitution protects you from unwarranted searches and seizures, yet prisoners can be and are searched routinely. People with criminal records don’t have the right that the rest of us have to vote. I can go on.
So I can’t see why laws against racial segregation should apply to prisons.
I vote for the Supreme Court members to spend a few weeks in a maximum security prison with racially mixed cellmates and see how well it works. Those who come out alive will be allowed to reconsider their opinions.
They are still ‘citizens’ and thus the state is required to ‘protect’ them vis a vis the 8th and 14th Amendments. There has been, of course, extensive litigation with respect to the ‘rights’ of prisoners: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment14/17.html
My take is that, while they are still citizens and should be protected as such (ie from murder, rape and assault) their ‘rights’ aren’t as encompassing as a citizen who has commited no crime. That said, upon completion of their sentence (to include any parole) then their full rights as a citizen should be restored.
The prisons have been taken over by various gangs. Filing lawsuits is a way of communicating with other inmates in a restricted environment. That is, if two inmates aren’t normally able to communicate with each other, or with outsiders for whatever reason, if one files a lawsuit – any lawsuit – and represents himself in the suit, he can call for any other inmate to be brought to him for a confidential meeting, without supervision. That is, he is then covered by “attorney-client” privilege. If one prisoner is in isolation, and one is not, that can be a means of communicating with the outside.
The inmates are running the asylum.
Aryan Brotherhood used lawsuits to communicate. This is standard practice in prison.
But it’s liberal judges that allow this stuff to go on – a good judge can stop a lawsuit in its tracks.
Many of these people are racist thugs, and no amount of counseling will help them.
Separation by race is one way of protecting prisoner’s rights – why won’t Supremes stop interfering with locals?
Supremes interfere with all aspects of our lives – why not prisons as well?
Just a question-to maintain the ‘peace’ do they also segregate by religion? All Muslims together, all Buddhists, all Christians, etc? Or is that next?
I don’t have a ‘dawg’ in this fight either but I do jave a bit of knowledge in this area, my major was Criminal Justice…
It’s being portrayed as a racial thing and in some ways it IS racial but the true ‘root’ of the problem is ‘gang related’, it’s just that the ‘gangs’ tend to gravitate in a racial nature…
And in prison, numbers are strength, and the gang that plays together, survives together…
And it also carries over to the street, before and after prison, it’s a ‘gang’ mentality and until that is overcome prisons will have more racially motivated violence than anyone on the outside will ever dream of and street violence will continue along racial lines, white, bloack, hispanic, oriental, you name it, there’s a gang for it…
I apologize, spell check is my friend and I hit ’send’ before I checked for typos, I am a terrible typist, but I do have nice legs…
If we are talking about strictly within the confines of the prison system, I think our foremost concern is to disrupt and run interference against the gangs. Our solutions to stem the tide of violence within prisons and to halt it from spilling out into free society, as it commonly does, should be pragmatic. Considerations of racial sensitivity shouldn’t even enter the discussion. If segregating prison populations work, fine. If it doesn’t, so what? It’s neither a here nor there with me.
The entirely laughable notion that we can confront thugs with racial sensitivity (in prisons no less!) is about as absurd as trying to fight a war without offending anyone. You have to offend someone. I mean, placing lush, chocolate Hersheys on their pillows ain’t gonna make these thugs behave nicely, just as it won’t make terrorist non-terrorists in Gitmo.
With that said, however, I do think that we should be as humane as possible without compromising the objective of the prison system, which is to house men and women who have violated the law and are a danger to society. It’s a fine line to walk. On the one hand, we’ve got break up gangs and stamp them out. On the other, we don’t want to treat human beings like beasts.
In this effort, if we find that confining inmates to their own race makes them less prone to violence and more controllable, then by all means. I am sure there is much more involved here and methods to control prison populations are much more complex, but we shouldn’t fling away employing race as a lever for control simply because it offends our vanities of racial tolerance.
Prison, by definition, does not look like free, civil society.
What a disgusting manifestation of how perverse and extreme the misapplication of the idea of equality can get.
if the death and injury rate inside the prisons increases dramatically, what risk will there be to the Judges who created yet another social catastrophe.
The purpose behind this suit is to make the prisons unmanageable.
It will put prisoners and prison staff at greater risk.
Going to prison is by definition a diminution of one’s civil rights. The safety of inmates and staff must be paramount in a prison.
That the USSC has become invovled in this is very bad. But it was done prior to Alito and Stevens, and so is not surprising.
LaShawn,
I live less than a mile from one of the race war hotspots in South Los Angeles, and I can tell you, there’s an undeclared war on black people by Mexicans. It’s been going on against white people for some years as well, but the black ‘leaders’ haven’t even awoken to the problem. Black people here are all scared, but where can they go? The problem is in every major city, as you’ve pointed out.
Oh, I’m sorry, but it looks as though most people here have forgotten that nearly 100% of people in prison are innocent. Especially if they are on death row.
I think we should stop locking people up and send them to Camp Kumbaya instead. There, all the people, black, brown, yellow, red and white can join together in the great circle of life and bake bread and do macrame and write poetry.
I think Camp Kumbaya should be located on Devil’s Island where the French once ran a commune of sorts. I know it would work just fine. Or not.
HELIO…Man of No Mercy!!! j/k
But, there is the point that the guards at the prisons will be put in extreme peril because of this hairbrained ruling. And, it simply won’t work.
“If there are too many blacks and not enough whites, then we’ll just have to arrest more whites to fill in the empty spots! Call it affirmative action.”
Love you, Jewels!! LOL! Ah, that was too funny.
Sigh. Life is stranger than fiction. On a more serious note, well, I guess whatever has to be done to keep control of the thugs gets my blessing. Why aren’t these folks in multiculti sensitivity training? What? It doesn’t work?
Sheriff Joe Arapico in Arizona has the right idea. I mean, it is called PUNISHMENT isn’t it? Granted I wouldn’t want a tent city prison during the Winter in Minnesota – but I wonder how macho these guys would be wearing pink boxers?
I’m just saying!
>>Arapico>>
That would be Arapaio, not Arapico. My nominee for head of federal prisons!!
LaShawn, if you let the prisoners choose, they would choose to be with their own race (the same exact result as forced segregation)
It happens in schools, work, and play.
The prisoners have chosen to make enemies by race, and find it delightful to harm other races. As prisoners, I don’t mind taking this privilege away from them. Segregate!
La Shawn, If you get the National Geographic Channel you can watch this tonight:
“Explorer correspondent Lisa Ling is given rare access to the California Sacramento State Prison, a world on the fringes of American society. What she finds is a culture unto itself: divided by race, controlled by force and always on the edge of chaos.Ling chronicles the extreme challenges for the guards, investigative officers and inmates. In interviews with both newcomers and lifers, she reports how they survive the dangerous world of gangs and predators. ”
There are several shows in a series from NG channel that highlight the problems of keeping the peace in prison. It’s on tonight at 7 & 10 central time. I’ve seen all the shows in the “prisons” series…..real eye-openers they are!
To be honest, I don’t care if they are chained to a wall in a wet, dark dungeon. Criminals are protected by the law while law abiding citizens fall victims to those same criminals. Yes I believe in the death penalty and the faster the better. The faster we get those on death row executed, the more room we will have. To me this is a non-issue. To me prisoners are not citizens, they are criminals and should be treated as such.
I’d suggest prison cells be made smaller and no prisoners have cellmates. If that’s impractical I’d suggest segregation by religion. Keeping islam from spreading within the prison poulation is even more important than controlling gangs. This would also hopefully replace race-based gang identities with a system of self identification that can be used to help rehabilitate prisoners. A hispanic gangbanger is more likely to get over his racism if his roomate is of another race, but both are Roman Catholic, It won’t always work and it won’t always even be possible, but where it does work it will tend to break up the racial self-identifications that drive so much gang activity.
Atheists and Agnostics in prion kind of take it in the shorts though.
P.S. spell check doesn’t seem to do anything.
My father and older brother were Corrections Officers. The unwritten policy on segregation in prison is for the protection of the Officers. The inmates won’t/can’t play nice. So the staff has to take the measures that they can to maintain safety.
Dexy,
Since when is a prisoner stripped of his citizenship? If a convict is no longer protected by the Constitution, how does he appeal? How does he seek a new trial? The Founders could have easily sought to strip citizenship away from those convicted of crime. But, unlike us, they were not so arrogant to think a system run by Man could be flawless.
Eyewitness identification which weighs heavily in favor of conviction in jury trials has been found in several studies to be unreliable. Just today, the was a story the wire services about a mentally disabled man who spent at least 10 years in jail for two rapes he didn’t commit. He was cleared by DNA evidence. But, if not for his citizenship, there would be no way for him to get justice.
CCR,
“Atheists and Agnostics in prion kind of take it in the shorts though. ”
I think you mean P-R-I-S-O-N. I guess the above comment is an example of the charity of your faith.
Angel and that is why we have so many people in prison. We feel compassion for someone that has the ability to commit a crime. Either one of us could commit murder, steal, rape or any other crime but we choose to do the right thing and not harm another human. It is all about the chioce one makes and if that chioce is to harm another, we need to put a stop to it with an iron fist. I am sorry, I don’t nor will I ever feel sorry for anyone that commit any crime. To some people going to prison is a sign of courage. It makes them tough with with gang members. Treat them as criminals to eliminate the charm of going to prision.
Angel,
You, nor a loved one, obviously haven’t been the victim of a violent crime. When you see your father, brother, sister, mother or child, lying in a hospital bed from being beaten and shot five times, then let’s talk compassion.
Citizen? I don’t consider most human and how they are treated in prison means less to me than the demise of an insect, except, I think they are treated too well for the crimes they have commited. And when you find the rare exception, and innocent prisoner, I bet he isn’t innocent of all crime, just the one he’s serving time for.
Dexy,
This has nothing to do with feeling sorry for a criminal. This has everything to do with due process. We have a ton of people in prison because of mandatory sentencing and draconian drug laws. I only wish we had all rapist and murderers in prison. We don’t.
Fighting crime is like anything else. It requires a sound strategy and effective use of resources. Locking up a pot smoker isn’t either. In Boston, we are experiencing almost a homicide a day. In the 80s, we were able to reduce the murder rate with community policing and targeting “impact players”. Basically, 200 or 250 of the kids that made life unbearable for residents of Boston’s inner city. They were locked up for lengthy sentences and we became a national model for prevention of violent crime.
And, yeah, people deride community policing, but it works. Boston has six million people and less than 2,000 city police officers. Strategic use of those resources is vital.
I know it’s tempting to take the “T.J. Hooker” approach to crime, but like Shatner’s toupee, it’s unrealistic.
Also, I’m not talking about giving criminal more rights, just preserving the ones they already have under the Constitution. If you found yourself in a line-up, you would want all those guarantees in place for you. I know I would.
Denise,
You don’t know one thing about me. Not one. So I really would back off, especially on that first sentence.
Denise,
You should also read what I posted. I don’t mention the word “compassion” anywhere in my posts. Dexy does though. Maybe you should direct your obnoxious post his way.
Angel, my point is I would never put myself in the position to be in a line up becuase I don’t commit crimes. Criminals in this country control the justice system because we pamper those that break the law. Have you ever been to Singapore? That country has extreme punishment for law breakers. Guess what? No one breaks to law because they understand how severe the punishment is. Our justice system is a joke because we have too many lobbyist for the criminals and not enough protection for us that are law abiding citizens.
Dexy,
I don’t commit crimes either, but it could happen. There are several false arrests every day. Do you really believe the criminal justice system is that perfect from top to bottom?
I’m not a lobbyist for criminals. I’m a citizen who wants to be assured my rights don’t disappear if a fellow citizen mistakenly points me out as a purse snatcher. This isn’t about cable in prison or any of the other creature comforts that may be available.
I can engage in discussion, argument or debate. But, we must be talking about the same thing to proceed. Confusing the issue may be innocent on your part or it may be a ploy. If you can’t agree that the right to appeal must be maintained, there is no point in going any further.
Correction – The city of Boston has recorded 14 homicides so far, up from 10 at this time last year. It only felt like there was a murder every day.
The department of corrections has an obligation to protect the prisoners in their charge.
If the consequence of mixing blacks and hispanics is conflict leading to violence, then it is the duty of the prison to separate them.
That looks like a perfectly new resident for BILL CLINTON and his entire cabnet each to their own little cell
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