Institutional interviews

By: Joe Strupp Calif. bill provides better access of press to prisoners


California journalists will have an easier time interviewing prisoners and trading mail with them if a bill pending before the state legislature is approved next month. The law would reverse a state Department of Corrections policy that has kept most journalists from contacting inmates since 1995.
"The public has a right to know what is going on in these institutions," says Peter Sussman, a former San Francisco Chronicle editor and key proponent of the bill. "It is essential for a proper check of what is going on."
The proposed legislation, AB 1440, was overwhelmingly approved by the California Assembly, 69-7, on May 13 and will be considered by the state Senate in June. Gov. Gray Davis, who took office in January, has not taken a position on the bill, his office says.
Specifically, the proposal would require the Department of Corrections, which oversees state prisons, to allow the news media to interview prisoners if the prisoner does not object. The prison could set time and place constraints but would not be able to simply reject such requests.
The law also would lift a ban on news reporters receiving private correspondence from prisoners. Currently, prisoners are allowed to exchange mail only with lawyers and public officials.
"We feel that the working press should have access to prisoners and see what is going on behind prison walls," says assemblywoman Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, the bill's sponsor. "We're not trying to glorify crime, but we are trying to open up to the press what is happening."
Department of Corrections' officials did not return calls for comment. But the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which represents the state's 28,000 prison officers, has shown strong support for the bill.
"The more disclosure, the better," says Ryan Sherman, legislative analyst for the correctional officers union. "If the media can come in to take a look, everyone will have more incentive to do what they are supposed to do. Sticking up a wall is not a way to go."
The current tight controls were established in 1995 under former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who said at the time that he did not want prisoners to benefit from their crimes through media exposure and who vetoed a previous version of the pending bill two years ago.
Although Gov. Davis, a Democrat, has not taken a stand on the proposal, observers believe his more-liberal approach gives it a better chance to become law.
Tim Graham, president of the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, says the latest version seems to have more support because lawmakers are realizing it will not allow convicted criminals to make money from their crimes.
"They seem to think this is all about putting Charles Manson on TV," says Graham. "It is not going to open the flood gates; guidelines will still be in place."
Other journalists and news executives who have lobbied for an easing of restrictions say that state officials are realizing that prisoner interviews and better reporter access are needed to properly cover the state's expanding prison system.
"Things go on within prisons that frequently need to be brought to public light," says Matthew Wilson, executive editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. "I don't think it is different from getting into any other government building."
Orange County Register executive editor Ken Brusic agrees. "For people not to be able to understand what is happening in prisons is poor public policy," he says. "People have a right to know how prisons are run."
The push for more reporter access behind bars is occurring as California undergoes its greatest prison construction boom ever, and follows several recent cases of alleged abuse of prisoners by guards. The most prominent recent incident is the 1994 alleged staging of "blood fights" among prisoners by guards at Corcoran State Prison in the state's Central Valley.
"There have been incredible abuses that will get worse if the public is unable to view them," says Sussman, who co-authored a book with an inmate about prison life. "Supreme Court after Supreme Court has held that prisoners retain their First Amendment rights behind bars."

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