McDowell can see first hand how not to run a prison

America Letter:If Californians needed evidence that their prison system is in deep trouble, they got it this week. It started with a riot at Chino prison near Los Angeles and ended with the evacuation of San Quentin after almost 500 prisoners were infected with a severe stomach bug.

As Tánaiste Michael McDowell arrives in Los Angeles today for meetings with police chiefs and other law enforcement officials, he will also have a chance to examine how not to run a prison system.

The Chino riot erupted after two inmates, one Latino and the other African-American, got into a brawl that escalated to involve 200 prisoners, 27 of whom were sent to hospital. The most seriously injured prisoner suffered a stab wound, a broken jaw and a laceration to the head.

The San Quentin prisoners were suffering from gastroenteritis brought on by the highly contagious norovirus, with many experiencing diarrhoea, vomiting, cramps, fever and dehydration.

Both incidents highlighted the chronic overcrowding at California's prisons, where 174,000 inmates are jammed into cells made to hold 100,000. Thousands of prisoners sleep in three-tier bunks laid out in day- rooms and other makeshift dormitories and prison officers say that violent outbreaks are becoming more frequent.

Just before Christmas, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced an $11 billion plan to create 78,000 more prison beds, and change parole rules to reduce the number of inmates. The governor, who was sworn in yesterday for a second term, is hoping to reduce overcrowding by next June, when a federal judge has threatened to take control of the state's prison system unless the situation improves.

Unfortunately for the governor, many of his proposed changes will take a long time to make an impact and his most promising short-term measure - moving California inmates to private prisons in other states - has so far been a failure.

The state was hoping to ship at least 5,000 inmates to prisons in Tennessee and Arizona but by late last month, fewer than 200 had volunteered. The California department of corrections produced a 20-minute video spotlighting the clean, spacious, two-person cells, the superior food and the educational opportunities available to those who move out of state.

The video failed to impress, partly because prisoners' families, most of whom have little money, would be unable to visit a Tennessee or Arizona prison frequently. If that was not compelling enough, the gangs that are powerful within many California prisons, fear losing numerical strength and have told members not to volunteer for a move.

California prison gangs have been organised along racial lines since the emergence of gangs such as the Mexican Mafia, the Black Guerrilla Family and the Aryan Brotherhood in the 1970s. Because prison life is so violent, gang membership often offers the best chance of protection but the gangs fuel racial violence such as that seen at Chino.

Police officers say that even prisoners with no gang affiliations are reluctant to move because of rumours that a federal court could order the release of up to 40,000 inmates to ease overcrowding.

The strain on US prisons reflects the fact that a frantic expansion of prison beds, which saw a new prison opening each week between 1985 and 2000, has failed to keep pace with the soaring prison population.

More than two million Americans are locked up and a further five million are on probation or parole. With 738 inmates per 100,000 population, the US has the highest reported rate of incarceration in the world, well ahead of the Russian rate of 594 per 100,000.

Blacks are three times more likely than Hispanics and five times more likely than whites to be imprisoned and black males have a 32 per cent chance of serving time behind bars during their lifetime, according to bureau of justice statistics.

The explosion in prison numbers owes much to the US "war on drugs", so that one in four inmates was in prison for drug offences in 2002, compared to one in 10 in 1983. If Schwarzenegger is serious about tackling the crisis, he may have to consider radical changes in sentencing policy, particularly towards non-violent drug offenders.