Dot Mapping Prisons

Explorations through the racial dot census map

[prisondots]

St. Charles Parish Nelson Coleman Correctional Center

The facility has the capacity to house 600 inmates and averages 550 inmates. As a Californian, it seems refreshing to see a prison that isn't far beyond capacity.

Video Arraignment & Video Visitation: The video arraignment and video visitation features of the facility reduces the need to transport inmates and reduces the introduction of contraband into the facility. 

I'd be interested to hear more about this. On one hand, reducing in person contact sounds harmful, but more, easier contact with families should be beneficial. I also want to find out where the visitors hook up to their system. This sounds unusual.

Purpose: By being able to house more inmates we have seen a reduction in crime throughout the parish. We are using basic techniques at a minimal cost to the sheriff’s office and to tax payers to stop the cycle of crime. 

Stellar understanding of cause and effect at work.

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Wyoming Medium Correctional Institution - Torrington, WY

I'm going to have to look more into this later, but the Prison Gerrymandering Project lays out how this prison was used to move district lines for purely political purposes ... while putting the prison and the town next to it in different districts.

The project

found several new Wyoming legislative districts that meet federal minimum population requirements only by using prison populations as padding. ... In order to increase his chances for re-election, Senator Meier insisted that his house be shifted to another district.

[prisondots]

FCI Ray Brook & Adirondack Correctional Facility

Sure, but I know where a lot of the California prisons are from lots of drives on 5 and 101, I know whereabout to look. Would they appear as obvious in other states? Yes.

FCI Ray Brook and Adirondack Correctional Facility, the later of which seems to have an interesting history of having been a sanatorium for TB patients, then a Dept of Health run drug rehab, and then "a camp program for adult inmates". The facilities were used for Olympic staff during the Lake Placid Olympics, and inmates were temporarily relocated. Inmates worked at the trials prior to the games.

Then as I was poking around I found this, the FCI Ray Brook inmate handbook, which led me to two different screwed up facts about US prisons.

First we have pgs 12-14 that starts with this pretty good and fairly inclusionary language:

You Have the Right to be Safe from Sexually Abusive Behavior. While you are incarcerated, no one has the right to pressure you to engage in sexual acts. You do not have to tolerate sexually abusive behavior or pressure to engage in unwanted sexual behavior from another inmate or a staff member. Regardless of your age, size, race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, you have the right to be safe from sexually abusive behavior.

and then tells you to report abuse to a staff member. Followed immediately by "What Can You Do To Prevent Sexually Abusive Behavior?" which includes:

Carry yourself in a confident manner at all times. Do not permit your emotions (fear/anxiety) to be obvious to others. [wow]

Do not accept gifts or favors from others. Most gifts or favors come with strings attached to them.

Do not accept an offer from another inmate to be your protector.

Find a staff member with whom you feel comfortable discussing your fears and concerns. [really? this will prevent abuse how?]

Be alert! Do not use contraband substances such as drugs or alcohol; these can weaken your ability to stay alert and make good judgments. [where have we hear that before?]

Be direct and firm if others ask you to do something you don’t want to do. Do not give mixed messages to other inmates regarding your wishes for sexual activity.

Stay in well lit areas of the institution. [also wow]

Trust your instincts. If you sense that a situation may be dangerous, it probably is. If you fear for your safety, report your concerns to staff.

So pretty decent language against sexual assault in prisons, followed immediately by pre-emptive victim blaming. How about "don't rape"? "There are severe consequences for sexual assault"? "We're actively working on this"?

More on that to come.

Also ran into sections on inmate pay, where I learned a few more things.

1. Approximate distribution of pay scales is as such: 5% of inmates at highest level (Grade 1), then 15%, then 25%, and then 55% of inmates at the lowest level of pay (Grade 4). So, even in prison we have a defined and predetermined pay hierarchy and inequity.

UNICOR maximum wage is $1.15/hr, and minimum wage is $0.23/hr. There are wages lower than that. For more real numbers, check out the Prison Policy Initiative's page on prison labor.

2. Your pay grade is determined by "position’s educational and vocational requirements, physical demands, working conditions (exposed to dusts, odors, etc) and the degree of responsibility held by the inmate worker." Which sounds pretty decent and fair until you get to the part that isn't listed in that criteria but is instead sprinkled through other sections -- that pay can be reduced to "maintenance level" for infractions or for failing to comply with fiscal responsibility program. Another thing that I now want to research further, but appears to relate to laws passed in the 80s and early 90s about debts to victims' funds and courts -- and I don't really trust crime laws passed in the 80s. 

Modern day debtors' prison in Alabama

Replacing other workers in hard economy

"How St Louis profits from poverty"

NPR's in depth reporting on exorbitant fees targeting poor people

"California will need to make a choice: Pay full price for its firefighting workforce, or send more violent inmates out into the wilderness with powerful tools and very little security."

Let's end here tonight, with more poking around on prisontalk.com, this whole page is worth a short read, a reminder that these are real jobs, that real companies profit off of, that could be getting paid at least minimum wage to either inmates for use upon their release or to any other workers in this country.

In addition, there have been problems with some of the UNICOR factories in terms of worker safety. I don't know if OSHA ever inspects these factories. Obviously, the workers are not allowed to have a union or to go on strike so it's easy to treat them like sweatshop workers.

[prisondots]

Twin Towers Correctional Facility - Los Angeles, CA

Sure, maybe it's easier to find prisons in the census data when they're out in the middle of nowhere (temporarily postponing discussing about the implications of that), what about in cities?

Twin Towers, in downtown Los Angeles, right in the middle there, and still manages to have a barrier of space around it. And different racial make up than the largely segregated neighborhoods around it.

[prisondots]

Taft TMCCF & Taft Federal - Taft, CA

First I thought, “Why does Taft City Hall need to house so many people (period) and in such a small space (secondly).” It looks way worse than Taft Federal Correctional Institution (bottom right).

First let’s start with the federal institution, the first privately run one I found. The Bureau of Prisons says

The majority of BOP inmates in private prisons are sentenced criminal aliens who may be deported upon completion of their sentence.

I can’t tell if the owners of Taft Federal Correctional Institution are actually legit but they’re saying the right things on their website, pro-education, pro-training, social integration, etc. Sounds good.

Eventually find that Taft Modified Community Correctional Facility has an interesting history (more here) of being opened in order to relieve overcrowding (AB 1591), closed by realignment (AB 109) and then reopened under contract with the CDCR, I’m assuming because of recent crowding.

Still thought it’s weird that the small, community jail is so much smaller than the federal prison. More googling… and I find way more information on Taft than any other facility I’ve looked at so far. First I find a number of blogs of prisoners, which sounds good, paired with the fact that the private owner might actually be running some helpful programs.

Then I found this and this then that Taft federal prison is where Jordon Belfortshared a cell with Tommy Chong, where Jordon was “hiring other inmates to do his chores for him.” More that I can’t help but quote:

“We were part of the elite gang,” Chong says… they ate meals “Goodfellas-style” with another famous inmate, the PGA Tour caddie Eric Larson… Larson “worked in the garden, and he grew these fresh, delicious vegetables, and he used to cook them,” Chong says. “We had these beautiful vegetarian, healthy meals every night, and Jordan was part of the gang. We had a nice little hierarchy there, intelligent famous guys hanging out together.”

Great, so the only prison where I easily found information about good programs is the rich people prison. If you zoom in on Google Maps satellite view you can see baseball fields, soccer fields, tennis and basketball courts, and then more over here, which I haven’t seen at others.

I also found a page of friends and partners talking about the prison. Lots of people writing about family getting sent from one prison to another, and having to get reapproved for visits each time, because heaven forbid that be standardized or centralized and records be consistent. So let’s wrap up with this, which just crushed me at the end of the night, reminding me that the dots are people. (emphasis mine)

What are the public transit options for getting to Taft CI from Bakersfield? I don’t have a license, and I’d be visiting from Canada (flying from Vancouver to Phoenix to Bakersfield) if my man is sent there. The hotels/motels in Maricopa and Taft seem really sketchy and unsafe for a petite 25-year-old like me… so I’d be staying in Bakersfield, but I need to know how I would get to the prison without a vehicle. Any info?

Yea, that’s what we do to prisoners and families here, welcome to America, my Canadian friend.

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[prisondots]

Corcoran State Prison - Corcoran, CA

And about now is when I started thinking “Hm, it’s such a contrast, these hyper-dense, hyper-defined areas versus the small towns they’re next to. Oh wait, what do they use the census for?…”

According to the Prison Gerrymandering Project:

The way the Census Bureau counts people in prison creates significant problems for democracy and for our nation’s future. It leads to a dramatic distortion of representation at local and state levels, and creates an inaccurate picture of community populations for research and planning purposes.

The Bureau counts incarcerated people as residents of the towns where they are confined, though they are barred from voting in 48 states and return to their homes after being released. The practice also defies most state constitutions and statutes, which explicitly state that incarceration does not change a residence.

Added to my list of things to look into through this project…

[original map]

[prisondots]

Avenal & Pleasant Valley State Prisons

While there are lots of towns, and dense housing (trailer homes, apartments, etc) that are also dense, the prisons really pop on the map because they’re so stark — there’s no petering out, no generally fading population designating the edge of town.

Pleasant Valley (northern in the first image, zoomed in on the bottom one) is next to Coalinga State Hospital, “California’s newest state mental health hospital and the first constructed in more than a half century”. Sure seems like a lot of yellow dots (Hispanic) in the jail and a lot of blue dots (White) in the hospital, and a lot of green dots (Black) in both. Will need to do more research on this, anyone know anything about it?

Read more from the CA Dept of State Hospitals trying to entice people to come there

The Department of State Hospitals (DSH) - Coalinga began treating forensically committed individuals – mostly sexually violent predators who were transferred from DSH - Atascadero – in early September 2005.

Construction was completed on the new state hospital in the summer of 2005. The hospital sits on 320 acres and is comprised of 1.2 million gross square feet of floor space. At full capacity, the facility will house 1,500 individuals and employ approximately 1,600 staff.

Administration Entrance

Main Courtyard

This small, rural community of approximately 16,000 people is an ideal location in which to settle and escape the traffic and congestion found in the larger cities of California. We enjoy the strong and enthusiastic support of a progressive and family friendly community.

If you have not had a chance to visit Coalinga in recent years, we are in the midst of a housing boom with an estimated 1,000 new homes in the planning stages for the next few years. Housing prices remain affordable. Community members are very accepting and eager to have our mental health professionals join their community. Plus, Coalinga is a very clean and nice hometown. Our climate is mildly seasonal compared to other Valley locations and its 676-foot elevation mitigates fog.

Please take a look at the exciting career opportunities available at Coalinga’s new state-of-the-art forensic facility, Coalinga State Hospital.

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[prisondots]

Salinas Valley State Prison - Soledad, CA

Once I started looking for “completely unnatural super dense” shapes, they became very easy to spot. 

[original map]

[prisondots]

Valley State Prision - Chowchilla, CA

Strangely rigid area out by itself? Another prison. Less dense than others though. I know there’s a women’s prison there.

[original map]

[prisondots]

San Quentin 

This is the first prison I found on Dustin Cable’s racial dot census map. I was scrolling around this engrossing and beautiful map, and found this stark, dense, oddly shaped mark. It’s San Quentin. I wondered if other prisons would similarly jump off the map.