Corcoran State Prison & Prisoner Abuse

In its first decade of operation, Corcoran State Prison, touted as a state-of-the-art facility, proved to be a very dangerous place for prisoners to be placed. In that first ten years, Corcoran guards shot and killed seven inmates, and only nine months after opening, guards shot and wounded three inmates in eight weeks. These shootings were ruled justified on the claim that the intent was to protect an inmate or guard. Guards did not use either physical restraint or nonlethal weapons to stop a fight, and eight Corcoran officers were eventually indicted for arranging prison fights for recreation. In addition, four guards were charged in the death of inmate Preston Tate. However, not one top administrator has been charged with any crime, and Department of Correction officials continue to deny that the prison was mismanaged. When the California Department of Corrections found all of the abuse allegations groundless, the FBI was called in to investigate ("Corcoran State Prison Fact Sheet").

Outside groups such as Amnesty International have also raised concerns about

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9 it had seen its first shooting when a guard wounded an SHU inmate "by mistake" with a 9mm carbine. In April 1989, William Martinez was shot dead in the SHU exercise yard; in June, William Randoll was shot dead in the SHU exercise yard; in 1993, Michael Mullins was shot dead in the general population yard; later that year, Vincent Tulum was shot through the neck in the SHU exercise yard and is now quadriplegic; followed by many others. All these shootings were declared justifiable by review committees and boards composed of Corrections Department employees. By 1996, though, whistleblowing guards were telling about "gladiator days" at Corcoran, when guards would stage fights between inmates and occasionally kill one of the antagonists. The state was then investigating a 1995 episode when shackled men arriving from Calipatria prison were savagely beaten by guards screaming "Welcome to hell!" The response by the Corrections Department was to enforce a permanent ban on reporters' facetoface interviews with inmates (Cockburn 8). According to a draft report in April 1997, an investigative team appointed by the Corrections Department substantiated the "selective cover up of excessive force" by Corcoran guards, plus the "distur
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2042
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)