prison guards who gave evidence to a subsequent FBI investigation were reportedly harassed by their fellow officers and eventually forced to resign ("Amnesty International: USA Campaign: Chapter 4 Violations in Prisons and Jails").
A report from the World Organization Against Torture, U.S.A. echoes some of these charges:
For example, two recent examples of horrific abuses a staff conspiracy to murder prisoners at the Corcoran State Prison in California, and a staff riot at the Hays State Prison in Georgia came to light only because of private litigation brought by abused prisoners. Litigation also represents one of the primary ways that similar forms of neglect and abuse of related to improper medical and psychiatric care of prisoners can be brought to light and remedied. Policies such as those contained in the Prison Litigation Reform Act represent a significant failure of the Government to deal with prison abuses, and an effort to keep these abuses from receiving the attention they deserve and require (Sherman, Magnani, and Kerness).
In mid April 1999, California Prison Focus conducted an investigative visit to Corcoran State Prison and saw 37 men, 27 of whom were housed in the Security Housing Unit, and 10 in General Population. One of the prisoners described Corcoran as a place of "aggravation, degradation and humiliation," and the report by the organization supported this contention ("The Corcoran Way").
Corcoran State Prison is 170 miles northwest of Los Angeles in the San Joaquin Valley. It was built at a cost of $271.9 million on what was once Tulare Lake, home of the Tachi Indians. The facility was opened in 1988; it was designed for 3,000 prisoners, but now holds 5,030. This is Kings County, which has dairies, cotton fields, and two other state prisons besides Corcoran. The region is clearly dependent on the prison industry to a great degree, which has been a problem as legal issues arise: