The sounds of iron bars slamming shut ? not the ocean crashing on the beach ? is what 24 San Diego State University students experienced during Spring Break.
The students toured eight of the 33 minimum and maximum prisons in California April 6 through April 10. Paul Sutton, a criminal justice professor at SDSU, has been setting up these prison tours for 15 years.
Sutton said this was a unique tour because he and the students covered a wide range of prisons over 1,500 miles.
The itinerary included the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo, Correctional Training Facility in Soledad, Salinas Valley State Prison, San Quentin, Federal Correctional in Dublin, California State Prison in Sacramento, Folsom State Prison and Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla.
“I believed this was a chance of a lifetime to experience the daily routine of an inmate in their own environment,” said Cupcake Brown, a criminal justice senior.
Sutton said that after 15 years, he’s not surprised at what he sees in the prisons but at the students’ reactions. He said each group takes on a different personality during the tour.
For many of the students, he said, the tour is physically and emotionally exhaustive.
“The students meet killers who turn out to be nice guys, not the stereotypical bad guy,” Sutton said. “They see, hear and feel a lot of things they didn’t expect to.”
Brown said, “As I walked around, I wondered what they did to end up here; they all looked so normal.”
She knew she couldn’t ask them why they were in prison because the guards said that would be rude.
“The Department of Corrections tries to conduct tours in a dignified manner,” said Lt. Jerry Smith, community resource manager at the Soledad Correctional Training Facility.
He said state-prison tours are possible because tax payers pay for the facilities and therefore have a right to see how they are maintained and run.
Before a person can enter the prisons, a written letter must be submitted. A background check of the visitors is also done, Sutton said.
Brown said that before the tour, she signed a release that stated the prison doesn’t negotiate for hostages and that family members couldn’t sue the prison if something were to happen to her.
She said the guards told her they wouldn’t hesitate shooting through the students to make sure an inmate doesn’t escape. The guards said if they gave in once to the demands of an inmate uprising, hostage situations would be common occurrences, Brown said.
She said she wasn’t scared or nervous at the two women’s prisons, but felt intimidated at the men’s prisons, especially by inmates who have killed.
At some of the prisons, Brown said, the inmates were making cat calls, spitting and trying to urinate on the students as they walked through the cell halls.
“In San Quentin there are about 4,000 inmates and 100 guards,” she said. “Only 35 (guards) carry guns. Some guards in the prisons might only carry pepper spray or batons.”
Smith said that through his observations, he has noticed students are surprised at what they see “because it goes against the gloomy violent picture implanted in their minds by Hollywood.”
He said the public is rarely exposed to the rehabilitation, academic, vocational and work environment in the prisons.
Ray Stercl, a public administration senior, said he had a stereotypical picture of what a bad guy in prison would be like: mean, ugly and rude.
Brown felt before the tour that all of the inmates were animals and deserved to be shot. She said she now realizes they are humans first.
Stercl said drugs are a part of prison life. Inmates access them through mail and visitors.
He said he was surprised to see all of the female correctional officers in the prisons. About 20 percent of the officers he observed were women.
Brown said what surprised her most was the lack of privacy in prison. The inmates are never left alone.
“There might be men masturbating in front of you and the other inmates,” she said. “While taking a shower, the inmates would turn around to face you instead of covering up.”
Denise Ramos, a criminal justice senior, said that while on the tour the students also observed a memorial service for 10 correctional officers who died on duty from the 1970s to 1985.
Ramos observed inmates who voluntarily took part in HIV classes.
Stercl said about 40 percent of women in prison are HIV positive and there are very few programs for these women. He said he feels HIV testing should be mandatory.
One inmate cried in front of Brown, expressing remorse not for what he did, but because he got caught. She said some inmates told her that in order to move on with their lives, they can no longer feel remorse.
“Remorse might have been there in the beginning, but as time goes on, it diminishes,” Brown said.
Brown said racial segregation was present in the men’s prisons, but not in the women’s.
“It was a bunch of girls hanging out and doing nails,” she said.
Brown, Ramos and Stercl all said they were surprised to see how nice the Women’s Federal Correction prison in Dublin was. The prison offers aerobics and pottery classes.
“It was more like a Club Fed,” Ramos said.
Ramos said some prisons needed reform more than others. She said there needs to be more programs in some of the prisons.
“The inmates had a different attitude when they kept busy and were working towards something,” Ramos said.
Brown plans to educate inner-city school children on what prison life is really like.
Sutton said he has made friends with the correctional officers throughout the years and without them this wouldn’t be possible. He said he runs into former students who took the tour with him working in the prisons he visits.
“You never know who you’re going to run into on the tour,” Sutton said.
He said that during this tour, he and the students interviewed an inmate who turned out to be one of the Billionaire Boys Club members who were convicted of murder.
In the past, he said, they’ve seen Charles Manson, Betty Broderick and Craig Prior, the former California Highway Patrol officer convicted of killing a San Diego woman during a traffic stop.
Students also run into former classmates who are serving time in prison, Sutton said.
