Posted on 01/23/2006 9:58:18 AM PST by radar101
California's troubled prisons are being investigated anew, this time for relying on violent felons to help keep order behind bars.
The practice has led to two slayings in just over one year.
The Associated Press has found that the killings of a guard and an inmate involved so-called ``peacekeepers.'' These are the high-ranking gang members and other influential prisoners entrusted with controlling fellow inmates, smoothing racial tension and cooperating with staff.
The practice has drawn previously unreported scrutiny from federal investigators, who are probing a peacekeeper's role in the Sacramento-area shooting of a prisoner by a guard. Prison system investigators have their own probe, and the warden says he's trying to rein in peacekeepers, who can enjoy freedoms which critics say let them run drugs and order inmate assaults.
The AP has found in the Sacramento case, an inmate was shot to death in November 2004 while carrying out a stabbing ordered by a white supremacist peacekeeper serving time for murder. Two months later, a peacekeeper fatally stabbed a guard at a prison in Chino.
State Corrections secretary Roderick Hickman defends the practice, likening it to street cops' use of informants. He says at the same, the practice has its hazards.
CC
"These are the high-ranking gang members and other influential prisoners entrusted with controlling fellow inmates, smoothing racial tension and cooperating with staff."
This is insane, To whoms benefit do you think these leaders use their power? Prison should do every thing possible to break the criminal mindset of a jungle mentality that the strongest rule over the weaker. The prison is where the prisoners should learn about the rule of law.
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