Will Racial Integration Cause Violence Among Prisoners?

Inmates' Threat: No Segregation, No Peace
Some Fear Court-Ordered Integration May Trigger Racial Violence Among Inmates
By ALEX STONE
July 1, 2008



When an inmate who is not black enters Will Williams' cell for the first time at San Quentin State Prison in Northern California, one of the last forms of legalized segregation will come to an end.
San Quentin
In a case that went as high as the United States Supreme Court, California's prisons must begin... Expand
In a case that went as high as the United States Supreme Court, California's prisons must begin racially integrating their cells this month. Integration goes against an unwritten code of conduct among inmates inside San Quentin. That code says they must never communicate with other races. Collapse
(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

In a case that went as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, California's prisons must begin racially integrating their cells this month. Integration goes against an unwritten code of conduct among San Quentin inmates, which says they must never communicate with other races.

Click here to listen to a radio report by ABC News' Alex Stone about the San Quentin integration.

Inmates and guards admit they are nervous about the changes because so much of the violence inside the walls of the prison, which sits on the rocky shore of the San Francisco Bay, is caused by racial tensions.

"I just don't think it's going to really work because everybody is so against it," said Williams, who has been locked up at San Quentin for 35 years on a kidnapping and robbery conviction. "The whites are saying they don't want blacks, and the blacks are saying they don't want whites."


Until now, most California prisons, including San Quentin, have been segregated in order to keep the peace. Guards say nearly every inmate in the prison is in a gang. The gangs only recruit their own races, and when the races meet it can often result in deadly violence.

It is hard for outsiders to understand the gang lifestyle inside the prisons.

"We have the whites and they're not even allowed to talk to blacks," said Officer Jamie Allejos, who watches over inmates in San Quentin's B Block. "We've got guys who get beat up just for talking to another race or sharing food with another inmate."

The integration is the result of a 1995 lawsuit filed by a black inmate in California who claimed being segregated infringed upon his rights. The case eventually made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which handed it down to a federal mediation court. Both sides agreed to integrate the cells.

Allejos made it very clear that he believes integrating the cells will lead to increased violence.

"The guys who are making these decisions don't know nothing about prison. I think the people who are making these decisions should come here for six months and find out the conditions in here," Allejos said.