B. Creating a Safe Space in the L.A County Jail
4. A Possible Fourth Factor: External Attention
There is one further factor suggested by my research that may also contribute to K6G’s relatively relaxed atmosphere: the increased security K6Gs feel knowing that outsiders, including community activists, advocacy organizations (LGBT and otherwise), researchers, and even the media357 are
paying attention to what happens in the unit. Over the course of my research in the unit, for example, Bell and Lanni conducted at least two tours for advocacy organizations, including a Bay Area transgender rights group. During these tours, visitors were brought to the officers’ booth overlooking the dorms and were thus in full view of the residents. This experience was nothing new for K6Gs, who are used to being observed from that vantage point by interested outside parties. The exposure also appeared to generate a feeling, even among those in the unit who resent the invasion of privacy, that free-world people are invested in the well-being of the people in K6G.
The outside attention K6G receives has meant that unit residents enjoy a range of specially tailored services not available to people in the Jail’s GP, which constitutes a benefit in itself.358 Perhaps even more significant, the
combination of the original consent decree, still in force, and the attention K6G receives from outside organizations as well as the media359 has
seemed to ensure that the Jail’s command staff remains committed to
County still has much more to do to ensure genuinely humane conditions even in K6G. It also reveals that, although doing away with the need for hypermasculine posturing and gang involvement is necessary for a humane environment, reforms achieving this crucial goal are not sufficient. Those interested in what problems can remain even after these toxic features of life in GP are eliminated might learn much from studying the pathologies that continue to exist in K6G despite its relative humanity. For a catalogue of such problems, see supra Part II.B.
357See, e.g., James Ricci, Gay Jail Inmates Get Chance to Learn, L.A. TIMES, Apr. 7,
2004, at B1 (reporting on a graduation ceremony that took place in K6G and the success of K6G’s educational and rehabilitative programming); Beth Shuster, Sheriff Approves Handout of Condoms to Gay Inmates, L.A.TIMES, Nov. 30, 2001, at A38 (describing launch of K6G’s condom-distribution program); Terry LeGrand, The Alternative: Behind Gay Bars (L.A. Talk Radio broadcast Aug. 1, 2010) (talk radio program featuring Senior Deputy Randy Bell and Deputy Bart Lanni); Lisa Baertlein, For L.A. AIDS Group Prison Health is Public Health, REUTERS (April 23, 2007, 5:11 PM), http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/ 04/23/us-prison-hiv-idUSN4M19957720070423 (describing K6G’s condom distribution program, administered by the Center for Health Justice).
358For example, staff from the Center for Health Justice distribute condoms in the dorms
once a week and also provide regular HIV prevention education and one-on-one counseling. And the Tarzana Treatment Center, which offers transitional services to formerly incarcerated people with HIV, conducts regular counseling and planning sessions for people in the unit.
K6G’s success. As a result, when problems arise, some institutional attention and resources will be devoted to their resolution.360
At least some of K6G’s residents appear to be aware of this outside interest and involvement. And to some degree, this awareness has seemed to foster a sense that people in the unit continue to matter and have not been abandoned by the outside world. As one of my interview subjects put it:
[Not that] we’re so special, but it’s a lot of attention has been drawn away from us in the world. You know what I’m saying? Outside world. So, we come here to have people look at us like you guys are better than what you guys are doing on the streets, then that’s like something that is—I don’t know, I can’t even put it into words. It’s like—It mean a lot to me. I don’t know how every other K6G feel about it, but it means a lot to me.361
I am unable to say to what extent this factor contributes to the overall sense of security and well-being in the unit.362 But it seems reasonable to think
that such outside attention, to all appearances motivated by concern for the particular populations K6G serves, would only reinforce this sense.
Taken together, the several factors just canvassed point to a striking conclusion: getting between potential predators and their victims is only part of what will keep people in custody safe. Equally important is an institutional commitment to treating prisoners with respect, as people—
360Likely as a consequence of this outside attention, Jail officials are also willing to
consider requests arising from the particular needs of K6G’s residents, which might otherwise be dismissed as inappropriate for a men’s facility. For example, in the latter half of 2009, Lanni worked with Commander Robert Olmstead and Captain Buddy Goldman to get permission for trans women in K6G to have cosmetics in the dorms on the same terms as detainees in the women’s facility. Lanni also worked with Dr. Keith Markley, supervising psychiatrist at Men’s Central Mental Health Service, to ensure access to hormone therapy for a number of the trans women in the unit. I consider the alacrity with which Chief Alex Yim (then Acting Chief) agreed to grant me access to the Jail to conduct the research on which this Article is based as further evidence of the Jail’s willingness to address the needs of K6G. Other prison researchers have written of the lengthy delays that can attend official consideration of requests for access to study prisoners, and the strong resistance to granting access those making these requests can encounter. See, e.g., Kathleen Fox, Katheryn Zambrana & Jodi Lane, Getting In (and Staying In) When Everyone Else Wants Out: 10 Lessons Learned from Conducting Research with Inmates, 22 J.CRIM. JUST.EDUC. 304 (2011); Chad R. Trulson, James W. Marquart & Janet L. Mullings, Breaking In: Gaining Entry to Prisons and Other Hard-to-Access Criminal Justice Organizations, 15 J. CRIM. JUST.EDUC. 451 (2004). By contrast, at our first meeting, Chief Yim readily agreed to provide whatever access, assistance, and other support I needed to carry out this project. Other researchers focusing on K6G have found Chief Yim similarly open. See, e.g., Harawa et al., supra note 218. It may be that Chief Yim’s willingness stemmed in part from his sense that K6G is a relative success and thus something in the Jail’s interests to publicize. But this interpretation does not explain why he afforded me access to all parts of the facility over the course of my research, not just to K6G.
361Int. 41, at D2 (emphasis added).
seeing them, and thus making them feel, not like inmates but like individuals who “are better than what you guys are doing in the streets.”363
The explicit institutional acknowledgment that unit residents are particularly vulnerable because of their sexual orientation or gender identity in turn allows organizations outside the Jail to make connections with and offer aid to members of these populations, thereby affirming people in the unit as people who matter, regardless of their imprisonment. Bell and Lanni deal with K6G’s residents this same way, thereby creating bonds of trust and communication that in turn help to keep the unit safe. Indeed, the Jail’s efforts to identify gay men and trans women in order to comply with the consent decree have meant that the institution itself has had to engage with K6G’s residents first and foremost as people in need of protection. This enterprise has altered the dominant institutional framework for dealing with the people in K6G; they are seen as potentially vulnerable people and not merely as inmates. As a result, even those deputies inclined to be aggressive and hostile toward detainees in the Jail—and those who are deeply uncomfortable with the sexual identity of K6Gs—are obliged to make sure that unit residents are safe when they are out of their dorms. In this way, even otherwise hostile officers are enlisted in the project of attending to the basic human need for physical safety of members of this group.
It is impossible to know to what extent these aspects of the K6G experience explain the relatively humane character of the unit. But the foregoing account, together with a common sense understanding of what humane conditions must involve, should be sufficient to indicate that treating people with respect and affirming their status as more than just inmates is a necessary part of the story.