Prison Administration
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/03/politics/03scotus.html
LINDA GREENHOUSE
"A California prison policy of temporarily segregating all new and newly transferred inmates by race came under attack at the Supreme Court on Tuesday in a case that pits the justices' tradition of deferring to prison administrators against their dislike of government policies that classify people by race.
California defended its policy, which the federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld, as necessary to prevent violence in a gang-ridden prison system.
'California is ground zero for race-based street gangs,' Frances T. Grunder, a senior assistant state attorney general, told the justices. 'The animosity between the gangs is purely race-based, and the racial pressures in prison are very, very severe.'
More than 25 years ago, California adopted the practice of placing inmates in double cells with cellmates of the same ethnic background for the first 60 days after their arrival at a prison, either as newcomers to the system or following a transfer from another prison. The inmates are evaluated during that time for propensity to violence, among other things, and then are assigned permanent quarters on a nonracial basis. "
