Black, Latino Inmates Separated
Violence Feared At Pr. George's Detention Center
By Ruben Castaneda
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 24, 2007; B01
Corrections officers are separating black and Latino detainees in the lockdown unit of the Prince George's County Detention Center in Upper Marlboro to try to prevent violence between members of the two groups, according to an internal memo and jail officials.
Escalating tensions between the detainees prompted the March 6 memo, which directed officers to keep Latinos' recreation time separate from that of other detainees. The memo, written by Acting Lt. Col. Jerome R. Smith, chief of security at the detention center, said a "recent escalation of gang violence" prompted the changes.
"Special precautions are to be taken when inmates are out for interviews," Smith wrote. "If a Latino inmate is being interviewed, no other inmates are to be out."
The lockdown unit is for detainees who are accused of an infraction -- such as fighting -- in other parts of the facility. Inmates in the unit are confined to their cells 23 hours a day. It is designed for 96 detainees and typically holds 50 to 60 inmates.
The separation is unusual inss Washington area jails. D.C. and Montgomery and Fairfax County corrections officials said this week that they do not separate their inmates by ethnicity or race.
The memo said nothing about whether black and Latino detainees should not be assigned to the same cell. However, corrections officers in the lockdown unit are assigning black and Latino detainees to separate cells, said a supervisor at the detention center, who asked not to be identified because he had not been given permission to be interviewed.
"There's too much conflict and fighting," the supervisor said. He said officers in the unit are adhering to "jailhouse law" -- assigning black detainees to the same cells as other blacks, Latinos with Latinos, and whites with whites. "It's nothing written, but you try to keep the calm," the supervisor said.
Vicki D. Duncan, a spokeswoman for the county Department of Corrections, confirmed the authenticity of the memo. She said corrections officers consider several factors when assigning cellmates, including tensions along racial or ethnic lines.
Douglas T. Lansing, a correctional consultant and former federal Bureau of Prisons official, said keeping detainees separate temporarily could be the right thing to do in the short term. "If there is something happening that threatens the safety of inmates, it may be a smart move," he said, emphasizing that he did not know the details in Prince George's.
But he added that officials who separate detainees by race must tread carefully. "Generally, you try not to give any one group recognition that gives it authority over another group, real or imagined," Lansing said. "You have to be careful to avoid the appearance of favoring or punishing any group."
The Prince George's detention facility is designed for 1,500 detainees and is often at capacity or overcrowded. About 80 percent of the inmates are awaiting trial; most of the rest are waiting for sentencing.
About 10 to 12 percent of the detainees in the jail are Latino. Almost all the rest are black, with a sprinkling of non-Latino whites, Asians and detainees of other ethnicities rounding out the population.
Black and Latino detainees have found themselves in conflict over relatively minor issues.
For example, on March 3, two black detainees and two Latino detainees in a medium- to maximum-security section of the jail had a shouting match over the use of a television. Two hours a day are allotted for detainees to watch Spanish-language programs, and the conflict started when black detainees who were watching videos brushed off a request by the two Latino detainees to watch a program in Spanish, the supervisor said.
In October, a dozen detainees -- six black, six Latino -- were sent to the lockdown unit after brawling. That fight began when a Latino detainee accused a black detainee of stealing food.
Although the number of Latino detainees is small, some of them -- specifically members of the violent street gang MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha -- are well-organized, the detention facility supervisor said. Made up of immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras and other Latin American countries, MS-13 is believed to be responsible for dozens of homicides and other attacks in the Washington region in recent years.
In the Prince George's jail, as many as 70 percent of the Latino detainees who are teenagers or in their early to mid-20s are members of MS-13, while most of the older Latino detainees are not, the supervisor said.
Nonetheless, some black detainees believe that every Latino detainee is a member of MS-13, the supervisor said. Both MS-13 and black gangs, including the Bloods, recruit inside the jail.
Violent clashes between black and Latino detainees have broken out elsewhere in the United States.
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