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Posted on 02/23/2005 3:08:59 AM PST by freepatriot32
Did you ever hear of John C. Misko? Now 51 years old, Misko stands 6'-5" tall and weighs 207 pounds. He played football for Oregon State, and in the 1980's, for the Los Angeles Rams and the Detroit Lions. After that he became a Correction Officer in the employ of the California Department of Corrections at Corcoran State Prison, in Corcoran, a town of 20,000, in San Joaquin Valley, in central California, where he holds the rank of Sergeant. Corcoran State Prison is the facility where Sirhan Sirhan and Charles Manson are serving their life sentences. In the 1990's, Misko, along with other Correction Officers, was involved in scandals surrounding beatings of prisoners and staging of gladiator contests between prisoners.
Sometimes, the Correction Officers, including Misko, received newly arriving prisoners with an orientation called "greeting the bus". Still shackled, the new inmates would be slugged, kicked and beaten with nightsticks, some suffering severe bruises and broken bones. Sometimes, the new inmates would be required to play "handball". Made to stand barefoot on scorching hot asphalt, with temperatures reaching 115 degrees in Corcoran, the inmates would "dance" till they collapsed or sustained serious burns, all for the entertainment of the CO's.
As for the "gladiator contests", the Correction Officers would set up fights between prisoners, as a sport, with spectators making wagers on the outcome. If an inmate gladiator contest got out of hand, or if the combatants would not stop fighting when the officers got tired of the contest, the officers would sometimes shoot the prisoners with wooden blocks or gas guns and sometimes with real bullets, with the result that at least 7 prisoners were killed and 50 wounded. In making a report, the officers would allege that they had been quelling violence incited by inmates.
Shooting review boards would whitewash the shootings as justified, and CDC personnel auditing Corcoran, who were usually officers of other prisons, were reluctant to report such incidents to Sacramento, lest, subsequently, the Corcoran officers get even when it came time for the other prisons to be reviewed. CO's who were potential whistleblowers got death threats or were relieved of duty. The warden countenanced all this or was deliberately kept in the dark, which wouldn't say much for his effectiveness on the job.
Finally, though, one younger CO, Richard Caruso, who had some regard for the integrity of the penal system, smuggled copies of prison records and internal memoranda out of Corcoran late one night, and took them to the FBI, which, conducting a lengthy investigation, discovered and documented the abovementioned acts of misconduct and brutality. Hearings were held and some demotions were ordered. Later, most of the demotions were set aside and retroactive pay was granted. Some demotions stuck. I think Misko was demoted from Lieutenant to Sergeant. In some instances, lawsuits were dismissed on technicalities. The State of California picked up the legal defense tab for the CO's involved, over $1,000,000, so lawyers were the real winners of the gladiator contests.
When things like this happen in an Arab country, we hear about it. When they happen in a place like California, they're usually silenced.
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About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far.
I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents.
Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
This is pretty serious stuff, and yet it's written about in an offhand manner, in the style How I Spent My Summer Vacation.
No dates. No names (except for one guard). No court cases. No pending court cases. No history of how this information came to light. No mention of reporters or newspapers that uncovered it. No hearings. No reviews. No nothing.
Just a light-hearted string of demonic accusations.
I'm not saying this stuff didn't happen. But I need more facts before I believe it.
CNN.com-California guards accused of creating prisoner fight club
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/05/26/corcoran.prison/
State Settles Suit Over Slaying By Corcoran Prison Guards
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/11/11/MN94727.DTL
Prison guards acquitted of staging gladiator-style prison fights
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/06/10/prison.gladiator/index.html
Note that the last link mentions that "Prosecutors in both cases faced the daunting task of trying prison guards in California's Central Valley. Jurors in the state's rural heartland tend to be sympathetic to guards because prisons provide much of the region's nonfarm employment, as many as 10,000 jobs."
"In fact, one of the jurors in the case that ended Friday, Dorene Delt, works as a correctional officer."
"The state's powerful prison guard union ran TV and radio commercials before and during both trials, describing inmates as violent predators and Corcoran State Prison as the 'toughest beat in the state.'"
I'm sure that had nothing to do with the acquitals, however. /sarcasm
Now what have the guards done that was wrong?.....looks to me like a good way to break up the boredom of prison life.
How in the hell did she make it on to the jury of a trial for a corrections officer if she was one herself
On the job training for Bhagdad.
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