Calif. prisons gearing up to end segreation of inmates by race

San Quentin State Prison inmate Lexy Good is white, hangs out with whites on the prison exercise yard and must be careful not to associate with blacks and Latinos. No cards, no basketball outside the color lines.Those are the unwritten inmate rules of prison life in California. People stick to their own race.Good, who's doing a short stretch for receiving stolen property, likes it that way."We segregate amongst ourselves because I'd rather hang out with white people, and blacks would rather hang out with people of their own race," said Good, 33, of Walnut Creek. "Look at suburbia. Look at Oakland. Look at Beverly Hills. People in society self-segregate."Soon that may change in the prisons.San Quentin and 30 or so other state penal facilities are gearing up to carry out a federal court mediation agreement for integrating double cells and ending the use of race as the sole determining factor in making cell assignments.Men in California's prisons have long been segregated in cells to quell racial tensions.But Good, along with California's other 155,700 male inmates, may soon be forced to live in a 4-by-9-foot cell with an inmate of a different race.A 1995 lawsuit filed by a black California inmate, Garrison Johnson, said that the California Department of Corrections' practice of segregating prisoners by race violated his rights. A 2005 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court led to federal court mediation and the agreement that double cells would be desegregated.While most inmates and correctional officials agree that it is a noble idea, many fear the worst."They should be thinking about what kind of war they are going to start," said a San Quentin inmate who identified himself only as S. Styles, 36, of Vallejo. "It is like putting a cat and a dog in a cell together."Lt. Rudy Luna, assistant to the warden at San Quentin, said there is some concern among prison officials about the change because much of the violence is already based around racial gangs."There is always concern, but that is a rule that has been sent down. There are a lot of times we don't like what we have to do," Luna said. "I think we will have a spike in fighting because we have races that don't get along. If it was up to us, we'd keep it the way it is. But it is a state mandate."Among the state's male inmates, about 28.9 percent are black, 39.3 percent are Latino, 25.9 percent are white, and 5.9 percent are classified as other, according to figures from the state Department of Corrections.As currently planned, the cell integration will begin July 1 as a pilot project at two prisons -- Mule Creek State Prison in Ione and the Sierra Conservation Center in Jamestown. Next year, the plan calls for integration to begin at other prisons.In carrying out the plan, prison officials will interview and evaluate each inmate. Guards and staff have also been undergoing training for the past year on procedures and have been told to be alert for signs of abuse or fighting, said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.Inmate David Johnson said that all the races sit together peacefully in the prison church and they work together with few problems. But he wouldn't socialize with inmates of another race outside of those settings where he is forced to mingle."Prison politics" dictate that he stay loyal to his race, Johnson said. And the repercussions for a violation are swift and severe."You would be taken care of in some way. You could get stabbed or worse," said Johnson, 38, of San Diego. "Whether you agree with the (unwritten) rules or not, you have to follow them."That's why prison officials said the new plan will help the prisons manage the criminal prison gangs, which are divided racially and strictly control who their members associate with."Ninety percent of the gang members don't want to be in a gang but they can't get out. But now we are giving them a way out," Luna said.E-mail Tanya Schevitz at tschevitz(at)sfchronicle.com.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)