Utah State Prison
14240 Pony Express Road
Draper, Utah 84020

On November 18, 1998, a hearing was held at the Utah State Prison for minority inmates at their request. A number of inmates involved in a project for their Utah State University extension course sent a petition to hold the hearing. An election for inmates was held to vote on individual representatives to address their collective issues at the hearing. A total of 22 inmates spoke.

Task Force Members present:
Rev. France Davis
H.L. "Pete" Haun
Haruko Moriyasu
Judge Tyrone Medley
John T. Nielsen
Michael Sibbett
Jeanetta Williams
Filia Uipi

Sub Committee Members present:
Jesse Gallegos, Post Adjudication Committee
Russ Hagood, Juvenile Committee
Keith Hamilton, Courts Committee
Edward Lewis, Representation Committee

Staff:
Jennifer Yim
Claudia Galvez
Donald Gray

Issues discussed:

POLICE HARASSMENT
Perception: Police perceive minorities as a target group when stopping and arresting individuals.

African American Male Participant (Phil Francis):
"I myself have been pulled over numerous times as a black man driving a Saab in an east side neighborhood. The reason, when I asked the officer why I was pulled over was, 'Your car matches the description.' The second time I was pulled over, 'You match the description.' The third time I was pulled over, somebody called because of a suspicious person in the neighborhood. Two of those we checked, I matched the description, there was no record of the dispatch logs. There was [a record of a ] suspicious person. I lived in the neighborhood. This happens not only to blacks, but Hispanics, often times are stereotyped because of the car that they drive."

LANGUAGE BARRIERS WITHIN THE COURT SYSTEM
Perception: Reasonable representation and rights are not given due to communication problems.

Polynesian Male Participant (George Tauti):
"The problem of communication is present throughout this judicial and correctional system. There's a good chance that we'll be discriminated against because of the inability to understand. When they come from the court system, all they know is they got a white public defender, who talks them into a plea bargain."

DISCRIMINATION WITHIN THE COURT SYSTEM
Perception: Stereotyping of minorities results in unfair sentencing.

Hispanic Male Participant (Leonard Valdez):
"When you walk into a courtroom, you're already stereotyped as a troublemaker or a gangster because of your name. Why should I be prosecuted differently, spoken about differently, or given longer sentences because of my race?"

Perception: Unfair trials occur due to racism.

African American Male Participant (Nathaniel Bell):
I know my trial wasn't fair, I know there are discrepancies within the structure, and I know I do want a second chance at life. I had a trial in Parowan, Utah, and there was a jury trial before members of my peers. Unfortunately, I was the only black in the entire room. And being from the South, that's pretty frightening. I'm glad we can laugh about it now, but I was very afraid. The man who had assaulted me and who consequently filed charges against me was an ex police officer, ex Vietnam veteran, and I was trying to prove that I did attack him in self-defense. I was very disappointed that this jury of my peers found me guilty of the charge. I filed several complaints and several writs to no avail, so I finally went before Mr. Haun, he gave me a rehearing. It's been several years. I came here in 1984 and I've been here 14 years. I'm a Vietnam veteran. This is the first time I've been incarcerated, and so it has been very traumatic. I had a minimum mandatory ten to life. I was not given a plea bargain. I professed all of my crimes because I was tired of living the way I was living. And a detective assured me that because I cooperated, because I was a veteran, because I had helped them clear up a lot of the problems and that I was willing to be in treatment and that I had documented post-traumatic stressors, that he would be okay with my doing five years. When they took the plea bargain before the judge, who's dead now, I was sitting in the back room and I heard him say, 'This is black and white, so what do you expect me to do? I won't accept it.' And I've been here ever since."
 

Perception: African American males are punished unfairly throughout a legal system that racially discriminates against people of color.

African American Male Participant (Reginald Williams):
"I have been under the jurisdiction of the Utah Department of Corrections for 17 years. During that time I have personally experienced or witnessed a legal system that shows indifference, blatantly discriminates and devalues African Americans solely because we are not members of the dominant culture here in Utah. From the moment an African American comes in contact with the Utah legal system, we are presumed guilty of crimes we are charged with. Police officers' instincts are trained to perceive clear and present danger when encountering black American males, though no black has ever been convicted of killing a Utah police official. We are frequently overcharged when booked into a county jail. Public defenders routinely advise African Americans to plead guilty to overcharged crimes. State paid attorneys also inform African Americans that, quote, 'You are black in a white LDS state, and you will be convicted if you take these charges to trial.' We are coerced into pleading guilty with threats of receiving the maximum punishment the overcharged crime carries. Your lawyer will tell you that you should plead guilty to a 1 to 15 sentence when in essence your behavior only substantiates a zero to five sentence. If you are uneducated or come from a background where you don't understand the judicial system, you will be abject to fear. Conversely, public defenders assert that if we do plead guilty that we will be given probation or spend less time in prison. In 17 years I have met less than five African Americans who received probation, and the statistics show that we spend the highest amount of time per crime than any other group in prison. Trials are inherently against African Americans in Utah. First, we seldom, if ever, are judged by a jury of our peers. Blacks are excluded from juries through the use of the peremptory challenge. Our evidence and witnesses are disparaged based on their origin instead of its merit. Judges originating from the dominate culture in Utah, more often than not rubber stamp the proceedings and finalize the warehousing of us."

RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION WITHIN CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES
Perception: Corrections officials lack of training results in disrespect toward Native American religious rights.

Native American Male Participant (Frank Moreno):
"I haven't been treated fairly because I have documentation saying that I'm approved to have these items [prayer bag, medicine pouch, etc], but then when I go into a more secure area they think that it's either a security threat or it's something that they don't understand, so it's taken away from me, and now I have nothing that links me to my religion or my higher power. I have no connection. I'm being discriminated against because I'm Indian for having these items that no other person or other ethnic group has. A while back, in the early 90's I was brought to maximum security because I wouldn't cut my hair because I was Indian. We fought, took the case to court and won. We did alter the grooming standards to where I can keep my hair. But why was I taken to maximum security for that amount of time and for being the person that I am? I'm not going to apologize for being Indian."

[ A question and answer period that followed this statement included the participant's comment that he was denied access to religious leaders, when all other races have that opportunity.]

Native American Male Participant (Woodrow John):
"At Gunnison they did not only look upon the Native American religion as a true religion, but they helped and encouraged the brothers on our spiritual paths because they have seen serious changes not only in myself but other brothers' attitudes as well. Here at Draper, the staff and on up seem like they don't care if there is a Native American program going on or not. We have a racial conflict going on where the native brothers are being denied what has already been fought and won in the court systems. And it seems that the only place this is happening at is here at Draper. It's always good to pray to whoever God you're praying to, but we are not Catholic and we are not LDS and it's not our native way. We do have a site here on these grounds at the correctional facility here, but we don't have access to these sites on a regular basis. We have written letters, talked to people that run the religious programs here, but to no avail. We always get the same old line back: we'll get back to you. We need, just as they do, to pray to our creator on our sacred grounds, and we need this on a consistent basis"
 

Native American Female Participant (Georgia Amen):
"I'm here for the Native American women. We're not allowed to have our sweat lodge or our talking circle or the pipes for pipe ceremonies. We're not allowed any of this, and this concerns me. I've [been] fighting for this since 1994. We have always been told no, no, no. In '97 we got a sweat lodge built that has never been used. The land has been desecrated so many times that even if we wanted to use it or got cleared to use it, we couldn't use it. We feel like we're being discriminated against. The men are allowed to do their sweat lodge and talking circle. They have a sweat lodge, and I don't understand why we can't have one. We had two people coming in to do the talking circles, and they quit coming because they were so badly treated by the rude officers. And we haven't had anything going on for years. I've wrote to tons of people. I mean, I've wrote to Washington. We're supposed to be allowed to have this. The women are being totally discriminated against."
 

LANGUAGE BARRIERS WITHIN THE CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES
Perception: Minorities are given unfair punishment and are defenseless because of language barriers.

Polynesian Male Participant (George Tauti):
"When they are brought here, they look down at them because they don't really know how to speak English. It's pretty clear that all minorities here are being treated differently. The discrimination that we get from them is that if you are a minority and you get a writeup, you're already [considered] guilty before you get there."

[ A question and answer period followed the participants's comment that included he gave the Board of Pardons a list of witnesses, and they were not called on his behalf.]

Asian Male Participant (Long Ngo):
"There is no other Asian where I'm at because the officers won't put us together because they think we are troublemakers. Some of my people don't speak English. I just barely know how to speak English, but some of my people don't know how and they need help. They put me in maximum security more than a year and a half now. There's no program for us or jobs and so we're stuck here. We never have a chance to file a grievance. We don't understand the law and it gets us in trouble. We deserve to learn something in here so we can get out and have a better life. If me and a white guy fight, the first person they're going to put in maximum security is me. I'm the one that's going to go first."

[After the participant statement, a fellow inmate, Mr. Lestrick stated that there are no Asian speaking staff there whatsoever. Since there is no communication, there are unfair writeups that result in another year in maximum security with no rehabilitative resources available to Asian inmates.]

Hispanic Male Participant (Leonard Valdez):
"We're unable to speak our language over the phone unless approved by the administration now; if I was to call Mexico or something to talk to one of my relatives, I couldn't speak to them in Spanish unless I got authorized. They don't understand English, you know what I'm saying? [Non-English speaking Latinos] are told fill out this form, fill out that form [so they can make a telephone call.] If they would have been able to fill the forms out in the past, they probably wouldn't have been here."
 

Perception: People of color, whose native language is not English, do not have the opportunity to attend the rehabilitation programing that is crucial for release.

Hispanic Male Participant (Victor Sauceda):
"My people are going through pretty bad things right now. That's what I'm here to explain. First of all, there's people in here that don't even speak English whatsoever, and just for the fact that they cannot communicate with an officer, that doesn't mean that they're less than anybody else. When you go talk to them, they don't know they're supposed to be there to rehabilitate themselves. These people can't communicate with anybody, they're just there. They don't have any type of programming; no classes, no school, nothing like that. How can you expect an individual to be rehabilitated, when he's not getting the type of help that he needs?"

[A question and answer period followed this statement that included the participant's comment that the Hispanic population is denied opportunities to attend rehabilitation programs, and there are no staff in maximum security who speak Spanish who can talk to these inmates.]

Hispanic Male Participant (Leonard Valdez):
"We feel the culture differences between the staff and the inmates need to be addressed. We feel that the programming staff doesn't have experience dealing with the culture differences of the Latinos, especially the foreigners from Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, down south, wherever. Because of the differences, Latinos suffer from a sort of culture shock. They're not able to perform well in the therapy groups because they can't understand."
 

RECOMMENDATION
Hispanic Male Participant (Leonard Valdez):
"One possible solution we would like to recommend is to hire a more culturally diverse programming staff. This would make it easier for the Latinos to excel in their program."
 

DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MINORITIES WITHIN THE CORRECTIONAL SYSTEM
Perception: Access to basic hair products needs for African American women are being denied due to cultural differences.

African American Female Participant (Georgetta Scott):
"I'm speaking for the black community. We feel racially discriminated against when it comes to our hair. We never get a chance to press our hair. We only get to press our hair once a month, which is a long time. Everybody else gets to go to hair care once a week. When we tell them about our hair, they don't care. They don't have no hair products on commissary for us. When we asked, one officer made a statement and said that we weren't supposed to have been born because they don't like the way it smells when we do hair presses. One of them will say, 'Where is that smell coming from? Well, use the iron.' They are very rude. We wrote NAACP. We talked to the warden. He said they talked to the commissary and they always say it's coming, but it never gets here. Then they tell us that if your family gets it, it will go to property. If we go through property and the family send it, they deny it."

Perception: Polynesians are discriminated against because of their physical stature.

Polynesian Male Participant (Mifi Maha):
"As some of you know, the Polynesian people are big in size and we have an intimidating look to us which we were born with. The Polys feel that they've been discriminated by the system and the officers. No matter how I present myself or how I come off to officers, I'm still [considered] this gang member and I'm still this big or intimidating guy. That's most of the problem that we've been going through. When one Polynesian does something over there, we're all judged just the same. We're all individuals; we should all be judged by our own actions. We have a reputation. I saw two other inmates get in a fight, a Polynesian jumped in to stop it, and he got charged with a B1. The officers can use the system against us. My people are discriminated against this way."

[A question and answer period followed this statement included the participant's comment that even though his Caucasian cellmate admitted guilt to jamming the door, he was punished because he is Polynesian and the jailer would not believe he was not guilty.]
 
 

Perception: Minorities are discriminated against and punished unfairly.

Hispanic Male Participant (Leonard Valdez):
"When you get written up by an officer, you're automatically guilty. I was written up, sent to maximum security, and I wasn't even guilty. I had to wait six months in maximum security before I was found not guilty. It's ridiculous. The police just find you guilty when they write you up. There's no due process. I did a little study myself and I found that 5 percent of the Utah population is Latino. Eighteen percent of this prison population is Latino. Latinos have more convictions [per capita] here in Utah."

African American Male Participant (Nathaniel Bell):
"There's a buzz circulating within our community, and it has been circulating for the more than ten years I've been here. It says if you're a minority you've got nothing coming. You will do more time. This buzz is pervasive; consequently, there's little incentive for a minority inmate to address his core issues. He opts instead to become more hostile, more rebellious, and more despondent. The by-product of such is a mismanaged, out of control person who revolves in and out of the system at a tremendous cost and danger. I have letters here, and I've placed them in the box, from inmates, minorities, who are hurting and frustrated. Seemingly, we, have no meaningful challenge to address the hurts or the disparities. It has been my personal experience to trust this paramount to change. I have to trust the system. We acknowledge that we don't know what fully contributes to the time one inmate receives versus the time another inmate receives. We've asked you here as a reality check upon our senses, are our eyes and our senses deceiving us? When we gathered information to substantiate our premise, there did indeed appear to be an obvious disparity. I'm a product of the 60's. It pains me dearly to think that we as a people have not moved very far forward with our people issues. But I do realize that there are issues that seriously need to be addressed if we are going to work together as one whole unit who are trying to solve one whole problem, that is, to reduce the recidivism and continue to make Utah a safe place. I think we all have that same interest, and I would like to see it happen."
 

Perception: Minorities are not given a fair chance to participate in the education/treatment programs.

Asian Male Participant (Long Ngo):
"I just barely know how to speak English. Another Asian and myself did high school [courses]. We did self-study. One day, we just got dropped out [of the program]. We don't know why. The teacher did not tell us why. Nobody would tell us why, so we asked the other students. They just said because we're not American Citizens, we can't do high school [programs]."

African American Male Participant (Reginald Williams):
"Upon arrival at the prison we are instructed to participate in programs to rehabilitate ourselves. Currently the Utah Department of Corrections programs lack efficacy for blacks, as evidenced by a 90 percent recidivism rate. Like Utah juries, prison programming staff fails to proportionately represent African Americans. Further, availability and content of programs are skewed towards members of the dominant culture. Though African Americans comprise eight percent of the prison population, only 1 percent of blacks are accepted into programs. The rest are placed on lengthy waiting lists. The irony is if prisoners do not participate in programs, your sentence will be extended or you will not be eligible for parole."

African American Male Participant (Phil Francis):
"The issues that I was chosen to address are issues dealing with adult probation and parole and law enforcement officers. As a black man living in this state, I consider myself lucky because I was well educated. Generally blacks within the prison have low education levels and have never had jobs where they have been put in high responsibility areas. A Department of Corrections representative said, 'It was very important to understand that your parole officer is not a caseworker, not a counselor, not a marriage counselor or a clergyman, your PO is a law enforcement agent.' By the job description, that's probably true. To a person getting out on parole, this person having the responsibility to violate or send this person back is oftentimes scary. The fear that most parolees have in getting out of prison is the fear of being violated. For minorities, it's the fear of being violated because they are a minority or being violated that they aren't going to have a job that is going to keep them out. The people that are getting out of prison, want to leave this place being a better human beings. In order to do that, inmates need to be taught vocational skills and vocational training. They need to be taught that they can survive. Being a minority in a white majority state often makes a minority feel inadequate. But if they are taught that they will amount to something, that's going to help them along and it's going to lower the recidivism rate. And I think it's going to alleviate some of the fear that's present not only in this state but in this country and in the world."

African American Male Participant (Antoine Lestrick):
"My main concern is that they can give you any little thing to get you to the Uintas. They justify it with a No. 7 override, which is, a severe management problem. But when you get there, there's nothing you can do. There's white supremacists over there [in the Uintas, maximum security], there's not a lot of black gangs or Mexican gangs or any gangs over there, yet they don't have a problem with putting the white affiliations together. They have swastikas all over the neck and everything else. But anytime I ask to be with my cousin, or this person has to be with his people because he can't speak English, to avoid complications or altercations with officers, they say no because he's affiliated this way or that way, when sometimes there's no affiliation at all. You need your programming to get out of there. They give [preference to other races] before African Americans can do programming."
 

Perception: The inequality of response to complaint(s) of a Hispanic female in comparison to Anglo female counterpart is viewed as racial bias.

Hispanic Female Participant (Hope Terrazas):
"I feel I have been mistreated when back in June I was at Promontory correctional facility and we had a random urine for all the females. A female officer that was doing them was holding the cup for us. In the ten years that I've done time, no one has ever held that cup for me. Well, I couldn't urinate because I was so nervous and I just couldn't do it because the lady had her hand right under me. This white female [experienced] the same thing happening to her. She grieved it as I grieved it. She got a response and I never got a response. She got a letter from Chief Homan that was running Promontory Corrections, saying that she had informed her that the officers had been notified not to hold cups for the inmates while doing UA's. Well, she went to see the lawyer. She was told that she had a good case due to the papers she received from Chief Homan stating that she had already spoke to the officers. I never acquired those statements from the chief. I haven't received nothing back. I feel that I was discriminated because I'm a minority and she was a white female. They looked at her [complaint] more than they did at mine. I'm still fighting. I still want to see a lawyer about this. I'm going to follow it all the way through. I want to discuss is time cuts from the Board of Pardons. This white female was just paroled last Tuesday on an early time cut, an earlier termination. They told us they were not doing that anymore. Well, she just got out last Tuesday and she has been here six times since I got out. And her restitution was $550, and they told her if she paid her restitution of $550 she could get an early termination. Well, my restitution is $133 and I can pay the $133 and I'm asking for an early termination, and they told me no because this is my sixth time back and that they had the room to house me, that I will stay in prison until -- I got six more months left. I have been told by plenty of officers that I cannot speak Spanish to another Spanish American inmate because they didn't know what we was talking about. They told us, that we cannot hang out in fours, like four Chicanos cannot hang out together because they consider that we're gang members, or the way we wear our clothes baggy or tattoos. Officers I have encountered have prejudice against us. I used to work in the culinary with other white females, other Mexican girls, and they're allowed to make cakes, cookies, pies, whatever; and when I would ask to make tortillas, I couldn't make them. It was absolutely no and I would get a writeup. That bothers me a lot."
 

RECOMMENDATION

Asian Female Participant (Teresa Green):
"If quarterly we would get somebody, an officer or someone like Julie to get an ethnic coordinator to hear our problems rather than just keep grieving or [writing complaints.] If we could have that I think it would help a lot. It would bring people together: blacks, Latinos, Asians, whites. If we have some kind of problem, that little problem can easily become a racial problem, when all it was over was someone's comb or someone's pen. But if we could get that, I think that would help a lot."

BOARD OF PARDONS & PAROLE DISCRETION
Perception: The Board has unchecked powers including indeterminate sentencing that adversely affects minorities.

Hispanic Male Participant (David Barela):
"The subject which my Hispanic [brothers] would like me to address is the due process and full disclosure procedures in place by the Utah Board of Pardons. Specifically, I want to spend a few moments treating the questions of whether the Board's current practices afford the Hispanic inmates the required constitutional protections or whether instead, the Board's failure to abide by those time-honored protections can or have led to discrimination. There must be limits to the intolerable trend of arbitrary and discriminatory practices used by the Board in sentencing Hispanic inmates. How about those inmates that only understand Spanish or only speak Spanish? Are information packets available in Spanish? Should Hispanics be provided a playing field of equality? Inmates must be informed of evidence that would be used against them, all evidence. At times when we go to the Board, Hispanic inmates complain that they were given documents right before the hearing that have nothing to do with their crime, and they're asked about other crimes that they're not charged with. They're given documents [at that moment] that weren't included in the blue packet originally and [can't] address them. They had no idea that they would even be there. Most Hispanics don't understand the process, nor is it explained to them."
 

Hispanic Male Participant (Jason Gonzalez):

"My concerns are with the racial bias and discrimination dealing with the sentencing of minorities. Addressing specifically the length of prison sentences given to minorities, are extreme in comparison with the dominant culture in Utah. The Board of Pardons has the power to pass sentences on all incarcerated inmates. This power has been abused when passing sentences to minorities. The statistics prove it. I feel that one of the most basic components of this discrimination is the indeterminate sentencing laws of Utah, which give the Board of Pardons the ability to give biased prison terms. If determinate sentencing were to be invoked, it would take away the power or the abuse of power which corrupts the theory of fairness the Board of Pardons was meant to represent. Sentencing would then strictly become a numbers game, and the judges and the court system would be responsible for issuing the sentences, which could be challenged in the legal system if extreme. Today there are no checks and balances used to monitor the decisions of the Board of Pardons."
 

African American Male Participant (Henry Jackson):

"Some of the key issues that they have concern the Board of Pardons and the process therein. I won't bother to reiterate some of the same facts that have been mentioned numerous times, I'm sure you've heard enough, but I do have to present the issues that they asked me to bring to you. One of the things that they found is, that after conducting a study and looking at the categories of crime, it was found that in most every category, minorities served a substantial amount of time more than their white counterparts. We have some charts and graphs that can clearly show how these things were done. One of the other factors that individuals were concerned about is the matrix guidelines as far as the uniformity in sentencing. Again, it goes back to the statistical findings that we were able to come up with. The lack of uniformity, and in most of their opinions, the treatment, is harsh and unfair. So, due to the growth in diversity that's occurred in the state of Utah, a number of inmates have suggested that maybe the indeterminate sentences scheme has outgrown its usefulness, and maybe there's a possibility of moving towards some other form of sentencing to help alleviate some of these problems, be they real or imagined."
 

Male Participant (Roy Droddy):

"It would not be too hard of a statement to say indeterminate sentencing is one of the most antiquated, unjust, disproportionately discriminatory, and most biased system ever devised by an ostensibly freedom loving society. The very word "indeterminate" is discriminatory in intent. The very nature of indeterminate sentencing allows for discrimination. Without set limits, governmental entities have complete discretion to apply arbitrary, capricious decisions based as much upon personal opinion as on laws, regulations, policies and procedures. The laws of checks and balances exist in virtually every public branch of state and federal government except in the sentencing powers of the Utah Board of Pardons. People come here under one sentencing structure and they change the structure in mid-stream. They get sentenced to the new matrix. This is unconstitutional. The people that this affects most often are minorities. I have named 55 inmates here who have signed statements claiming their discriminatory actions here at the prison. They are all minorities. In all honesty, there are going to be drawbacks in whatever system you use, but there are less chances of abuse of power and authority with determinate sentencing. With determinate sentencing there's the ability to earn good time. If you mess up, you lose that good time. There will be cases where people have been rehabilitated and the determinate sentencing is not the best thing. But again, there is less chance of abuse of power and abuse of authority."
 

Perception: Criteria set by the Board of Pardons is unfavorable towards African Americans.

African American Male Participant (Reginald Williams):
"Upon appearing before the Board of Pardons, we find that the bar has been raised to unattainable expectations. Board of Pardons criteria for favorable consideration includes community support. The majority of African American prisoners are from other states; therefore, we are classified as not having community support. Again, we are trapped in a catch-22, resulting in longer prison, longer periods of incarceration compared to members of the dominant culture. Many of us request that our parole be transferred back to our home states, but we are denied the privilege, further exacerbating the recidivism rate. In summary, my humble assessment is that the Utah legal system is essentially a way of doing things that is solidified in tradition and custom without regard to rightness of those things. No system that fosters discrimination and indifference based on a person's race or ethnicity should go unchanged."