CALIFORNIA PRISON WATCH DOGS FAIL AGAIN

SACRAMENTO, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- State agencies that were supposed to investigate prison abuses in California have fallen down on the job, a state Senate report says.

The report said the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Office of the Inspector General did not conduct any real investigation of reports of abusive behavior at the "behavior modification unit" at High Desert State Prison, The Sacramento Bee reported. The report was sent to Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate and Inspector General David Shaw last week.

The Senate began its own investigation after the Bee reported this year that there was evidence guards at High Desert tried to provoke female inmates and punished inmates who protested conditions. Brandy Frye, a Sacramento resident who had been a prisoner there, said inmates were pepper-sprayed if they did not finish eating within 2 minutes, were given food contaminated with bird droppings and were subjected to strip searches in the snow.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Senate Public Safety Committee Chairman Mark Leno, both Democrats, said the investigation was "inadequate, ad hoc, and displayed the absence of a uniform and reliable system of response, referral and follow-through."

The behavioral modification unit at High Desert and most similar programs in California have been closed down because of the state's budget shortfall.

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