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Fall 2007 Bulletin
Two States Propose Changes to Access to Prisons for Media
Prison officials in California and Rhode Island have proposed new regulations that would significantly alter the news media’s access to prison inmates in their respective states. California officials have proposed easing restrictions, but Rhode Island might make its prison access rules more rigid.
In California, the proposed regulations would allow reporters to bring pens, pencils, and notebooks to interviews with inmates, according to The Associated Press (AP) on Aug. 15, 2007. However, no revision has been suggested to rules that prohibit media representatives from conducting face-to-face interviews with specific inmates on prison tours scheduled with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). Under the current rules, if reporters wish to conduct an interview with a specific inmate, they must contact the inmate in writing prior to visiting the prison and be put on the inmate’s list of approved visitors.
The AP reported that the proposed regulations would require a quicker turnaround time of two days for the CDCR to respond to reporters’ requests for prison tours. In addition, they would explicitly prohibit prison officials from retaliating against inmates who grant interviews to reporters.
CDCR spokesman Seth Unger told the AP Aug. 15, 2007, “The goal of these regulations is to provide for the most transparency possible. There definitely is a perception that our prisons are closed to the media, when every day of the year we have reporters and cameras going through our prisons.”
According to the AP, these are the first formal changes to the CDCR’s media access regulations since 1995. The current CDCR rules, posted on its Web site at http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/News/Media_Policies_Adult.html, indicate that reporters may visit CDCR facilities with prior approval from an institution’s warden. They may only conduct interviews with inmates randomly encountered during such visits.
The CDCR proposed the revisions to the media access rules on August 3, according to the AP. Unger told the AP that, in the absence of major revisions, the proposed regulations could become effective by November 2007.
The CDCR’s proposals come close on the heels of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s July 27, 2007 veto of legislation designed to ease the state’s rules with respect to media access to prisons. Senate Bill 304, introduced by State Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), would have allowed media representatives to conduct interviews with prison inmates using paper, pens, and recording devices. The bill would also have enabled members of the media to contact a prison warden to request an interview with a specific inmate. The bill specified a 48-hour turnaround period for the warden to grant or deny the request. The text of the bill can be found on Romero’s Web site at http://dist24.casen.govoffice.com/.
Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill because of concerns that “these bills would allow the media to glamorize murderers and thereby once again traumatize crime victims and their families,” according to his veto message.
However, the governor also stated in the veto message that he had directed the CDCR to adopt new regulations to address media access issues. While Schwarzenegger conceded that the regulations would not go as far in increasing media access as Senate Bill 304, he stated that he felt they “provided more clear and appropriate access to our prisons and preserve the balance with crime victims and their families.”
California news outlets have long sought to loosen the state’s rules with respect to prison access, according to an AP story from July 13, 2007. Legislators like Romero have pushed for years to pass legislation that would facilitate interviews between reporters and prison inmates, according to the Sacramento Capitol Weekly News from March 30, 2006. The AP reported on July 13, 2007, that the latest bill, SB 304, was the fourth incarnation of the bill to go to Schwarzenegger for approval.
Proponents of increased media access to prisons say that loosening restrictions on interviews with prison inmates is in the public interest, according to the Capitol Weekly News, because increased media coverage of the California prison system allows the public to understand its problems.
Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) voiced his support for SB 304 to the AP in the July 13 article. “It’s about time the taxpayers get to know how the dollars are being spent within our prison system,” Leno said.
Some critics of lifting restrictions on media access to inmates believe that security concerns should be paramount in any assessment of such proposals. Assemblyman Rick Keene (R-Chico) told the AP that lifting restrictions on media access to prison inmates could lead to copycat crimes from individuals who want the attention increased media coverage could confer.
Meanwhile the Rhode Island Department of Corrections is considering increasing its restrictions on media access to its prisons. Proposed new regulations would grant prison officials broad discretion to prohibit reporters from interviewing inmates. The proposals would also allow prison officials to review reporters’ notes and require a corrections official to be present during interviews, according to a Sept. 9, 2007 AP story.
In a public hearing held Sept. 10, 2007, prison officials came under fire for the proposals, which American Civil Liberties Union director for Rhode Island Steve Brown told the AP “puts the Department of Corrections, in many respects, in the role of censor.”
In the wake of strong criticism from journalists and civil libertarians, spokeswoman Tracey Poole said that the Department of Corrections will be revising its proposed media-access policy, according to The Providence Journal on Sept. 11, 2007. Poole did not specify the nature of the changes planned by the Department.
The Providence Journal also reported that critics at the public hearing attacked the proposed regulation that would allow prison officials to bar media access to prison inmates if the interview was deemed insufficiently sensitive to the needs of crime victims.
WPRI-TV reporter Tim White said at the meeting, “Prisons in general are one of the most unchecked arms of government. The proposed language, I think, only serves to perpetuate a system that’s already cloaked in secrecy.”
Former Adult Correctional Institute inmate Peter Slom also attended the meeting and told The Providence Journal that he feared inmates would be wary of speaking about problems in the prison system if a prison official was present during an interview with a reporter.
Poole told The Providence Journal that the proposed regulations reflect the department’s practices over the past year. A prison official has sat in on all interviews of prison inmates by media representatives, she stated. The AP reported on September 9 that the Department’s media policy has not been revised since 1987.
The degree of media access to state prison inmates varies from state to state. Rhode Island, Poole told the AP, places fewer restrictions upon the media’s access to its prison system relative to other states.
In federal prisons, wardens may create policy with respect to media interviews. Although the U.S. Bureau of Prisons stipulates that wardens may deny media requests for interviews only during an “institutional emergency,” in practice, federal prisons may be restricting media access at other times as well, according to the Denver Westword News on Aug. 16, 2007. The Westword News reported that corrections officials at Colorado’s U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum prison, which houses mobsters and terrorists, denied every single media request for a face-to-face interview with specific inmates over a five-year period from January 2002 to May 2007.
- Amba Datta,
Silha Research Assistant
University of Minnesota | College of Liberal Arts | School of Journalism and Mass Communication
