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The atmosphere"of intrigue and fear in the prison has continued despite the willingness of the New Mexico legislature to spend $90 million on improving the institution's facilities. The operating budget has been boosted by 39%. Overcrowding, considered a partial cause of the riot, has been alleviated: the prison population is down from 1,157 to 675. Still, a third of the convicts remain housed in army-style dormitories, an arrangement that many penologists say breeds conflict and gang rule.
At the same time, most of the reforms urged by the state agencies that looked into the riot remain to be carried out. After inmates brought a civil rights lawsuit in federal court, prison officials signed a consent decree to put 624 new regulations into effect. But Daniel Cron, a lawyer hired by the state to monitor compliance, claimed in a blistering 482-page report last May that more than half of the changes had not been made. State prison officials then fired him. They took him back only after the lawyer for the convicts threatened to seek a contempt of court judgment against them.
In the persisting poisonous climate, even guards do not trust one another. The veteran turnkeys consider the many rookies too green and soft. "We've got young men going up against inmates with 20 years' experience," observes Deputy War den Mixdorf. "The prisoners can psych us out." The turnover in guards is high.
"A new man is hired, the gates close be hind him, he panics and quits on the spot," says Officer Byers. The younger guards, on the other hand, contend that each shift captain makes up his own rules for running the cell blocks. Prisoners seem baffled by the inconsistency. One convict was thrown into solitary for wearing a knit cap and tennis shoes; others have been handcuffed to their beds for little apparent reason. Says John Palladini, a discharged New Mexico convict who has served time in four federal prisons: "New Mexico is worse than any place, since the harassment is irrational. There's no consistency. There's only vindictiveness."
More than 300 prisoners have signed a petition asking that federal authorities take over day-to-day operation of the penitentiary. Meanwhile, everyone worries about another bloody riot. Prison officials admit that they are helpless to control the violence inside the walls. The exercise yard of Cellblock Three, where some of the most violent cons are kept, is so dangerous that guards require each convict to sign an unusual form before he steps into it. The document releases the state from liability for anything that might happen to him while he is in the yard .
— By EdMagnuson.
Reported by Richard Woodbury/Santa Fe