WALLA WALLA — Robert Walker is four weeks into his housing assignment at the Washington State Penitentiary’s new gang unit, where he is serving 18 years for assault.
So far, he likes his new home, but the 21-year-old former gang member from Seattle doesn’t sense that he has any more freedom.
“It’s cleaner and there’s less people,” he said. “The room is bigger, but you know. …”
Walker’s voice trailed off and he shrugged his shoulders at his surroundings — an open cell block offering officers an easy view of rooms from a central command post.
The unit is a far cry from the prison blocks of the past, which had a line of cells three stories high overlooking a wide hallway. In an attempt to curb prison violence, largely among gang members, the prison has begun isolating problem inmates and gang members in pods to restrict their interaction with other inmates.
“Overall, because we’ve been able to manage the offenders in smaller groups — groups of 99 — we’re able to minimize the incidents,” said Steve Sinclair, prison superintendent.
Gang members make up 18 percent of Washington’s prison population of about 17,000 inmates, but they account for 43 percent of all major violent infractions inside the prisons, according to a report released last month by the state Department of Corrections.
In the past year, prison officials have taken steps to address the problem by conducting more comprehensive reviews of inmates when they are first admitted to the state prison system in Shelton. Since July, identified gang members have been steered from there to the four new gang units in Walla Walla.
In just seven months, the number of violent incidents has declined by about 200 from the previous year, or about 20 percent, said Dan Pacholke, Corrections Department deputy director. That improves safety for inmates and prison employees alike.
“The idea is to stress upon them that if you live in peace here, then you can move somewhere else and engage in other activities,” he said. “Ninety-seven percent of these people will be in the neighborhoods, riding on a bus next to you or me. So what we do with them here now has an impact later.”
In cell blocks at other units, as many as 300 to 400 inmates at a time will exercise in the yard or dine together in the mess hall.
Each of the four new blocks holds 198 inmates, and each of those blocks can be divided in half to further separate groups of inmates.
Giovanni Walker, who is serving five years for assault and possession of narcotics, is scheduled to be released later this year. The 27-year-old from the San Francisco Bay area in California, who said he isn’t a gang member, isn’t thrilled with the new housing assignments.
“It’s a little ridiculous that we’re not allowed to go with the other units,” he said.
The two Walkers, who are cell mates, are not related.
Another inmate, affiliated with the Crips gang in Seattle, declined to be identified by his given name, saying he’s known as “Blue.”
The 24-year-old, who has served 10 years and has seven years remaining for an assault conviction, said inmates’ safety is dependent on how they live their lives behind bars.
“If we want things to be chaotic, if we want to bring whatever we had before — the gang banging, whatever — then we can pretty much keep this place on lockdown,” he said.
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