It is somehow appropriate
that Los Angeles County "Twin Towers" Correctional Facility, where thousands
of inmates currently reside in a kind of ghost-like limbo, was once a ghost
jail itself. While the facility was fully functional by 1996, it had to be left
completely empty for well over a year due to funding problems. Today, its ultramodern,
maximum security design now sets ominous standards for the future of jail construction
in the prison/jail boom sweeping the nation. Thick security glass stands where
one expects to find bars, services are brought to inmates to minimize inmate
movement (and also exercise), and the "panopticon" design of the guard stations
allow a deputy to look, at a glance, into each of the 96 cells within their
domain. Such Orwellian design stands as a monument to America's unflagging commitment
to tougher criminal sentencing and an inexplicable love of functional architecture.
My social service work has taken me on occasion to visit clients at Twin Towers. For someone like myself who has never been incarcerated, these were experiences like no other - uncomfortable and frightening to be sure, but fascinating just the same.
Twin Towers stands off
the 101 freeway just east of Chinatown and Union Station. Turning from Ceasar
E. Chavez Blvd. on to Vignes Avenue, you get your first real look at the towers:
a pair of squat, octagonal buildings, each 8 stories high, connected by a rectangular
3 story concourse, looking like a pair of binoculars standing on end. During
my intitial visit there, my first stop was along
the middle concourse to deposit money into the jail bank on behalf of my clients.
This was taken care of along a row of bulletproof windows, resembling those
found in any check-cashing storefront, in a spacious second floor waiting area.
This was also where inmates are released, and I saw all sorts of folks here:
young women pushing strollers, teenagers accompanying older relatives, the odd
social worker or two. On a long counter I found a computer printout, apparently
updated daily, containing the names of all 4,200+ inmates currently housed at
the Towers. It was free for anyone to peruse - although it was so crumpled and
shredded as to be effectively useless.
I left the same way
I arrived and followed a sidewalk to the end of one of the towers, entering
once again through a door marked "RESTRICTED ACCESS ONLY." I then scaled a flight
of stairs and passed through a metal detector that went off when I passed through.
Apparently, the jail guard with the steel-capped boots behind me was the culprit,
not I — but it wasn’t at all reassuring. I then walked down a long
hall flanked on one side by a row of windowless rooms - heading straight to
the heart of the tower - and into a claustrophobically-small room through a
steel-reinforced sliding door that whisked tightly
shut once I was inside. This was the facility control booth. Here, identification
was checked: my name was matched to a pre-authorized list, my driver's license
was taken from me, and I was given a visitor pass. With the check process completed,
another steel-reinforced wall slid open, and a few small strides put me on the
inside. Like walking into a funeral parlor, a palpable shift in atmosphere occurred
here. The hallways smoothed out into catacomb-like tunnels, conversation became
hushed, and the air felt heavier, moister.
I knew locating inmates could be tricky; navigating the endless maze of hallways, sliding doors, and elevators seemed calculated to confound any would-be escapees. I chose a nearby elevator that took me up 4 floors and somewhat miraculously left me in front of the very tower wing I was searching for. Passing through yet another steel-reinforced sliding door (that made three - I was counting) I entered into the areas that the jail population could access. I was aware of becoming increasingly uneasy the further in I moved, but I must admit that walking into a locked jail wing for the first time is a far from reassuring experience.
I checked in at guard control booth (behind yet more reinforced steel) and then headed over to the pod I was looking for. A pod was a suite of sorts, set off behind a 30-foot high wall of thick, soundproof glass, containing 16 rooms on two levels, all emptying out into a central living area. There was one set of bunk-beds in each room with more bunks spread throughout the day area, allowing for over 40 prisoners to be housed in each pod. The guard booth sits in the center of each tower floor, with a full view of each of the surrounding jail pods. Walking between the darkened windows of the guard booth and the brightly-lit pods was a surreal, unsettling experience, akin to moving along a hallway of glass cases in an aquarium. Jailers on one side (behind darkened, bulletproof glass - you never see them), the overwhelmingly African-American and Latino inmates on the other, their lives in full view to anybody passing by. An eerie quietwas present there, as soundproof glass kept all but the loudest shouts of the inmates to a low whisper. I found it very difficult to concentrate on why I was there; my eyes kept straying back behind the glass, to the people within the pods. Half-naked men curled up and attempting to sleep on child-size bunkbeds, others sitting on the corrugated steel stairs watching Jerry Springer on a TV mounted out of reach high on the wall, most doing absolutely nothing but staring out at me blankly.
After visiting
my client I made another stop, this time in the other tower, where female inmates
are housed. In many ways this was even more uncomfortable, as it necessitated
travelling to a higher floor. Upper floors arereserved for perceived high-risk
inmates (the eighth floor is set aside for prisoners suffering from "severe
mental disorders"), and hence contain tighter security. Men of any sort
were relatively scarce here. Stares from the pods felt less blank and more invasive;
a number of women attempted to catch my eye, mouthing words through the glass
I couldn't decipher. It occurred to me that I was quite unused to seeing (and
perhaps feeling challenged by) women with such tough exteriors. I was getting
the kind of aggressive looks here that I usually associated with hostile men
on the street, and I did not know how to respond. I decided to keep my eyes
on my feet, if only to ignore any possible confrontation. Invariably, I got
lost on the way out; I couldn't really relax until I had checked out, passed
back through the final metal detector, and I felt the heat of the sun once again
- one of the many things that modern jail construction keeps out of reach of
those living inside Twin Towers.