On December 23, 2024, at approximately 0900 hours, at Kern Valley State Prison, Inmate Jimmy Pashell attempted to kill a correctional officer.
While walking across a prison yard, Inmate Pashell approached an officer and, using an inmate-manufactured weapon, began striking the officer several times in the face. The officer created some distance from the inmate by backing up and Pashell immediately went face down on the floor.
The inmate-manufactured weapon was recovered. The correctional officer was transported to a local hospital for multiple cuts and punctures to his face.
thetoughestbeat
VIOLENCE IN CDCR CALIFORNIA MODEL PRISONS
Although only some CDCR prisons are “officially” CA Model prisons; all CDCR institutions are expected to embrace the CA Model of prison management.
CDCR) has fully embraced a model of prison management based on no criminological principles. CDCR inmates and staff are less safe thanks to the new idea of prison management.
The aptly named California Model of prison management is based on warm fuzzy feelings and not on any science or research. This bad prison management model may be a contributor to the increase of inmate murders within CDCR this year.
Bifurcating populations has been policy on and off at some sites for decades to increase safety and decrease violent assaults, particularly along gang lines. The result of Gibson’s implementation of the CDCR’s mandate is the context of gladiator-style fights some of which appear, based on our evidence, to be encouraged and/or neglected by correctional officers with possible spillover into gang retaliation actions in community settings.
For example, in 2018, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office warned of spillover from these prison gladiator fights, citing the potential of “[an] increase in shootings/acts of violence involving [rival gang members] targeting each other.” The potential for increased violence in Fresno County affects all of us and is directly linked to harmful policies that should be abandoned immediately.
Since the summer of 2022, the increase in gladiator-style prison fights includes cases such as men from one population engaging in deadly fights with men from a different population, often with weapons. We have evidence of at least eight cases and hundreds of men involved since September 2022 with these repeating factors involved: group-on-group violence, weapons used by some and correctional officers failing to implement practices such as pat-downs before the groups intermix in newly shared spaces.