Reporters’ Access to Prisoners Restricted

State prison authorities have barred reporters from conducting interviews with prisoners in person, citing worries that the media exposure might glamorize criminals.

The ban applies to all 135,000 prisoners in California’s 31 prisons and will remain in place indefinitely while the state Youth and Adult Correctional Agency reviews its interview policies.

“Why should some guy benefit from committing a crime? We did this because we didn’t want to have inmates becoming celebrities and heroes,” said J. P. Tremblay, assistant secretary of the correctional agency.

Tremblay cited TV appearances by criminals promoting books, talking about movie deals or complaining about prison treatment. His examples included gangster Kody Scott, or “Monster Kody,” a Pelican Bay State Prison inmate who wrote his memoirs and gave numerous interviews.

Tremblay also cited TV magazine and talk shows in explaining why he considers it hard for prison authorities to determine which organizations have legitimate news needs in interviewing prisoners.

“Our intent is not to limit access to the mainstream media--newspapers and network television, for example,” Tremblay said. “The trouble is that the line between legitimate news and entertainment news, like radio or TV talk shows, is getting blurred.”

Advocates of the 1st Amendment disagree with the ban, which they say prohibits the free flow of information and ultimately will remove the prison system from public scrutiny.

“Anything that will make it more difficult for the press and the public to monitor conditions in prison does not bode well for the accountability of government and for public oversight,” said Jane Kirtley, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Arlington, Va.

Currently, reporters can talk to inmates only if there is a public event at a prison and the news media have been invited en masse. Reporters also can try to get on a prisoner’s official visiting list, but cannot bring cameras, tape recorders, note pads or pens to the visit, corrections department officials said.

News organizations also can receive mail and phone calls from prisoners, but prison officials routinely read mail and monitor calls.