California and the West : Male Presence at Women’s Prisons Debated : Corrections: Charges of sexual misconduct prompt a call for removal or reduction in number of men guarding female inmates.

A state investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by male employees at women’s prisons is fueling efforts by the Davis administration and Legislature to remove or lessen the number of male personnel guarding female inmates.

“My thought is that at least we could have the males on the perimeters and have the females in the cell areas,” said Robert Presley, the Cabinet-level secretary who oversees the state’s correctional system.

Presley, a former Riverside County undersheriff, said Thursday that he has long thought that having men guarding women creates too many problems for the prison system.

At the same time, Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) said that he plans to advance legislation mandating same-sex supervision unless the administration takes steps to put that policy into effect. He said it would improve the quality of services provided to women inmates.

For more than three decades, California, which has the nation’s largest prison system, has allowed men to guard women inmates. At least one other state, New York, restricts the locations where male officers can be stationed in women’s prisons.

Lance Corcoran, a vice president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., was skeptical of proposals to change the California system.

“I think it is an overreaction. I think there is a great deal of sensationalism when it comes to stories like this,” Corcoran said. He stressed that there are 300 correctional officers who work at the California Institution for Women in Frontera in San Bernardino County--the prime focus of the state probe--but only a relative few implicated in the case.

About 55% of the officers at Frontera are men, according to the state Department of Corrections. On Wednesday, the department disclosed that its internal affairs unit is conducting a far-ranging investigation into sexual misconduct at the women’s prisons in California.

So far, five male employees, including two guards, have resigned, and as many as 40 employees, including cooks and teachers, have been targeted, primarily at the California Institution for Women. One employee resigned after it was alleged that he had fathered an inmate’s child.

Presley said the Davis administration, which initiated the investigation, plans to get to the bottom of the allegations. The governor “wants nothing but a professional performance out of these [correctional employees],” Presley said.

Richard Ehle, who heads the department’s internal affairs unit, said the probe stemmed from a sexual misconduct case at the Northern California Women’s Facility in Stockton.

Witnesses in that case, he said, were transferred to the California Institution for Women near Chino and alleged that similar improper conduct was taking place at that facility.

Ehle said his investigators have been pursuing the case for about four months. He stressed that it is easy for inmates to make allegations, but it takes time even to conduct a preliminary inquiry to substantiate the claims.

Ellen Barry, founding director of Legal Services for Prisoners With Children in San Francisco, said her group has monitored complaints about sexual misconduct for years and she has relayed her concerns to corrections Director Cal Terhune that the department has failed to remove problem guards.

Barry said she would favor a return to women guarding female inmates. “If female guards were brought in, in bigger numbers it would go a long way toward alleviating the problem,” which also includes men conducting searches of women, she said.