Once upon a time, had they met on a prison yard, inmates Emilio Soto and Gerardo Fuentes might have sliced each other to pieces.
Soto was a gang member from Stockton, Fuentes one from Los Angeles. "Any little look that I thought was disrespectful or he thought was disrespectful," Fuentes said, "and it would have been on."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday September 27, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 62 words Type of Material: Correction
Mexican Mafia -- The Sept. 16 Column One incorrectly attributed the shooting of two men and an infant in the San Bernardino County community of Mentone to an order from the Mexican Mafia. The motive for the shooting is under investigation, but it is believed to be related to a dispute between the shooter and one of the victims from years earlier.
For almost 40 years, Latino gangs from Northern and Southern California have been at war. The feud has cost hundreds of lives inside and outside prison, dictated prison budgets and forced authorities to separate one from the other.
Today, though, Soto and Fuentes live in peace, side by side, on the top tier of cellblock C-4 at the state prison in Lancaster. They are part of a revolution in protective custody that is slowly breaking the stranglehold of gang-imposed rules on state prison life.
Until now, protective custody has been for prison's pariahs -- sex offenders, informants, homosexuals -- who were locked in their cells most of the day. Gang members and other inmates viewed this as an unmanly and arduous way to do time.
But in the last few years, California prisons have given inmates another choice by converting entire yards to protective custody.
The result: Thousands of ex-gang members -- serving time for murder, robbery and assault -- have defected to these so-called sensitive-needs yards (SNYs), seeking a haven from gang life.
As on regular prison yards, SNY inmates live two to a cell and have the same exercise and meal routines. The only difference is that they live with other inmates whose lives, like theirs, would be in danger if they were in the general mix.
Demand for SNY space is growing unrelentingly. Since 1998, when the practice of setting aside whole yards for protective custody began, the SNY population has grown from less than 1,000 to more than 13,000 -- almost 9% of adult male inmates, by far the largest protective-custody population in state history.
Inmates requesting sensitive-needs yards must explain why they need protective custody, and their claims are investigated by prison staff. Prison reception centers in Chino, Delano and Wasco report a combined 1,400 new inmates awaiting SNY assignments.
"We were asking people to step forward and renounce the gangs," said Joe McGrath, deputy director of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. "You can't legitimately ask them to do that if you can't guarantee ... a better quality of life."
