California Institution For Men At Chino

The California Energy Commission cleared the way Wednesday for construction of a power plant on surplus land at the California Institution for Men near Chino. The commission voted 3 to 0 with two members absent to approve the 180-megawatt Pegasus Power Partners' plant, part of the first wave of plants approved through a fast-track process to help relieve the state's energy crisis.

Johnny Cash has played San Quentin and other state prisons. So has B.B. King. But an Eastern European klezmer band? The offbeat pairing of hardened inmates and traditional Jewish folk musicians--one of the farthest-reaching cross-cultural events associated with the ongoing Los Angeles Festival--took place Saturday afternoon in the parched main yard of the California Institution for Men.

The family of slain Chino Institution for Men correctional officer Manuel Gonzalez has filed a $100-million federal lawsuit against California Youth and Adult Correctional Agency Secretary Roderick Q. Hickman and others for "deliberate indifference." Gonzalez, a 16-year veteran with the California Department of Corrections, was stabbed to death inside the prison Jan. 10. Gonzalez estate attorneys say prison administrators Hickman, California Department of Corrections Director Jeanne S.

More than 200 inmates rioted at the state prison in Chino on Thursday night, injuring at least one prisoner and triggering an hours-long lockdown at the facility, authorities said. The riot at the California Institution for Men broke out about 7 p.m. when inmates in the prison's reception center began fighting, according to Todd Slosek, spokesman for the California Department of Corrections.

Every time S. M. Cohen takes a pill, visits a doctor, has a blood test, receives a shot of insulin or undergoes surgery, Californians pay for it. Cohen, 67, an inmate at the California Institution for Men, has cancer and diabetes and takes 11 pills a day. He has blood tests twice a month and sees three specialists. His medical bills are more than $125,000 a year. His recent heart bypass cost $76,000.

The state prison system's second housing unit devoted exclusively to inmates with AIDS will open next week in an austere tan building at the California Institution for Men here, testament to the burgeoning number of AIDS cases within the prisons, Corrections Department officials said Tuesday.

Three former guards at the California Institution for Men here are suing the prison, its warden and top state corrections officials, alleging that authorities illegally eavesdropped on their telephone conversations and used their taped remarks as fodder to fire them. An administrative law judge already has ruled that the state's wiretapping of a phone in a prison watchtower manned by one of the guards was illegal, prompting the State Personnel Board to order that the officers be reinstated.

With a critical eye, Gail Tomura surveys a painting of a woman cradling two children. She asks the artist for his brush and, taking it, adds highlights--here, to the woman's hair, and there, to one child's face. Earl Humphrey watches and nods as Tomura's strokes create the desired effect. When she returns the brush, he mimics her movements, his face a mask of concentration.

Eight inmates were injured during Thursday night's riot at the state prison in Chino, and two remained hospitalized in critical condition, authorities said Friday. The riot at the California Institution for Men started after a fight in the dining room, and involved more than 200 inmates. It was triggered by a "disrespect-and-racial-tension episode" between Latinos and blacks at the facility's maximum-security inmate-reception center, said prison spokesman Tim Shirlock.

A former correctional officer at the California Institution for Men in Chino has been convicted of assisting white supremacist gang members in distributing narcotics and assaulting inmates at the state prison, authorities said Wednesday. Shayne Allyn Ziska, 44, of Fontana could get up to 50 years in prison when he is sentenced May 8. Ziska was convicted Tuesday on charges related to his association with the Nazi Low Riders from 1998 to 2000 while an employee of the prison.