Racial segregation has always been a tool of housing wherever you go at the ten state prisons - I know because as a newly arrived deputy warden from New Mexico, I was taught by the ADOC policy to house by race-and housing officers tagged cells with color coded information and inmate photographs to ensure there was no racial mixing in their assignments. Any mix of race had to be approved by the COIV or higher and circumstances had to be explained.
Dormitories were integrated but not like you think - they had all the blacks in the back and the whites in the front of the dorm runs - Hispanics were randomly inserted to break the line - used as a buffer - they still bunked them by race and the chart or housing layout showed a balance of blacks, Hispanics and Whites according to their overall population and not necessarily the specific dormitory or run meaning that t any time, the run could have more of one race than the others (which is a control mechanism by DOC) but overall of the population, it balances itself out with the totality, not the individual dorms.
After 2009, this practice eased up and became a little bit more balanced realistically but still not in job assignments. It is still, today, even with the integrated housing plan in motion, a segregated world based on race, color and ethnic background.
Accordingly, gangs form for protection purposes and the problem becomes exponentially worse as this friction and conflict escalates at times due to unfair practices or motives. Today, inmates may voluntarily participate in the integrated housing program but stand to receive peer pressure from their own race if they accept mixed housing assignments discouraging such steps to be effective. Fear of retaliation or intimidation by race leaders is dominantly present to keep the races together as a unit and not mixed as the ADOC is proposing.
This fear was created by the ADOC administration not the correctional officers as their protective custody needs are being ignored when threatened and assaulted as a result of being denied protection or transfer to alternative housing a different yard. As always, there are exceptions to the rule and some places, like Douglas, Safford and smaller remote units, it works well usually at the lower custody levels where there is more work and programs to keep the tension down and the conflict at a minimum.
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