A day at Pelican Bay State Prison

Ever wonder what it’s like to work at the prison?

Correctional Officer Danny Forkner on the “A Yard” during a lockdown.

It’s a Tuesday morning. The sun shines on the tree-studded hills of the North Coast. Danny Forkner stares out at a green field with basketball courts, soccer goals, chin-up bars and other exercise equipment sectioned off by chain-link. He could see for miles save for the cement buildings obstructing his view.

Forkner is one of the 824 people tasked with guarding California’s so-called “worst of the worst” as correctional officers at Pelican Bay State Prison north of Crescent City.

They oversee the murderers, rapists, robbers and gang members that no other prison wants. Outcasts banished to a remote location hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from their families.

Most are likely to serve the rest of their days surrounded by cement in a cell big enough to fit two metal bunks, a small metal toilet, a desk and two stacked dressers.

This is where many residents of Del Norte and Curry counties — neighbors, friends, coaches — go to work every day.

Lockdown changes life

Officer Billy Jackson at the medical care facility.

Forkner deals mainly with the privileged inmates. They get to leave their cells for the openness of “A yard” and mingle with other prisoners.

On a typical day, rain or shine, the African-Americans tend to be  on the basketball courts, the Hispanics on the soccer field, and the whites at a workout station near a now-defunct baseball diamond.

“The weather doesn’t stop these guys,” says Forkner.

But a lockdown does. On this day, besides a couple of inmates in a chain-link corral awaiting medical attention, “A yard” is empty.

All the inmates are in their cells until cleared to leave by administrative staff. Eleven days earlier, a riot broke out involving 45 inmates and lasting about five minutes. Correctional officers fired one warning shot and used pepper spray, pepper spray grenades and their batons.

Officer Christina Alanis oversees visitations

The “A yard” is expected to be back to normal next week. Correctional officers have slowly been allowing inmates back into the yard in small groups.

“If there’s a riot, usually it happens on the yard,” says Forkner.

He has been on yard duty for five years and with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for 15, joining after serving in the military. He spent time in housing units before being placed on the yard.

Read More: Del NorteTriplicate News