Friday, March 7, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- Despite a warning their action may spark numerous civil rights suits, the Senate Judiciary Committee has endorsed a bill cracking down on pornography mailed to prison inmates and stopping convicts from watching sexually explicit television shows.
Sen. Mark James, R-Las Vegas, the architect of Senate Bill 113, initially wanted to ban television at the prisons but agreed to allow it to continue to give inmates something to do. But he said, "I don't want it teaching them to be better criminals."
The bill should be ready for a final vote in the Senate in about two weeks. As written, it requires the prison to adopt regulations banning material that is "sexually explicit, graphically violent or encourages or glamorizes crime. ..."
Prison Director Bob Bayer said there are about 2,000 letters received a day and he worried that reading all of them will take extra staff. They are checked now for contraband and scanned for maps or escape schemes.
Bayer warned there could be constitutional challenges when mail is withheld.
"I anticipate quite a bit of litigation," Bayer told the committee.
But James replied he did not think a court would rule that inmates have a right to receive sexually explicit and crime-promoting letters.
"We need to get away from them (inmates) sitting around reading this stuff," James said.
The committee agreed to write into the bill that the prison would not be liable for suits for performing the task.
The bill also requires the prison adopt regulations to prohibit television or videos that are sexually orientated or encourages crime or gang activity.
Sen. Ernie Adler, D-Carson City, said, "We don't want to see the Playboy channel and those other channels" in the prison.
Bayer said the regulation might also spark suits if some television program was withheld. The prisons, he said, don't have "cable television" the way the public thinks of it. Television signals are captured by the prison and channeled into the cells.
These are not the pay-for-view channels, Bayer said.
He questioned how the regulation might work, saying the prison might have to prohibit prisoners from showing "Bonnie and Clyde" or "Schindler's List," which portray violence.
The bill would also require inmates to take part each week in at least 10 hours of "general education, vocational training" and other training. But it says the requirement can be avoided if there is no money for programs.
Prison Correctional Officer Edward Neidert, who appeared before the committee to urge the purchase of more drug-sniffing dogs to keep out narcotics, said later that pornographic mail routinely enters the prison.
When he worked in the mail room a few years ago, inmates received publications and mail from an organization of pedophiles.
Neidert, a 17-year prison employee, told the committee it was "a joke" that drugs are kept out of the prison. When narcotics hit the street in Carson City, they show up in the prison a week later.
Drugs are hidden in the body cavities of prison visitors, or visitors swallow drugs and then pass them in the prison rest rooms, where they are picked up by inmates.
"We have some unique talent out there," Bayer said.
He described how one inmate could swallow a hard-boiled egg and bring it back up and others can swallow a hacksaw blade and later pass it.
Bayer also cited a case where dope was hidden in a baby's rectum.
Bayer said the prison has a pilot program using dogs at Lovelock to sniff out narcotics.
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