California prison officials have halted an experiment aimed at forcing warring prison gangs to get along with each other after the inmates wound up brawling and even rioting when allowed to mingle together in prison recreation yards, officials told The Associated Press. This permitted officials to reduce harsh restrictions that had kept gang members locked up in cells for lengthy periods without access to rehabilitation programs that could allow them to shorten their sentences. The brawls led officials to stop the practice of trying to get the gang inmates to interact with each other in the prisons, Shaun Spillane, a spokesman for the corrections department’s inspector general, told the AP in an interview.
