Still Life 1978 Vol 6 No 4
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$3.oo Inside Southern Prisons Winter, 1978 Vol. VI, No. 4 Guest Editor Tony Dunbar Issue Coordinator Kathleen Zobel Managing Editor Bob Hall Editorial Staff Clare Jupiter Jennifer Miller Marc Miller Jim Overton Joe Pfister Geraldine Robinson Lay-out and Design Karen Barrows Composition Southern Types Chapel Hill, NC Cover Photograph Jackson Hill Southern Exposure® published quar¬ terly by the Institute for Southern Studies. A subscription for one year costs S10 for individuals and $12 for libraries and institutions. Address all editorial and subscription corres¬ pondence to Southern Exposure, P.O. Box 230, Chapel Hill, NC 27514. Second Class postage is paid at Chapel Hill, NC 27514. Copyright © Institute for Southern Studies, Kroger Plaza, Chapel Hill, NC. ISSN: 0146:809X. Post Office Publication No. 053470. Articles, fiction, poetry and photo¬ graphs are welcome. Send stamped self-addressed envelope for guide¬ lines: Box 230, Chapel Hill, NC 27514. 2 Letters to the Editor WHO GOES TO PRISON TONY DUNBAR 3 Introduction: Still Life MICHAEL A. KROLL 6 The Prison Experiment: A Circular History HA RR/OTT JOHNSON QUIN 12 Daily Justice SEAN KERNAN 15 Prison Portfolio NZ/NGA NJERI 18 Making of a Conscious Warrior MARC MILLER 25 The Numbers Game BEHIND WALLS JOHN VODICKA 32 Prison Plantation: The Story of Angola JIMMY STOWE 39 Portraits from Craggy GENE GUERRERO 42 Scientific Penology Comes to Georgia ANDREW GRIFFIN 48 “Hey, My Mom’s in Prison” WILLIAM CAUSSE 52 Another Day TONYSAYER 56 When the Preacher Carries the Keys TOM R. WARREN 59 The Wonderful World of Rectum Inspection RAY MARCH 60 Free Men: Three Generations of Alabama Prison Guards RITUAL SACRIFICE RANDALL WILLIAMS 70 The Legacy of Legalized Murder DUDLEY CLEND/NEN 74 John Spenkelink: Scheduled to Die CLARE JUPITER 76 Lost Lives greg McDonald 80 The High Price of J ustice VIRGINIA FOSTER 84 What If It Was My Boy? LOOKING AHEAD JOE INGLE 88 What You Can Do WILLIAM LEEKE, WILLIAM NAGEL 94 What the Experts Say BECKI NEY, POLLY SMITH 97 Alternatives That Work WA YNE BROOKS 100 From Where I Stand 102 Book Reviews Letters to the Editor A Dream from Prison, by Anthony Kamahele Brushy Mountain Prison, Tennessee Months ago, when Southern Expo¬ On Human Rights hole naked and the blowers were sure announced the upcoming issue on turned on full speed. I shivered for prisons in the South, we received quite Dear Mr. President (Jimmy Carter): three whole days without food or a few thought-provoking responses from Reduce your energies by 99.9 water and I slept on a cold concrete prisoners. Here are excerpts from three percent about the Human Rights of floor the whole while I was in the dark of those letters. the People of the USSR and other hole, and after the third day I was taken parts of the world. Turn around and out of the dark hole and put in a cell come on back home to America. There to sleep on naked steel and was told that On Imprisonment is a whole lot lacking in the Human if I write a writ against them, I would be Rights of American Minorities and killed. But I took my chances and filed When a man’s mind is being torn from especially the “Penal System of Ameri¬ anyway; that case is still pending. ca.” We But that is reality — he is a man toward insanity. prisoners need Human Rights, really when the conspir¬ Men in this situation and state of mind desperately, desperately. acy really started, and to this day I am are with my back against the wall. programmed for self-destruction. Israel L. Rogers Such a terrible waste of God’s There is no greatest Camp J understanding here repay among the administration for the gift: Life! How does this Society? Angola, La. To whom ever has the heart, the inmate, nor is there any respect. The courage and wisdom to understand that officials here feel that we the inmates I cry not for pity but on the contrary. “My Color Is My Crime” need no respect and are nothing more Only wishing to make sight for those than names and numbers, and they, I have been in who walk in blindness, for such punish¬ prison almost nine years. the officials, are our lord and master I came to Parchman in ever ment can never repay Society for the 1971 and and we their servants. This penal system since then crime. my life has been a tightrope is based upon false pretenses. What man on earth has the right to and survival is natural instinct; in order In Parchman Prison, here in Missis¬ for a man to survive here he must bestow such punishment upon another stoop sippi, we the black inmates dominate and in man? This man, whoever he may be, I my case be an Uncle Tomming the prison population. Aren’t all of us pray for his lonely soul, for his punish¬ nigger, something which I could never here for a crime, but most of us are ment is or will be far greater than the measure up to. First these people take here for being black and that alone is punishment he has bestowed upon his what little freedom I did have out in our crime This so-called prison is fellow man. society by framing me, and me being nothing more than a plantation and, ignorant of the law at that time and in truth, it is run as such. Rudy Berain couldn’t do anything for myself and nor I eat to survive, I sleep only to wake Baton Rouge Parish Prison could I turn to anyone for help, because up to the same nightmare and I live Baton Rouge, La. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my for the undying love and desire to mouth. help my people and I am here in this In ’72 I was beaten by trusties and world by the grace of my God. prison guards. During that time one had Vernon Madison to say “Yes sir, Boss” or “Captain” Parchman Prison which I refused to do, so I was beaten Parchman, Miss. and kicked, also spit on and sprayed with mace, and thrown in the dark 2 TONY DUNBAR Introduction: Still Life Late one summer evening in Atlanta, a urban zoos and dying countryside? All that 20-year-old man walked into a suburban the distraught store clerk could offer was, superette and paused to examine the magazine “The guy ought to be off the streets.” But he, rack. When the store’s only other customer too, had had a few unpleasant brushes with made her purchase and left, the youth strolled the law and was not so sure where his armed to the checkout counter, pulled a .357 assailant should be sent, or for how long. revolver out of his jacket, pointed it at the And what should society do with the clerk and ordered the frightened boy to lie thousands of less damaging lawbreakers who down on the floor. He grabbed the $87 that commit what one of our authors terms “the was in the cash register and ran for the door, common cold of crime”: the drunken brawl¬ where he collided with an elderly woman try¬ ers, check forgers, pill stealers, car thieves, ing to enter. At the sight of his weapon she stereo snatchers, hookers, winos, drug users fainted to the sidewalk. Her next week would and rip-off artists? They are the “average be spent in Grady Hospital recoyering from criminal,” and they are paraded through what was called a slight heart attack. The courthouses from Richmond to Baton Rouge robber reached his car parked beside the curb, by the hundreds every day. To commit, but even before he could get it started the correct, corral and punish them requires an police had been flagged down by an onlooker enormous job force of police, lawyers, judges, and were in the parking lot. Their quarry counselors, probation and parole officers, surrendered meekly; he was handcuffed and doctors and jailers — but reported crime carried downtown. In a darkened apartment, still increases. the lights turned off for nonpayment, his wife In response to rising crime, many states and child were left without support. legislate ever-lengthening sentences. Tennessee, It was almost a routine event. An armed for example, will now hold a person sen¬ robbery occurs every few hours in Atlanta. tenced to “life” for 30 years before even The damage was relatively slight in this case: considering him for parole. But the suspicion a woman temporarily hospitalized, a trembling persists that treatment of this nature, too store clerk vowing that he will quit his job as terrible to be comprehended by most citizens, soon as he can find another way to pay his does nothing but warp men and women college tuition. The “suspect in custody” beyond recognition, making them unfit to received 10 years in prison, but he had been live in a free society. there before. He was nine years old the first The 50 or so convicts who contributed to time he got busted, for stealing a baseball this volume confirm that lengthy incarcera¬ bat, and he spent three months in a Dekalb tion merely encourages criminal-like behavior County juvenile facility waiting for the court and engenders bitterness which ultimately to find him a foster home. Now his record, will be felt by all of us who walk the street, as the police say, is as long as your arm. sit in the park, run a business or own anything What is to be done with the perpetrators worth stealing.