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My Four Months As a Private Prison Guard” by Shane Bauer Mother Jones

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My Four Months As a Private Prison Guard” by Shane Bauer Mother Jones “My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard” By Shane Bauer Mother Jones Supplemental links Video series https://youtu.be/cBiqRGXog4w?list=PL7FWr6whNWmhueSwdXFBsNJkZXkMIQ9lf Podcast episode (in partnership with Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting) http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/reveal-episode-shane-bauer-man-inside How I Got Arrested While Reporting on a Private Prison http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/james-west-journalist-arrest-winn-cca-prison Damien Coestly committed suicide at the private prison where I worked as guard. His family says he didn't have to die. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/damien-coestly-prisoner-suicide-winn-cca-private-prison 10 Things That Have Happened Since Our CCA Investigation Broke http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/10-things-cca-investigation 222 sutter street, suite 600 | san francisco, ca 94108 | 415.321.1700 motherjones.com Beatings. Stabbings. Love letters. Riot squads. An escape. My four months as a private prison July + August 2016 A N E XC L U S I V E INVESTIGATION guard. BY SHANE BAUER Cover_414.indd 2 5/20/16 6:36 PM EDITOR’S NOTE Muckraking in the Modern Era Legal intimidation has made exposés like this one rare. It’s time for journalists to reclaim our roots. by clara jeffery n 1887, a 23-year-old journalist got But while such investigations were com- for repackaging spoiled meat for sale back herself checked into the Women’s monplace in the muckraker era, they’ve in 1992, a jury bought the company’s line Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s grown increasingly rare. Why? First, there’s that the real offense had been the falsifica- Island in New York City. When a real concern over ethics. When is it okay tion of employment applications and the she emerged, she wrote about for reporters to not announce themselves reporters’ failure to fulfill their assigned patients tied together with ropes, as such? There’s no governing body of jour- duties—i.e., repackaging spoiled meat! The abusive staff and ubiquitous vermin, “lu- nalism, but a checklist written by Poynter $5.5 million damage award was eventual- natics” treated with nothing more restor- ethicist Bob Steele provides guidelines for ly knocked down to just two dollars, but ative than ice baths, and, perhaps most assessing when this kind of reporting is it put a chill on this kind of muckraking disturbingly, patients who seemed to be acceptable. I’ll paraphrase: for a generation, and during that time, perfectly sane, dumped there by a society corporate and official entities built an that had few safety nets for women who ● When the information obtained is of ever-tighter web of legal protections. Non- were single, poor, and often immigrants. vital public interest disclosure agreements—once mainly the Serialized by Joseph Pulitzer’s New York ● When other efforts to gain that provenance of people who work on Apple World, Nellie Bly’s accounts (later collected information have been exhausted product launches and Beyoncé videos—are in a book called Ten Days in a Mad-House) ● When the journalist is willing to now seeping into jobs of all stripes, where caused a sensation, fueled in no small part disclose the reason and nature of any they commingle with various other “non- by her pluck—she’d begun her career by deception disparagement” clauses and “employer writing a scathing rebuttal to an editorial ● When the news organization applies protection statutes.” Somewhere along titled “What Girls Are Good For”—though the skill, time, and funding needed the way, employers’ legitimate interest her ingénue looks couldn’t have hurt, ei- to fully pursue the story in protecting hard-won trade secrets has ther. But despite prose that shades purple ● When the harm prevented outweighs turned into an all-purpose tool for shut- to today’s ears, Bly’s work holds up not any harm caused ting down public scrutiny—even when the only for its daring, but for its impact: It ● After meaningful deliberation of the organizations involved are more powerful prompted a grand jury investigation that ethical and legal issues than agencies of government. led to changes she’d proposed, including a Or when, for that matter, they replace $26 million (in today’s dollars) increase to To see what private prisons are really the government. When cca (which runs the budget of the city’s Department of like, Shane Bauer applied for a job with 61 prisons, jails, and detention centers on Public Charities and Correction and reg- the Corrections Corporation of America. behalf of US taxpayers) learned about our ulations to ensure that only the seriously He used his own name and Social Securi- investigation, it sent us a four-page letter mentally ill were committed. ty number, and he noted his employment warning that Shane had “knowingly and Bly—who’d go on to get herself arrest- with the Foundation for National Prog- deliberately breached his duty to cca by ed so she could investigate conditions at ress, the publisher of Mother Jones. He did violating its policies,” and that there could a women’s prison, and to best Jules Verne’s not lie. He spent four months as a guard be all manner of legal consequences. The fictional protagonist by circumnavigating at a cca-run Louisiana prison, and then letter came not from cca’s in-house coun- the world in 72 days—was not the first we spent 14 more months reporting and sel, but from the same law firm that had journalist to go inside an institution to fact-checking. represented a billionaire megadonor in his expose its inner workings. Or the last. Ted We took these extraordinary steps be- three-year quest to punish us for reporting Conover also reported from behind prison cause press access to prisons and jails has on his anti-lgbt activities. When he lost, walls, as did Ben Bagdikian, for whom been vastly curtailed in recent decades, he pledged $1 million to support others MoJo’s fellowship program is named. In even as inmates have seen their ability to who might want to sue us, and, though we 1961, John Howard Grifn ingested a chem- sue prisons—often the only way potential won the case, were it not for the support of ical that darkened his skin to investigate ra- abuses would pop up on the radar of news our readers the out-of-pocket costs would cial apartheid in the United States. Barbara organizations or advocates—dramatically have hobbled us. Ehrenreich took jobs at chain restaurants reduced. There is no other way to know Shane’s story will draw a fair bit of curi- and Walmart to spotlight the plight of low- what truly happens inside but to go there. osity around the newsgathering methods wage workers. Mac McClelland worked as a But here’s the other reason investiga- employed. But don’t let anyone distract you picker in a warehouse of an online shipping tions like this one have grown so rare: liti- from the story itself. Because the story itself behemoth to report for Mother Jones. gation. When abc News busted Food Lion is revealing as hell. n JULY / AUGUST 2016 | MOTHER JONES 17 ednote_414.indd 17 5/20/16 9:03 PM CCA-One_414.indd 18 5/20/16 6:11 PM MY PRISON EXPERIMENT DURING MY FOUR MONTHS AS A PRIVATE PRISON GUARD, I SAW STABBINGS, LOCKDOWNS, AN ESCAPE, AND OFFICERS AND INMATES PUSHED TO THE EDGE. BY SHANE BAUER JULY / AUGUST 2016 | MOTHER JONES 19 CCA-One_BCX_414.indd 19 5/20/16 7:25 PM FOUR MONTHS AS A PRIVATE PRISON GUARD to work in a prison. They didn’t even ask about the time I “Nah, I been around,” he says. “I seen killin’. My uncle was arrested for shoplifting when I was 19. killed three people. My brother been in jail, and my When I call Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, cousin.” He has scars on his arms. One, he says, is from Louisiana, the HR lady who answers is chipper and has a a shootout in Baton Rouge. The other is from a street smoky Southern voice. “I should tell you upfront that the fight in Winnfield. He elbowed someone in the face, and job only pays $9 an hour, but the prison is in the middle of the next thing he knew he got knifed from behind. “It CHAPTER 1 a national forest. Do you like to hunt and fish?” was some gang shit.” He says he just needs a job until he “I like fishing.” starts college in a few months. He has a baby to feed. He “Well, there is plenty of fishing, and people around here also wants to put speakers in his truck. They told him he “Inmates Run This Bitch” like to hunt squirrels. You ever squirrel hunt?” could work on his days off, so he’ll probably come in every “No.” day. “That will be a fat paycheck.” He puts his head down “Well, I think you’ll like Louisiana. I know it’s not a lot on the table and falls asleep. of money, but they say you can go from a CO to a warden The human resources director comes in and scolds in just seven years! The ceo of the company started out Reynolds for napping. He perks up when she tells us that as a CO”—a corrections ofcer. if we recruit a friend to work here, we’ll get 500 bucks. Ultimately, I choose Winn. Not only does Louisiana She gives us an assortment of other tips: Don’t eat the have the highest incarceration rate in the world—more food given to inmates; don’t have sex with them or you ave you ever had a riot?” I ask a than 800 prisoners per 100,000 residents—but Winn is could be fined $10,000 or get 10 years at hard labor; try recruiter from a prison run by the oldest privately operated medium-security prison in not to get sick because we don’t get paid sick time.
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