Alcatraz: Rigid and Unusual Punishment Sticky

Alcatraz

During the 29 years Alcatraz operated as a federal penitentiary it built a reputation as a Devil's Island of the soul. If Al Capone was the nation's symbol of lawlessness, then Alcatraz would be the nation's symbol for punishing the lawless.

by Michael Esslinger

Alcatraz. The name alone said it all. It was meant to send a shudder down the spines of the nation's most incorrigible criminals, and it did from the day it opened in 1934. It stripped Al Capone of his power. It tamed "Machine Gun" Kelly into a model of decorum. It took the birds away from the Birdman of Alcatraz.

Alcatraz was the end of the line. It was the U.S. government's version of the "final solution" to combating the lawlessness that Prohibition spewed throughout the Roaring 20s and into the teeth of the Great Depression. The government needed a prison as tough and harsh as the high-profile criminals it was finally running to ground. In Alcatraz, with its damp coldness, austere isolation, rigid discipline and code of silence, it got what it wanted. By the time the government shut down the prison in 1963, "the Rock" had indisputably done its job.

Today, Alcatraz is one of the biggest tourist magnets and famous landmarks of San Francisco. The island's mystique, created primarily by books and motion pictures, lures over a million visitors a year from around the world to see first-hand where the U.S. government broke some of its most notorious criminals. They journey into a dim piece of Americana. Many go away to remember for the rest of their lives the hair-raising chill they felt upon being locked up, for just a few seconds, in an isolation cell. The clichéd expression "if these walls could talk" is taken to a deeper level when probing the rigid silence of Alcatraz.

Blood In, Blood Out: The Violent Empire of the Aryan Brotherhood Sticky

by John Lee Brook

The Aryan Brotherhood: The First Woe

January 16, 1967: Nazi prison-gang associate Robert Holderman was stabbed and then battered to death by Black Guerilla Family gang members at San Quentin.

January 17, 1967: 1,800 black inmates and 1,000 white inmates clashed on the main yard at San Quentin over the death of Robert Holderman. Prison guards broke up the brawl by firing shots into the mass. Five inmates were wounded by the shots. One inmate suffered severe head trauma from the beating he received from opposing gang members. Two other inmates suffered non-fatal heart attacks.

August 27, 1967: Nineteen-year-old Barry Byron Mills was arrested in Ventura, California and held for transfer to Sonoma County, where he had boosted a car. Sonoma had issued an arrest warrant in his name for grand theft auto.

December 12, 1967: Barry Mills requested and was denied probation. Instead he was sentenced to one year in the Sonoma County Jail.

January 29, 1968: Barry Mills and Buddy Coleman escaped from the Sonoma County Honor Farm.

February 17, 1968: Barry Mills was arrested in Windsor, California, and held on a warrant charging escape without force.

March 12, 1968: Barry Mills sentenced to one year and one day in prison for escape without force from the Sonoma County Jail.

March 13, 1969: Barry Mills was released from prison.

January 13, 1970: Soledad State Prison Aryan Brotherhood leader Buzzard Harris, along with fellow Aryan Brotherhood members Smiley Hoyle, Harpo Harper and Chuko Wendekier, and Mexican Mafia members Colorado Joe Ariaz, John Fanene, and Raymond Guerrero battled with Black Guerilla Family gang members on the exercise yard at Soledad prison. Tower guard Opie Miller opened fire with his high-powered rifle, killing Black Guerilla leader W.L. Nolen, Cleveland Edwards and Alvin Miller. Aryan Brotherhood leader Buzzard Harris was wounded in the groin by a rifle bullet.

January 30, 1970: Barry Mills and William Hackworth were arrested after robbing a Stewarts Point convenience store.

February 3, 1970: Barry Mills convicted of first-degree armed robbery after co-defendant William Hackworth testified for the prosecution. Barry Mills sentenced to 5 years to life in prison.

April 21, 1972: Aryan Brotherhood members Fred Mendrin and Donald Hale murdered Fred Castillo by stabbing him to death at the Chino Institute for Men. Castillo was the leader of the Nuestra Familia gang. The Aryan Brotherhood murdered Castillo as part of a contract with the Mexican Mafia.

December 15, 1972: Aryan Brotherhood members Fred Mendrin and Donald Hale sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Fred Castillo.

1973: The Aryan Brotherhood was officially formed in the federal prison system.

October 18, 1977: Aryan Brotherhood member Little Joe O’Rourke engaged in a vicious gun battle with campus police at El Camino Community College. The gun battle erupted when the police, as part of a routine check, disrespected Little Joe by asking him for his student I.D. Little Joe was wounded and arrested.

November 25, 1977: Aryan Brotherhood members David Owens and New York Crane robbed the Bank of America in Agoura, California. They got away with $9,000.

December 2, 1977: New York Crane named as the prime suspect in the murder of fellow Aryan Brotherhood member Hogjaw Cochran.

December 29, 1977: Barry Mills released from San Quentin State Prison.

January 11, 1978: Aryan Brotherhood member David Owens arrested and charged with robbing the Bank of America in Agoura, California. Owens had $3,844 on him when arrested.

March 13, 1978: David Owens convicted of bank robbery. He was sentenced to federal prison. His co-defendant “New York” Crane was held over in Orange County Jail and charged with the murder of Hogjaw Cochran.

March 31, 1978: Little Joe O’Rourke, who opened fire on the El Camino Community College campus, sentenced to seven years in prison.

June 1978: Barry Mills sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for planning a bank robbery in Fresno, California. The bank was robbed by the Aryan Brotherhood in June 1976. Barry Mills did not participate in the robbery, but provided the blueprint for it.

Solitary Confinement in Jails and Prisons

April 8, 2013

solitary confinement

Since the “War on Drugs” was launched in the mid-1980s, accompanied by mandatory-minimum sentences for drug offenders, the U.S. prison population has exploded from under 900,000 to 2.3 million prisoners. With correction budgets consumed by building new prisons and staffing them, rehabilitation programs were slashed. Prisons all over the nation turned – with disastrous results – to the use of solitary confinement as its primary means of control. More than 80,000 inmates are being subjected to long-term solitary confinement in the United States. Not one of them will leave prison undamaged by the experience.

by Shawn R. Griffith

I was 18 years old, sitting in a solitary confinement cell. My confinement was not a result of assaultive behavior, but instead a form of retaliation for refusing to jog. I was in one of the “Boot Camp” prisons so popular in the 1990s. This was a shock-jock program modeled after the Marines’ real boot camps, like the one at Camp Lejeune. Ostensibly, it was designed by corrections officials to make the initial incarceration of youthful offenders so brutal that it would change their ways and divert them from future crime and the institutional lifestyle.

Unfortunately, for political reasons, it was also calculated to advance only the least offensive youths for early release. The others, like me with an armed-burglary charge, were pawns to make the program appear as if it were functioning as it was intended. The most sadistic guards from the State of Florida were brought in, and they pushed the young men who they did not want to complete the program to the brink of death. When I finally refused to jog anymore, actually collapsing of heat stroke, I was taken to medical where they registered a fever of 102.5. I was given ice for my forehead and sent to the dreaded confinement for refusing orders.

Life and Times of a Suburban Drug Dealer

Jan. 17, 2013 Special to Crime Magazine

An excerpt from Seth Ferranti’s new book, Gorilla Convict: The Prison Writings of Seth Ferranti. To buy the book or for more information, go to www.strategicmediabooks.com or Amazon

by Seth Ferranti

I don't know why I became a drug dealer. Free drugs I suppose. It wasn't something I planned. It just happened. I used to buy quarter ounces of weed or hits of acid from my godbrother and his friends. They had a party house by Springfield Mall. I was always cruising over to score. I was like 17 and these dudes were all 21 or so. I idolized them. They didn't work or nothing. Just hung out, partied, got laid, and sold drugs.

I was bringing them crazy business. Finally I said fuck it. I can do this myself. But I needed some contacts. I asked my godbrother to hook me up and he took me down to Kentucky. It was a long trip but worth it. My godbrother introduced me to country boy Scott, who became my contact. He had a tobacco farm down in Monticello and grew a little weed on the side. He didn't fuck around though. He and his partners had it down to a science. These guys were straight-up country. I'm talking shotguns, moonshine, cockfights, muscle cars, and pit bulls. They planted and cultivated their weed to perfection. They showed me a patch once, way out in the deep forest. I thought they might try to kill and rob me and leave me buried out there. But they didn't. Their marijuana plants were like trees, easily 15-feet tall, with tree size trucks, and an IV-bag mainlined into the roots pumping in plant vitamins. It was some crazy fucking shit.

I still needed an LSD source though, my godbrother said, "Go on tour dude."

The first Grateful Dead show I went to was in Deer Park, Indiana. I drove there from Fairfax with some deadhead wanna-be's. I wasn't really into The Dead, music wise, but I needed an LSD connect. Dead shows were filled with LSD peddlers. The parking lot scene was a carnival, half circus, half flea market, with drugs, tie-dyes, hippies everywhere. I met this kid, Drummer Al, a hardcore Deadhead who was at all the Dead shows. They called him Drummer Al because he was always in the drum pit banging on the congas. This dude was skinny and really burnt out, with natty dreadlocks to his waist. He wore cut-off fatigues and Birkenstocks, but never wore a shirt. He sold me 2,000 hits of triple-set, blotter acid and gave me a number to call in Frisco to order more whenever I needed it. Mail-order LSD was only a phone call away. What an awesome connection, I thought. I figured that, with the Kentucky bud contact and the new mail order acid, my fortune was made.

Drugs Inside U.S. Prisons

Jan. 14, 2013

How do so many illegal drugs get smuggled into prisons all over the United States? The author spent 20 years in various Florida prisons and tells how.

by Shawn R. Griffith

There is a drug epidemic inside America’s corrections system.

While serving 20 years in Florida’s prison system from 1992 to 2012 for an armed robbery, I saw every drug imaginable. Although I rehabilitated myself and quit using drugs altogether in the 1990s, that’s not the case for many prisoners. At least 60 percent of the estimated 20,000 prisoners I met inside frequently used drugs. After serving time in 18 different Florida prisons, never once did I witness an institution free of narcotics. Moreover, I met hundreds of men on transfer from other state prisons, and most said that the prisons from which they had come had more drugs than Florida’s institutions.

While doing research for my book, Facing the U.S. Prison Problem 2.3 Million Strong, I unearthed a number of disturbing statistics related to drug addiction of U.S. prisoners. These stats have supported my own observations in Florida. Experts in one study found that 50 to 60 percent of prisoners had drug addictions severe enough to warrant intensive drug treatment. In addition, according to the Department of Justice, a study conducted in 2004 showed that 17 percent of all state prisoners and 19 percent of all federal prisoners admitted to committing their crimes to buy drugs. Of these drug-related offenses, 9.8 percent committed by state prisoners were violent crimes. In 2007, 3.8 percent of the 14,038 homicides were known to be narcotics-related. That’s equal to 533 victims of drug-related murder.

After considering these statistics, I would say that having so many prisons in the U.S. with a dynamic drug culture is a serious problem. What I wonder is just how many addicted prisoners today will commit a new murder of some unsuspecting victim tomorrow. It will occur. And it will occur partly because the system fails to adequately address the drug problem when officials have addicts inside prison. Something to think about when the question of funding prison drug programs invariably arises for public debate.

Facing the U.S. Prison Problem 2.3 Million Strong

Nov. 7, 2012

Facing the U.S. Prison Problem 2.3 Million Strong is a massive, thoughtful book written by someone from inside "the belly of the beast," who knows from years of personal experience what works and what doesn't. Ironically, most prisons today are not set up to rehabilitate prisoners but to do the opposite – simply to warehouse ever-increasing numbers of them until their eventual release with little or no practical training to succeed on the outside. Shawn Griffith, who spent almost 24 years in Florida prisons until his release in 2012 at age 41, advocates mightily that the real purpose of prison, in addition to punishment, should be to enable the 90 percent who will eventually be released to cope on the outside and not return to prison within the first three years, as now just under half of all released prisoners do.

Shawn Griffith shows how tough-on-crime politicians, supported by guard unions and private prison corporations, have a vested interest in keeping the recidivism rate high. Instead of fostering in-prison drug rehab, job training, impulse control, and close family ties, prisons continually slash these critical programs to hire more guards and build more prisons. In California, 70 percent of the prison budget goes to pay the 31,000 guards it employs and only 5 percent to vocational programs to reduce recidivism. Until taxpayers grasp how counterproductive this approach truly is in providing public safety, there will be no chance for meaningful prison reform.

by Shawn R. Griffith

Preface

This book isn’t just a commentary on correctional problems and solutions. Although my main goal is to present the mistakes that I believe U.S. policy makers have been making, it is also to share the human side of the story. By integrating my own personal experiences with statistics and examples from different corrections systems around the nation, I am attempting to discredit the general perception that the system is designed to enforce and protect justice for everyone. The U.S. criminal justice system is an economically and politically profitable enterprise for special interest groups in this country. The general taxpayer needs to understand how the abusive policies fostered by these groups worsen the U.S. prison problem and the debt crisis through wasted corrections expenditures.

Unfortunately, the system commonly attracts a darker side of people’s personalities, making compassion for those incarcerated a rare trait among many corrections officials. As a consequence, hidden behind the walls, huge numbers of human beings have their spirits broken daily. Secretly, many suffer false disciplinary reports, illegitimate confiscation or destruction of personal property, physical beatings, rape, and sometimes fraudulent criminal penalties. Substandard nutrition, indifference to serious medical needs, and policies that encourage laziness have also become common. These practices help to sustain rates of recidivism, which is defined as a return to prison within three years of release.

Remembering Karl Menninger

Feb. 2, 2012

Dr. Karl Menninger

Former convict and Kansas City Star reporter J.J. Maloney recalls his 17-year association with Dr. Karl Menninger, the avatar of prison reform.

by J.J. Maloney

In December, 1972, I attended a conference on prison reform in Topeka, Kansas, in connection with a prison series another reporter and I were writing for The Kansas City Star.

At lunch I found myself sitting next to Karl Menninger.

I'd seen pictures of him, but he was much more of a presence than I had expected. About 70 at the time, he was developing bags under his eyes, had silver hair, and was getting jowly; but he radiated intelligence, confidence and power.

Menninger remained slightly aloof until I mentioned to him that I had enjoyed a piece he had written for a bulletin published by the W. Clement Stone Foundation in Chicago.

What piece was that? Menninger asked.

The piece on the history of prison literature, I replied.

Menninger looked puzzled and said he didn't remember that piece. When I said I had a copy in my suitcase, he insisted I go to my room and get it.

He read the piece then said to me, "I didn't write this."

I finally told Menninger I had written the piece myself, for Book World, which was published in The Washington Post and The Chicago Tribune. Apparently someone at the foundation had thought it would have more impact with Menninger's name on it.

Menninger appeared deeply embarrassed, but from that moment forward we had a warm relationship. Every time I would cover one of his appearances, or happen to attend some event at the same time he did, he would insist that I sit at his table.

We met frequently in those days. The 1970s was the heyday of prison reform in America, and Menninger bore the torch for the movement.

It wasn't always cordial. On one occasion when I attended a seminar sponsored by the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Menninger talked on the subject of training prison management personnel.

I asked him if he'd considered the common problem of prison managers using convicts as pawns in office politics – i.e., after one official gives a convict a job, that official's rival determines the convict isn't really "qualified" for that job and has the convict reassigned. The object of the game is to place the first official's judgment in question. The convict is just a pawn.

Prison Stories

Feb. 6, 2012

Missouri State Penitentiary

J. J. Maloney, the founder of Crime Magazine, spent 13 years in prison for a murder he committed during an armed robbery when he was 19 years old. Paroled in 1972, he went to work for The Kansas City Star as a book reviewer and became a full-time reporter the next year. The following stories are based on his prison years at “The Walls” in Jefferson City, Missouri. Mr. Maloney died in 1999 at age 59.

by J.J. Maloney

I. A Natural Poet

He had a dog-eared sheaf of papers clutched in his hand. "You're a poet, aren't you?" he asked.

I nodded yes, but felt immediately paranoid because he made it sound like more of an accusation than a question. He was a reddish-haired kid with a puffy face and thick eyeglasses that made his eyes look watery. Between his two front teeth there was a sizeable gap.

He was a poet. He'd brought this sheaf of offerings as proof. I listened, politely, but with a lack of enthusiasm. Every prison has a hundred would-be poets.

He was different in that he had a sheaf of poems, which indicated some industriousness. He rattled off the names of several small poetry magazines that had published his work.

I reluctantly agreed to take his work to my cell and read it and critique it. People who write are generally more interested in confirmation than criticism.

That evening, though, when I'd finished everything I considered important, I dragged the poems out and read them. They were good – very good. They bordered on professionalism. So I read them again, and they were as good as they'd been the first time.

I sat there and stared out the bars for a while, thinking of this awkward-looking kid with the puffy face who also happened to be a good poet – a promising poet, since he was only 19 years old.