Prison Violence - Office of Justice Programs

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Prison Violence

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SPRING-SUMMER

1983

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The

PRISON

Contents

Journal

VOLUME Lxm

SPRING-SUMMER

NUMBER 1

ISSUED SEMI-ANNUALLY BY THE PENNSYLVANIA

PRISON SOCIETY

Page

Editorial

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v ; ~:_ The Anatomy of p/-nother {rrison Riot ... ;.:: . : .............. 3

! by Israel L. Barak-Glanh

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............... ? / rAn Essay on Pr~~n Violence ...... ~ .:i.~!,

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I: by Lee H. Bowker

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Editor: Rendell A. Davis ................................. Assistant Editor: Janet A. Leban

Editorial Advisory Board

Alexine L. Atherton Melvin S. Heller Norman Johnston

,James J. McKenna, Jr. Peter Scharf Jack Schaller

Edmund B. Spaeth Marvin E. Wolfgang

Board of Directors

Prison Riot~: A Corrections' ~ightma# Since 1774 . ~~:i.~.b.~ .. 32

by Steve b. Dillingham and Reid H. Montgomery, Jr.

\ 'r+The Quicksand Prison .......... .ti",;:G, .r;.! ................. 47 ~ by Paul "V. Kcve

President

... . .. . .. ........ Alexine L. Atherton, Ph.D.

Vice President

....... .... ....... ... ...... ..................... ... David W. Lauder

Vice President ...........................................................James J. McKenna, Jr., Ph.D.

Vice President Emeritus ............. .......... ..... .... ..... .................. Mrs. P. Blair Lee

Treasurer ............ .......................... .............. .... .......... ..... ........................ . . Albert Froy

q ! f-Crime Site Splection for Assaults in Four FI~~ida Prisons ........ 59

:,. by Randy Atlas

&{, ~~

Assistant Treasurer......... ........... .. ......................... .......................... Paul T. Donovan

Treasurer Emeritus ......................... ................... ..........................

Sewell W. Hodge

Solicitor . ......... ..... ..... .. ...... ............. ..... .................. .......... ...... .......... Germaine Ingram, Esq.

Gary E. Bittner

Henry Nicholas

\ Issues in P~son Sexual Violence .... ';:1/' '.: ")"3'................ 73

1- by Daniel Lockwood

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f.:: ,'P'

Lem Burnham Euniece M. Connor Richard H. Fulmer Patricia Gibbs Clinton S.R. Gibson. Jr., Esq.

The Rev. John A. Parkinson The Rev. Robert E. Payson Richard W. Rogers, Esq. Elizabeth H. Rossiter Hilda Silverman

r;:he '6 be tf Sexual Victim in a, Coeducational

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'11.. ............ :. : Juverule CorrectIonal IjlsntUtlOn ........... '.'

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i. by Clemens Bartollas and Christopher M. Sleverdes

Julian L. Greifer, Ph.D

Kenneth Smith

The Rev. Barbara C. Harris

Rith Smolko

Melvin S. Heller, M.D. Marilyn Young Hill

The Rev. John H. Sorenson Chuck Stone

Cleona Nicholas Jackso.n

John Sweeny

Ella P. Joyner

Marie J. Tervalon

Marvin Louis Rose Law Miller

Christine Torres-Matrullo, Ph.D. Marvin E. Wolfgang

Staff

Rendell A. DaVis ..........

....... ...... ......... Executive Director

Peggy A. McGarry ..... Assistant Executive Director & Director. Women's Program

~lInate ~. ~ ,l'

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Note

Ethnicitv.and on A..bo~-grIe,Pb-ate

the Tre

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Connectio ..........

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r - bl;; '''''. by Richard H. 'Anson

The Effec~s of Qe~er~nina~e Sentencing on

Inmate Mlscondupt 1Il Pnson ...........

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i:- by Martin L. Forst and James M. Brady

John D. Case .................................................................................................... Field Director Janet A. Leban ...................................................................... Public Relations Director Norman Pearson . ........... ......... ..... ..... .......... Field Representative. Direct Services Kay E. Tucker, Esq.................................... Field Representative, Women's Program

r~~~ty Bars: \1~olel~ce and t?e

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, CnsIs of Meanmg Ih the Pnson ......../ ...( ....f. .... ........ 114

Carol Harris Gray ..................................... Field Representative, Women's Program

by Peter Scharf .

Jeffrey M. Hyman, Ph.D. ...........

Staff Sociologist

Patricia Finio .................................. Prison Arts & Humanities Program Coordinator

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Jane H. Johnson ...... Community Services Project Acting Adminstrative Assistant

The Society of Lifers

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Bernice O'Hara ...... ......... ............... Community Service Orders Project Counselor

by John 'P. Conrad

Patrick McKinley, Esq. .............. ...... Community Service Orders Proj.ect Counselor

Bella J. Muir ........................................................................................ Executive Secretary Alice R. Young ................................................. ...... ............. ..... ..... ........ ........ ..... Bookkeeper

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Random Thoughts on the Treatment

Renee Evans "...... .... ..... ................... ............. .................. ........................ ................. Secretary Flo Brizer .......................... ................... ......... ...... ......... ....... ...... ........ ....... ....... ........ Secretary

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Room 302 Social Service Building

of the "Dangerous Offender" ............................... . 134 by Rendell A. Davis

311 S. Juniper Street. Philadelphia, PA 19107-215-732-5990

Articles or comments which appear in The Prison Journal may be reprinted in full

or in part, with permission in writing from the Editor.

Annual Subscription $5.00

ISSN 0032-8855

~ Single Issues $3.00

~ember of the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvaltiit

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Editorial

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NatfoMIInatitute of Jostke 11Ms document has bHn ttlprOdu(,'ecI exactly as received from th~

P*'&On or organization originating it. Points of view Of opinions stated In this document are those Gf lh& authors and do net necessarily rJeupsrteicsee.nt the offreiaJ position or policies of the National Institute of

Permisslon to reproduce this copyrjght~ material has been

granted by

The Prison Jour.n~a~lL_______

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to the National CrifTHr.a! Justice Reference Servic,'e (NCJRS).

~urther r~on oulSldlt eX the NCJRS system requirti permls-

8KIfl Of the COpyright C'MlGr.

This issue of The Prison Journal on Prison Violence has been

planned over a period of years. It has turned out to be one of the longest

issues ever in terms of the number of pages, and we expect it may rank as

one of the most provocative issues we have published. The contents

range from analyses or prisons and various forms and causes of violence

to the philosophies in correctional thought, and finally to a look into

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the future of corrections in an attempt to assess their social value to the community, the nation, and to the world. We have been fortunate in

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assembling among the writers some of the finest minds in corrections

today.

One of the themes that emerge from the essays in this issue revolves around the axiom which is becoming more and more apparent to psychologists and social observers: violence begets violence. The whip is not the ans''''c.:!r to incorrigibility; rejection is not the answer to delinquency; abused children become child abusers. And yet in the course of administering a prison, it is not always apparent that the axiom is accepted; it is not clear that the lesson has been learned. We continue to act as if our measures of control and oppression are a defense rather than a cause of the violence we fear and sometimes experience in our institutions.

There are many forms of violence. We recall Gandhi's statement that "poverty is the worst form of violence." I remember hearing Robert

Kennedy, speaking at a memorial on the day after Martin Luther King's assassination, say that social ills and racism constituted the most raw kind of violence. And in this issue, Paul Keve speaks of the "violence fostered by the prison itself in those inmates who have not been particularly violence-prone on the outside." Thus, he c;ays, "we sustain the correctional quicksand . . . and the prison's criminogenic character. "

If this issue of The Prison Journal can somehow persuade the

correctional world that our developing understanding of violence and

its causes has deep implications for how we should run our prisons,

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then we wiH have done what we set out to do.

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The Anatomy of Another Prison Riot

Israel L. Barak-Glantz*

One sunny Spring morning in 1981, there was trouble at the 5,500inmate institution of the State Prison of Southern Michigan (SPSM). Hundreds of officials and employees ru~hed to the prison that Friday before Memorial Day. They were too late. By late in the morning of May 22, 1981, mattresses and desks were burning, and hundreds of prisoners were in the central yard. Guards against supervisors, then prisoners against guards, had erupted within the concrete recesses where some of Michigan's dangerous offenders are shut away. Inmate uprising, apparently unplanned and leaderless, destruction, and violence swept through the State's three largest and toughest prisons dUling the subsequent five days. Ne\,,'s of the disturbance at SPSM reached prisoners at the Michigan Reformatory in Ionia the afternoon of May 22, 1981, through the media, from personal phone calls, and by word of mouth. At 7:00 p.m. that evening, J B1oc~~ residents, comprising about half of the prison poplliation, were released into the yard. Shortly thereafter, several warning shots were fired and the prisoners in the yard, as is standard procedure, began returning to their cells. Once in the cell block, inmates overpmvered a guard, took his keys, and released the balance of the inmate body. A group of about 75 white inmates fled for

an area of relative safety. A number of prisoners "Vere assaulted. Several

guard platoons systematically s,vept the institution, returning inmates to their cells. Nearly 60 inmates and 26 staff members were injured.

About an hour after the SPSM had been secured, the branch prison at Marquette erupted. Shortly before the end of the evening yard time, an officer stopped two inmates to shake them down for weapons. One inmate fled, the other physically assaulted the officer. At this point inmates seized the initiative and began a display of destruction, causing injuries ?0 ten officers and 14 inmates. Officials secured the institution about 12:30 a.m., on May 26, 1981.

Luckily no one died; a few of the thousands of guards and prisoners involved '",'ere seriously injured. Arson and vandalism destroyed prison properties valued at over $10 million at Jackson, Ionia, and Marquette. The disturbance at Jackson later revealed a bitter rift between guards and the Administration who, together, supervise the men who have been banished frOlh their communities (Report of the Joint Legislative Executive Task Force on Overcrowding, 1980). This particular wave of prison disorders illustrates a spontaneous uprising by inmates who took advantage, among other things, of the opeq conflict between their custodians to vent their own rage.

* The author is a professor in the Department of Sociology and co-director of the Cor-

rectional Science Program, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

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This major wave of disturbances in Michigan's system, like the one preceding it at New Mexico State Prison, represents illler alia the complete failure of the political process by lvhich prisoners attempt to alter their daily reality. \Vhen rhetoric failed,

the dreams become nightmares. Anarchy within the walls replaces unity, ata vism replaces ideology; prisoners destroyed their O\vn. In the New Mexico convulsion, and since then in Idaho, no hostages were taken, except incidentally. No grievances were aired; no mediators requested; no manifestoes jssued (like in the Attica situation); no appeal to the media or the public made; no cries for help heard (Dini tz, 1980: 13).

Something happened at lhe New Mexico Penitentiary that drastically ch~ll1ged the face and course of prison riots as we know it. The Michigan prIsoners learned the lesson. They learned what prisoners can do to other prisoners (which incidentally they did not do to guards), \vhen both the administration and guards' forces are "confused."

It is the purpose.of this paper to briefly review the history of prison riots, to examine and analyze the conditions and circumstances that generate or elicit collective prison disorder, to examine them in light of the disorders in the Michigan correctional system, and to draw the lessons from the Michigan experience and provide some ideas for future directions in corrections. To these ends, we begin our analysis with an examination of the historical patterns in connection with riots and disturbances in this troubled total institution - the American prison.

The History oj Prison Revolt in America

Interpersonal, one-to-one violence is endemic to prison life.

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