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Wait don't say whether it was a quote bad bad black community you mean. OK I want to. Know the meaning.
Yeah. Yeah. Good. The balcony conditions even though you might look around see it as being nice and clean everything with if you go beyond some of the unison and you know it's just it's not if I'm in live in you know signoff folk is basically one of the best institutions around because you don't have to most trouble the other. I think what it is you've got a certain kind of image down to try to make no work
you know and try to change conditions down here but it's so hard because you know hauling one up and. Submit to it we've got you know doing nothing now and you know folks are just collecting money off of prisoners man and then they go like that you know you know they get it. If this person gets a hundred thousand dollars spent on something worthwhile being spent on him out here you know they've got everything coming here to pacify man to keep being a convict in a prison and no such thing as no such thing as education reason that he could you know do something his family was in here a little bit better himself. As in last year's annual income for corrections was you know if you break that down if you just break it down and divide among the state's prisoners $20000 per person and you know my I've been here six years now and I see
$20 a month for 20000 You know so it makes me wonder where the money gone. Who pays. Louis day I believe we are six months behind. Pay right now some of these men don't have any income at all. They can't afford to buy to face it can afford to buy two precious you know who want to really be healthy like me. I can't use you know you got to have a business called here give you $20 a week 10 hours a week when I was gone because other than that do you want your skinny little starve a little sick by holding that money. Some guys don't have families they don't have. So what have you come this liam. So a guy become desperate. Welcome I tell you I get you you're going to get a hundred and twenty five. Hundred fifty dollars an hour to take this test. Well you'll find a lot of your link of this
temptation. Not even thinking of working him from in the future. Now think you know they're going to reoccurrences get some kind of industry involved in this institution on the basis of even just a minimum wage law so that these men here just to get our money they will have to get involved Internet that they're getting paid tests that they're given to these inmates in this institution about about food for minimalist. Alone. So. All all all need. Cause. You know the Board of Health is going to have as a judge their kids couples a lot of eyes went down in the tunnels they're going to just barely hear. The sound of all the loans. So of all the units and things. You know you know you just want Danny he was a bum you know lockdown is serious about this is nasty. So a lot of Lincoln there are types of things on the food. Roaches and
I just don't think. They're no what you call rights in prison. They call it a privilege. And even for their privilege is no criteria set up that you can do in order to meet this particular privilege they say if you are good. Then you can go from there and they still haven't given you the definition. Good boy. We're. Going to go out there to give it to you you know. Fellows do what they want and go out here. A lot of black men a man here in his in his camp right now. Well eligible for furloughs and can't get furloughs but you got a lot of white folks here who come here. They got licenses and things and you know they just try to play. Why inmates against black inmates. Black inmates against white inmates did today use to
keep this camp the way it is right now. This is according to. A commission of the United States of America. If the ministration has people in the community real bad criminals cannot be trusted politicians don't get on TV and tell the public minded. Their money is being spent illegally and gone. The place other than with should be don't you don't tell me. But it does tell about how a maze of riding up here and how to do it is how to do and it is really a political thing or the whole thing is a political thing and Im a skull in the middle of it. You know if a man coming here for stealing. What are you coming here for. If nothing in here is provided for them in China changes attitude then you know people can rest assured his attitude is going to be the same when he walks by gotten community you know the
gossip politicians lost it's not. I know the community doesn't want that. I realize their correction. Is a big business you know in a way that people can stay in business. The rate of recidivism. Have. Now. With This is inevitable. Same guys going to believe this statistics you know. There's about a 70 percent. And why. Because there isn't any real rehabilitative programs in the prison system. In 1967 rebellions erupted in the Troy black community. And the letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association three neurosurgeons Dr. Sweet Irving Mark put forth a theory as to the cause of the
violence in Detroit. Their theory was not new but their implications relative to urban unrest and its causes sounded new. They said in part quote. There was evidence from several sources recently collected by the neuro research foundation that brain dysfunction related to local lesions plays a significant role in the violent and assaultive behavior of thoroughly studied patients. Their idea was subtle but clear. The reason individuals were violent during the billions was due to a brain dysfunction which they felt surgery could correct. That's a medical phenomenon term cycle surgery was implemented. Is Brain Dysfunction the cause of violent behavior is the development of psychosurgery necessary. What are its political implications. We need to discuss these and other aspects of psycho technology. Reverend Edward Rodman of the Episcopal Diocese of Boston.
And Professor Stephen Schork of the MIT psychology department. I'd like to ask a question to both of you and that is the basis for psychosurgery seems to be that violent behavior is caused by dysfunctions in the individual's brain. What are your reactions to this theory. Well I think there's no question but that behavior is related to brain function and that there may be certain individuals who are violent because of a dysfunction in the brain. But the kind of violence that we're talking about here social unrest among a population in a repressed community can only be seen as a kind of brain dysfunction by ignoring the legitimate causes of the behavior. And my reaction to the letter from which you quoted and to the whole idea of trying to deal
with social violence as if it was something wrong inside of the people's heads who are violent is a way of refusing to look at the legitimate social causes of a very important and significant kind of behavior. What's your reaction to that certain degree of what Frova says and would add a further dimension that to the extent that medical science has created this new quote technology there is a desire to use it you see. And the most logical population to use it against poor people black people and people who are incarcerated. What we were discussing earlier as we were preparing for the program is that this is really nothing new that this is standard operating procedure on the part of the system for years. The problem is that you have a prison system in our society that has failed on all objective grounds. And what is now happening is that this in quote a new theory is a new justification for continuing in costa ration as a means of dealing with these problems. And I think it's
suspect both scientifically and certainly morally and in terms of social theory. Professor over what is included in the general category of psycho technology. Well as. I use the term as many other people do cycle technology concerns those techniques that are currently being developed and use. To either measure or to control the behavior of certain individuals. As I think the term deserves to be understood it includes everything from the use of intelligence tests on the one hand as a means of measuring behavior. And the use of psychosurgery on the other hand to control certain forms of behavior. I think Reverend Robin's point is very well worth underlining and that is that although some of this technology sounds very new. It is not all that new but more important the idea of using forms of technology particularly medical technology as a means of
defining behavior and trying to control it is very old indeed. If I can give you an example from the past. To show how old this is in the 1850 there were four in 1850s there were forms of behavior in the south that many white people in the south considered very disturbing forms of behavior. One of them was the tendency of certain slaves to run away from plantations. We may have an interpretation of why slaves run away from plantations but there were certain physicians then like the physicians from who you just quoted. Who thought of that behavior not as a an example of social statement by a slave who is trying to change the conditions of his life but rather as a symptom of a disease. And in fact the disease was invented was called gran'pa Tomine properties is the ancient Greek word for runaway and mania of course means crazy. So these physicians defined a disease in order to enable them to deal with the phenomenon of slaves running away as if the problem lay not in the
institution of slavery itself but rather inside of the heads of those people who ran away. What did those physicians prescribe. Well in the case of graphical mania the prescription was for the same sort of treatment that people today are told to use in the case of disobedient children because as you know the standard way of describing the sleigh was as a child a way of depriving the slave of full dignity as a human being. It was kind and firm treatment. But for other diseases prescriptions included whippings which were described in medical terms as the working in of oil with a broad leather strap and then putting the patient to strong exercise in the out of doors. So it's possible and this is one of the things that will continually come back to I think it's possible to describe punishment indeed even torture. As a form of medical treatment. I think this is the most disturbing fact of because to the extent that the notion of rehabilitation has been disproven by recidivism rates and by the failure
of institutions to in fact respond to genuine human need. The problem now becomes how do you help folk understand the difference between punishment and treatment in our society. The problems exist crime exists. The fear of safety exists but it seems to me the responsibility for those rests with the larger society and with the communities in which these problems occur and what the community does when it sanctions this kind of behavior in prison is to say well it's not our responsibility. They have to deal with it. And what that creates is a circumstance where almost anything can happen because it's out of sight and out of mind. And what we're about is trying to expose these things what they are and try to encourage more public concern about the implications of them if they're not stopped now. And what is the disease for which psycho surgery is being prescribe. Have the disease been coined. Well there is something which has been coined by the physicians to whom you referred earlier called the disk control
syndrome. And the belief that these people are trying to advance is the idea that there are certain forms of brain disease which make people uncontrollably irrationally violent. Now as I said before I don't want to exclude the possibility that there are certain forms of brain disease which affect people's behavior. Obviously that's the case. But when one tries to reduce to a medical disease a kind of behavior for which the individual feels a justification. That's a way of denying that the political. Activity that that person is engaged in is an important activity. It's a way of avoiding looking at what that person is saying. Whether it be a and as a allegedly violent person in the ghetto or whether it be a child in school. Behavior directed against the control of people's behavior can be defined and is defined by medical people as a medical
disease. And this of course leads to various so-called treatments. Reverend Rodman How do you see the cycle of surgery and cycle technology from an ethical point of view. Yes I think the major concern right now in this area is the fear aspect of it the morality comes from the way in which it is used to strike fear into the hearts of prisoners and certain of the larger population as we become more aware of this. The fact that something can be done to your brain is probably the greatest fear that a person in Costa Rica could have short of the electric chair. And this is used very skillfully by the prison officials to divide the inmate population. And one of the beautiful things that happened during the lock up when the initial stages of this perverted behavior modification technique were applied that is dividing men arbitrarily holding out favors and punishments indiscriminately was the formation of the National Prison Reform Association in which the population came together and resisted this process and overcame this fear through this solidarity. And I think that this is one of the significant things that has come out of the
Massachusetts experience the way in which communities in Costa Rica people in oppressed peoples have begun to deal with this psychological terror. But furthermore they ultimately a moral trip is the fact that. Society can't make a decision about what's going to happen to the life of another person without his consent or to create the circumstances which is even worse in which the only option he has is to give consent. And I think these are the serious moral implications at least in terms of the individual and how would that situation evolve one of which an individual would almost be forced to give his consent. Well right now we are very concerned about the situation and locked in a wall poll in which men have been thrown into that particular segregation block which was traditional that the punishment block of the institution. And I've been told that now all of a sudden this is in quote a treatment block. But in order to get out of your cell 24 hours a day you must sign into the treatment. And if you don't choose to sign into the treatment then of course you stay in punishment. You see this blurring of the lines of punishment and treatment and putting people in a
context in which anything is better than this not knowing that the demon that has been removed is going to be supplanted by 7 worse than the first and that's the problem that we're dealing with. What's your reaction to the ethical implications of cycle technology. I think the ultimate issue is one that Reverend Rodman touched upon but I'd like to sport a little bit further it's the question of control ultimately in prisons you have the extreme institution of control in our society the people within such institutions are to a very large extent controlled by the people who run such institutions. The introduction of this entire therapeutic idea into prisons seems to transfer the control to the inmate for example to take his example of the inmate in block Tenet Walpole such an inmate is told repeatedly look if you want to get out of luck then it's up to you. You're the one who's in control of what is done to you in this prison. If you behave yourself and go
along with the program you have a chance of being removed from Block 10. It's a way of denying that the ultimate control lies in the prison officials. And of course there is a sense it's a very trivial very pathetic sense in which it's true. The inmate is as it were in control. But I'm reminded of a cartoon that I saw many years ago that shows a rat. In a box where he has to press a lever to get some food and the rat says to another rat in the box boy do I have the experimenter under control every time I press the lever. He gives me a piece of food. Of course it's true in a very silly sense that the rat is in control of the situation but you and I know that the box is owned by somebody else and that the rat in fact is owned by somebody else. The ultimate ethical issues as in the case of the rat for the prisoner in a prison is who is ultimately in control of his entire life situation and what is going on now in prisons increasingly it seems to me is a concerted demand of organized and organizing
prisoners to begin to exert some real control over their behavior not merely control over what is done to them. What do you see as the political implications of. Psychosurgery yet read see the context in which we find ourselves in Massachusetts is very interesting. All of this came into being at the same time that the so-called reform bill Chapter 7 7 7 was put on us. And what we were told when we raised questions about the use of the furlough program the use of work release the use of individual treatment under this new bill which was so beautifully worded and so liberally worded was Couldn't this be abuse can this be misused. And the answer that we got was we'll question that because John Boone is the commissioner and you know he's a good man and he's going to see to this works out well cause we know what happened to John Boone and now what we're beginning to see where our worst fears realized that under the guise of a liberal an enlightened and humane concern for people all of a sudden we have this behavior
modification thing sneaking in. You know you talked about the situation of Block 10 with the guy with the terrible choice before him. Think about the guy who was in Walpole for eight years. Is all of a sudden shipped to Framingham put on work release and then told if you don't behave yourself you will ship you back to Walpole. You see you know where there's a continuum of carrot and stick situations which are plod not in the interest of the individual but in the interest of the system to maintain control. And that to me is sort of the height of immorality because when you try to find out who is responsible you can find anybody who is psychosurgery a psycho technology actually being carried on in a way that you know. There has been a very strong movement. Much of it coming from people who like myself are in the neurological sciences or neuro psychological sciences to oppose it. That has to do with the fact that the psychosurgery that is currently being performed is not nearly as effective
as it is claimed to be. But I tend to think that the greatest opposition. Will ultimately have to come from the people who are on the receiving end of social control in the society. I suspect that increasingly these kinds of techniques perhaps not psychosurgery perhaps not even the use of drugs but a whole variety of behavior control techniques that are currently being developed. Will be increasingly used in a desperate attempt to bring under control the behavior of people who don't respond to other forms of control. The reason that they don't respond again is very much a political issue. Why do people not respond to the kinds of controls that are imposed upon them in our society. Does the problem lie in some defect in them or does the problem lie in a defect in the larger society of which they are just a part. I think the important point about the entire spectrum of psycho technology is that what is going on in the prisons is really just an extreme aspect. Of what's
going on in our society at large. Is it actually being carried on in you in that you can. I don't believe that there are any projects within the prisons of Massachusetts and I don't believe there are any elsewhere say in the federal prison system. There have been in the past proposals to do psycho surgery on prisoners who were seen by the prison keepers as uncontrollable. These proposals have been brought blocked largely by the opposition against prisoners. OK. Also got to remember that in the 30s the practice of law Bottomley both on prisoners and mental patients and sterilization were widely heralded. So that this is not a new thing but just put in a new guise and the bottom is sort of the most crude form of psychosurgery. One of the long range political implications of something like cycle cycle surgery if it in fact got implemented at the prison level. Well long was not that long range I think that there are people within the system who want to do it.
I think women parole was a classic example of that. But he's not by any means the only one. The long range implications obviously are if they can in fact begin to isolate and segregate society and begin to make these labels work whatever the term may be. Brain Dysfunction whatever and can in fact begin to classify people this way then that becomes it seems to me an excellent tool of political control you don't have to call a person a radical you don't have to call him a criminal. You don't have to call him any of the traditional derisive terms which you can have in have a minimal brain dysfunction. You see and that could be a very serious charge or a very serious sentence. You say you're not sentenced to Walpole of Bridgwater you create a new place like the tri state prison that they were proposing and you go there and you will get quotes treatment. You see that's the thing that is the most the most concerning me right now is that if this is allowed to happen in the prisons that event can be worked into the total criminal justice system.
I got you. So what is the status of cycle technology psychosurgery now at this particular time in the state of Massachusetts. Is it is there any legislation to oppose it where do things stand. Well we have been working ever since the initial discussions on chapter 7 7 7 of the prison reform bill were instituted to ban all medical research on one level and to ban any any treatment in quotes of a prison without his consent of that of his lawyer. And that has not not happened you see any reason for that is that the not the law but the policy of the department in classification has never been spelled out in other words how in fact he classified a prisoner has never been made clear to us so that there's nothing to attack it. But what we see happening are the beginnings of this we see what's happening in blocked in we see what's happening in blockading Walpole. We are worried about Bridgewater and the new buildings of Bridgwater which are nothing but the same all kinds of cages that exist in the whole section of water. See so we look at these things and we see what could be done. And we're trying to get the legislature obviously to put
restrictions on this. But we live in a society in which underneath. The law and order issue is still crucial and because people have not taken the time to wrestle with the social implications of that they are willing to let it happen in a prison. OK listen we recently went out to one of the prisons and talked to some of the inmates there about cycle surgery would like to look at some of that in there and I think it would be very informative to get their point of view. If you cycle surgery my first reaction is terrible. So far we purpose to. We built a team going in the man's brain in tinker with the brain is is a major sciences and studios are saying this is a no vote. The man's brain as a whole has been around a long time Eli has been around and I was reading
like the first time you found those psycho surgery was being done was in the seventeen hundred seventeen hundred and it's nothing new today but it's become more popular today because taper control system makes no less a purgatory I would like to hear you know over certain individuals you know radicals. We usually use you know prisoners in general. Anybody that's a threat to society will cause them any discomfort. It's definitely a bad thing. You know it's a hard thing to to to to really to really understand you know interior interior of operations and all that you know it's ours I can relate to is that I know it's no good I know that I don't need my brain picked up and cut and scraped and I
differed. There's nothing wrong with me here. I have very very recuperative powers within my own self. You know when I do something in the past that was contrary to say these norms I put them aside. You know there was any punishment necessary. OK. And I still you know I can't say much on the survey. It's just no good. I mean it's just you know you want to work they would have to you know Louis kill me before you give me an opportunity in the second surgery. I feel that the use of psycho surgery is another form of genocide. To be realistic about. If a man is aggressive or hypoactive I don't believe you should come in take something away from this man to stop him from baring himself
so to speak. Now a man has an imagination. He's active in certain fields. And once you take this away from the man he become very submissive he become more less like a robot. Once psycho surgery has been performed on any man you'll never be the same. And I know my son is taken with something to change about me I don't want to change what I'm about now. Like I'm about you know in the penitentiary you know. And I ask who has the right to go into the temple with the mind of any individual through surgery or any other means. Brothers are people in general in this penitentiary when Sensi had to be utilized as guinea pigs on to our submit to any kind of surgery. The people who are doing this don't understand what they're doing when I
don't believe that they do. It's it must of been our. What is the word I'm looking for it had to be sanctioned by someone in authority. I would like to know who that someone is. I would like to ask them whether or not they felt their brain needed to be tampered with. I just think that they rather spend money man Arcanum some human being's brain whatever they want to do and then to put the same kind of money management stock to build rehabilitative program Manic Street individual out of balance is not a brain disease is environment a factor you know is a combination of elements really. But it is not. No brain disease in any way form or fashion. There is no other means of controlling the man in a bar. We know most of the people that are going to get these operations are going to be people from the lower social structure. I certainly don't think that I'm in need of any psycho surgery. I'm not in need of
any amputation of any portion of my brain and I will not submit to anyone going to set my head and tampering with anything. We can sit down and talk about what's wrong with me but I'll be damned if I'm a little one of these folks get it into my head and start cutting off planned any kind of shock waves or anything of that nature to me. Cycle surgery literally is the amputation or the execution of a portion of a human life and I question who has that right. Before drugs become available to the public. Drug manufacturers must first test their effectiveness and safety. The economics of prison life is such that an inmate might submit himself to a drug or medical experiment for monetary compensation. A prisoner with dependents on the outside or no family or friends to send him extra money is hard pressed to refuse an offer from a drug company. Inmates are aware that often times the drug that they are testing has never before been tested on
humans. Again economic pressures make it easier for them to disregard whatever possible negative physical effects the experiments might have. There is evidence that psychotropic drugs are being tested in prisons. Psychotropic Drugs can be used to control social behavior. What are the implications of the use of such drugs. Say brother has discovered that one drug research firm attempted to circumvent all formal channels and in attempt to test a psychotropic drug on prison is here tonight to discuss drug experimentation and prisons are on hold Cole's national prisoners Reform Association he's the chairman and Dick Clapp. Formerly with the prison health project. The first question is and I thought out to both you is Why do drug companies do so much of their experimentation in prisons. Well I think it's very simple. Prisons are a part of our society that
from the very beginning have been a lot. You know we've got great walls around lots of experimentations about types to go on in prisons drug experimentations an ideal place. To test in prisons. Many people who go into our prisons castrate over long periods of time as you mentioned. Don't have the opportunity to have the right to make choices. There are many ways that they're used to prostitute themselves from a financial point of view as far as drug experimentation is concerned. I think again that the society at large does not make itself aware of the many types of experimentations that go on behind walls. I think many people who have children end up in these type of institutions very much like other institutions such as schools and what have you. We have a number of people who just don't go into these institutions frequently enough to get any general idea of what's going on. Consequently pharmaceutical companies. Lavish their time for
experimentations in these places. You talk about the monetary commitment. There's another commitment that you have to think about when you talk about prisons. The promise of good times the promise of a whole behavior modification set up with things can be better for the individual who will consent to take and have a drug to improve it in the daily life from one hour to another from one day to the other. There are lots of favors that the administration gives people who get involved in these type of experimentations they get first consideration for a number of things for just a number of things that they would be considered for that. Another man a woman who would be against it completely for the whole political reason as well as any other particular reasons would not even be considered. What's your reaction to that. Well let me try to give a perspective that a drug company representative might use. Not that I agree with it. They would say that the prison is an ideal situation to test out a new drug because it's a completely controlled environment they know
where the person is going to be they know what he's going to eat. They can more or less tell how much sleep he will have had generally what the conditions that he's lived under have been for the for the period of the experiment. And so in order to to just in order to make the scientific argument that their drug has an effect and that they can predict what the effect will be and also what its side effects are and what other factors might have involved been involved in those side effects in a controlled environment is perfect and the prison environment is more the birth rate because they know that people are going to be leaving. And what is meant by informed consent. Informed consent is very touchy word informed. But we all know what that means. And I'm sure most of us know what consent means. But when you take an individual's of CASA rated they are never informed of anything. They are always the last to hear of anything whether it's good bad or indifferent. And certainly if it's going to benefit of They'll always be the last to hear about it. Presently here in the state of Massachusetts the former commissioner John and now our present commissioner. Mr.
Hall they have been an awful lot of. Various schools who have wanted to do research in prisons they in turn. Have been asked to give the commissioner some idea of exactly what's going on. Now the question becomes does the commissioner or does the administration in these various institutions inform the individuals about the different types of experimentation that are going on. I'm afraid that if they do or they don't. The question is not so much informed consent. That's very important. The question is do they have any alternatives. I mean really we talked about the financial commitment that's made Mr. Clapp got into the whole area of the ideal place being a prison where you know what an individual's going to eat and what have you. But I think that when you talk about people being informed it just isn't done. I mean these people have no rights according to the administration according to the public at large. There are people who have committed crimes against society. And whatever happens is too good for them. And this is an
attitude that's been running on a rampage throughout the country for some time now. We have people that are concerned about prisons such as myself and Mr. Clapp and other people that you probably talk to. But the fact still remains when we go up to that house on the Hill Beacon Hill where lots of legislation is passed. You know these people up here have to be concerned about what happens about the consent about the individual incarcerated having some rights. For instance the Black Caucus. About two months ago brought up some legislation against the use of psychotropic drugs on prisoners or any types of institutions. Very interesting Bill. The question is will it be passed if it is passed will it be implemented to the fullest extent. I question that. We just live in a society today where criminals or people who are incarcerated for long periods of time are not given any rights their rights are taken away from them very immediately upon sentence upon conviction. They have no rights. This Is What We Talk About When We Talk About consent being informed. You
wouldn't inform me if you didn't feel I had any right to be involved I'm sure. How much of prison is really informed about the experiments they'll be a part of. Well there again there are there are laws that have been passed which are pretty general but which cover that area which cover what goes into informed consent and it includes things like. What are the side effects of the tests that were done on animals. What can you do. What can you speculate about how you might feel where you get dizzy where you get whether you would throw up and so forth. Those kinds of scientific facts that have been gathered from previous experiments on animals are supposed to be given to the individual before he writes his name on this little paper saying he gives consent to to involve himself in the research. The problem is as Mr. Coles has pointed out all the all the tendency is for the researchers to skimp on that and to not fully explain or to or to use fudge words when they're supposed to be explaining the dangers. You know say well the you know the tests on hamsters are only
hamsters and these are people who really can't do that all kinds of ways in which the issues can be modeled so that. Especially in a prison situation where as Mr. Goelz points out it's well it's well established that prisoners have no rights. The tendency for the researcher or the person to duck the experiment would be to gloss over the real dangers that may be that may exist. Could you tell us a little more about the nature of psychotropic drugs what are the right psychotropic. Like a lot of medical words just from the Greek and it just means changes the mind mind altering or mood altering so that it tells you about a broad category of drugs and then within that a lot of familiar drugs like minor and major tranquilizers minor tranquilizers are vallium Librium see rocks by brand name. And then the major tranquilizers are like Thorazine Stelazine. And that type of drug which is used mainly in mental hospital. And then there are other mood altering or mood elevating drugs which would be
categorized as psychotropic ellabella supposed to be a mood elevator. Ritalin and used in the schools now as a mood elevator which in the case of school kids supposedly slows down hyper activity so those kinds of drugs manage minor and major tranquilizers and mood altering drugs of any kind not paradoxically not pain killers like a drug like opiate would not be considered psychotropic I don't believe in the in the pharmacologic sense. So we're mainly talking about the tranquilizers. Could you give us some indication in the mystical zone of. To what extent psychotropic drugs are being used in the prisons in Massachusetts. Oh yes I'd like to say that talking about Thorazine as a matter of fact. It's been used for some time on mental patients but it's being used also for men that are being shipped out of the Walpole State Prison into Bridgewater MCI Bridgewater. Presently I don't know if you're
aware but there's a new hospital they recently completed there and I understand they're going to be moving into it whenever they get the clarification that it's safe for human habitation because it's falling apart already even though it's just recently been completed. It's an eight million dollar complex I understand. I think that the whole psychotropic drug scene is something again. That is threatening to most inmates. We talked about cycle surgery earlier the same types of things but drugs again I'd like to make a comment that many men and women in prisons find always looking for excuses routes and drugs. Many times such drugs Librium more milder type drugs but these are drugs that people can take in large doses to save up over a period of time and in Xscape some of the reality of the prison life that they're experiencing. The dehumanization that they're going through now as far as chlorine is concerned that is being used extensively in Bridgewater State Hospital and on the prison ward side. They have several sides to Bridgewater which is a place that you might want to do an
exposé on some time would be very interesting what they're doing to men down there. And women also incidentally the psychotropic drugs. It is a very extensive scene now it's being used a lot the world is being very much elaborated upon. But I think that more than any other psychotropic drug Thorazine is being used extensively in the Bridgewater area. Mina being sent from institutions like MCI Concord and other institutions into Bridgewater where they are shot up with this type of drug where they are left to basically just lie in cells and become very incoherent. You know they know very little about what's going on around them. It's another form of behavior modification. If you fire that individual who is very aggressive let's say and should happen to become physically aggressive in spite of the fact that he might be attacked by an officer who is doing likewise to him they will send that individual to Bridgewater they will take him out send him there for an observation period this is not from the court now mind you this is from the institution he or she is in. We'll send him right into Bridgewater
and thereafter stay there on the assumption that 35 days and be there for god knows how long as long as a sentence goes. If they do not reach the behavioral pattern that the administration thinks they should and that's the passive individual who is not vocally verbal who does not speak out or lash out against the administrators in these different institutions. So Bridgewater is a place that is being used extensively. It's been known for years as a mental hospital. But to be honest with you it's nothing more than a prison itself. It has a wall around it and it confines people in a very dehumanizing type of atmosphere. So the psychotropic drugs a basically used as a social control control mechanism. Absolutely. Doesn't seem contradictory for the correctional system to allow the testing of these drugs us to be patient. I think it clearly does that the example that you gave at the beginning of this segment of the drug company that wanted to test the drug in a prison it was willing to go around the procedures in order to do it. That was a that was a minor tranquilizer.
The title the name of it they were using for the purpose of the study was quote As am I have no idea what are we called when it reaches the market. And that's an example of a drug. Well let me just back up for a second that the single biggest first prescribed pill in the country right now is Valiant which is of psychotropic minor tranquilizer and there's no question that people get strung out on vallium it's not a physical physiological addiction like with heroin but very much a psychological addiction. And some of the folks that are in prison these days have had plenty of rounds with vallium in the past or value of connection methadone or some other some other drug that has an abuse potential. And so here was a drug company that wanted to test out a drug very much like vallium chemically so that they could get part of the market value being the biggest you know moneymaking pill for several drug companies. And they were prepared to use it on a population that already had troubles in the past some of with some of some of whom have already had troubles with. With psychotropic drugs they're willing to use that you know in a testing situation
in order to you know make enough. Or I should say go through enough of a process so they could get approved by the Food Drug Administration put on the market. I consider that immoral to use a drug that is known to be very similar in an action in its action to drugs that have been a problem for some of the people in Concord prison in the past. And to say that this is part of their treatment and or that they should get some minor rewards either in money or good time for participating in it. What would you think would be the best action against the use of psychotropic drugs. Would you say mystical is the best action. Yeah. Well I think that the only way men and women are rated for long periods of time will get away from the use of any type of psychotropic drugs is that we stop to open our prisons up more that we bring more outside participation from community groups than that. There is a feeling of isolation for any human being that lives in that type of an environment. It's no different than a kid being locked up in a cold room
for an hour so totally isolated. There is no way a human being a social animal can relate to that type of an environment. Positively I do not believe the prisons create that type of environment for people. We have to open up our prisons and we have to get along and get into Chapter 7 77 as it is implemented or should be implemented as it is down on the books up there and Beacon Hill. This is in essence would create an opportunity for a lot of men and women to go out into the open society. I am not talking about so much on just furloughs because in many ways thats used as a mechanism to make people sit down and act right. But I think that we have to open up our prisons and bring more outside participation in. People cannot live in that type of an environment long periods of time without resorting to some negative things and when drug firms open up research projects people are going to stick their hands out and say I'll take a chance it's a way to escape. It's a way to get an extra buck it's a way to get an opportunity to get maybe an extra meal or something. So it's the whole process of prostituting
oneself. And these drug firms create that kind of a situation for men and women in prisons especially those who do not have outside contact who do not have families coming to see them. And I've seen this happen. I seen it happen to a young man who sat in a prison for four years using out of those four years for about a year he was in A B U. Research project I think it was and had something to do with hormones he was taking hormones and to this day he has breasts that the average woman would really appreciate having. I mean it just messed his whole physical being up. It did something to him psychologically to this day. He was reluctant to wear a shirt that the average man would wear you wouldn't think of putting on a shirt sleeve shirt this is the kind of abuse that he went through because he took part of a research project that was set up only because there was a doll a foreign make a very small financial gain at that because he lost so much pride and dignity themselves to days in the street. But he still has that that fear of putting on a shirt that you and I would wear because he's embarrassed because of this physical pain.
Let's look at some film now and talk to some inmates about their reaction to the psychotropic drugs I think that will be very informative. How do you feel about the use of psychotropic drug use. Best way I can relate to it is directly in the street. It's it's known that you know some of the drugs they use for psycho you know America therapy drugs you can really buy in the street like a quad and they also use Dorian and lose value and use of Dorsey again. Now and these are some of the drugs they use like in hospitals for psycho sematic they're people and they make you completely passive but you don't hear you know like you just don't know you really exist you know. So you can have severe pain in some matter how you feel you can say fine you know because you Louie don't ever you know is very close to what they do when they
perform the vitamins you know go into your brain and you know stand Mr. Man. It just makes it passive you know and just. Don't have resistance just about here in prison type of thing. Just do the same thing you know. But only they only imprison that they make you more more more more passive than they would on the street because you will never get a viable anyhow. It's counterproductive. You know him just so you just you just sort of give up. It would just get to 25 years. We get imprisoned I mean you're passive while you know that slows you down when you know there really is just like injecting you with the stronger they can think about it. You have time to shake it off. Ingles take itself together. You know basically they
mean the world. Nobody you know they just know you know you just don't go around. China will be rehabilitated people by evil workers will die as a song and not make a will with a private use you like to see that it does nothing for me really good so he doesn't have time to sort of gather. Love the use of mass to use of the other blocks and it's a it's a good block in Egypt in order to doom the use of drugs. LEVY Yes because they do work in a person's way of keeping convicts in a position where their minds are fully aware of what's happening so they can. Form a plan some kind of players what they don't do want to get out is penitentiary you know as I'm sitting here reading to you now. I could maintain my composure but now I was given this drug I would have no control over my nerves. Now with so we have I will really go on or go
through from a smaller less more as you know just a bundle of nerves. Really I would have no control over it so now if my people were to inquire as to what was going on I could explain to them because first and they would say well look at him he's really in no shape to rap to you. But now this only lasted two weeks but now during that two weeks my folks say well are. Gee my son is really gone so now they lose concern so therefore these people are free to do any experiment that they want on me in the community knows nothing about it. There hasn't been enough research done to determine just how constructive psychotropic drugs are how instrumental psychotropic drugs could be. And in an hour the rehabilitative process of of a convicted felon suddenly going about doing something like me something going on and you know I've got the brain of people I've got to blame society because of our tax payer I have to ask
where my money was gone I had to ask why I was gone away if I had a son or daughter because inside a penitentiary I had to find out why. Yeah I want to offer him $500 to take these tests these drugs while jobs do what animals have as all those kind of questions you know. And it seems like people just have the science in a thing with what happened in the prison by the drug thing. I I I firmly believe that in time the use of psychotropic drugs will be stopped by by the concerned citizens I feel that they're the only one that can stop the use of this drugs because. They serve no purpose until such a time that they are proven to be at least some kind of answer for some individuals who have had some some difficulties with the law. It's totally useless until that time all the
drugs being used on an experimental basis on a regular basis with people confined to this institution. I couldn't I couldn't offer you an answer to that question. And prove it I can only tell you from my own personal observation because it's the use of the drug. These drugs are a pretty harsh harsh but I've I've seen individuals who have been going to these tests and or who have been going to the medical facility they have over here and who are under the influence of these drugs. These people prior to going over that they were somewhat hypertension as they were high strung individuals and they come back and they're totally submissive to anything they say. They seem to not give much care to where they are or why they're here. They just seem to be controlled. And I think that's what psychotropic drugs are. What about
control. Do you care to take care to advocate rehabilitation and reform and their actions show me that they are only interested in control. The only way this can be curtailed is through the community and to really look at this on a long range plan I think the use of psychotropic drugs is just a stepping stone. I think their stand on experiment the basis here in the has to Tunisians and before we know what it's going to be out there in those ghettos in the community to control people the outspoken radical not just comics. I think this will in the long range plan will pertain to citizen on the street. No.
Well yeah I mean don't you know you want to do don't you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well yeah.
Series
Say Brother
Program
Social Control
Episode Number
327
Contributing Organization
WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/15-cv4bn9x76b
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Description
Episode Description
Program focuses on the surgical and psychotropic research being proposed (and in some cases, implemented) to curb violent tendencies via the testing of prison inmates. Host Topper Carew speaks with inmates of the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Norfolk and two groups of professionals in two separate interviews: the first with Rev. Edward Rodman (of the Episcopal Diocese of Boston) and Professor Stephan L. Chorover (of the MIT Psychology Department) to discuss "psychosurgery"; the second with Arnold Coles (Chairman of the National Prisoners Reform Association) and Richard Clapp (formerly with the Prison Health Project) to discuss drug experimentation. Discussion topics included reactions to the theory of dysfunction in the brain as a source of violent behavior, whether surgery is necessary to remedy behavior, what the political implications of surgery are, what diseases "pyschosurgery" is justified for, what the ethics of "psychosurgery" are, and how drug companies end up doing much of their experimentation in prisons.
Episode Description
This program examines the ways in which psychology and the carceral system have been complicit in the oppression of African Americans. It investigates the use of psychosurgery as a method of social control, the practice of pharmaceutical testing on prisoners, and the ways in which prisoners are allowed to languish in prisons without access to rehabilitation or education. The program alternates interviews with community leaders and experts on public health with interviews with prisoners about their experiences.
Date
1974-05-29
Topics
Race and Ethnicity
Public Affairs
Subjects
Carew, Topper, 1943-; Norfolk Correctional Institution
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:58:36
Embed Code
Copy and paste this HTML to include AAPB content on your blog or webpage.
Credits
Associate Producer2: Barrow, Barbara
Director: White, Conrad
Host2: Carew, Topper, 1943-
Interviewee2: Chorover, Stephan L.
Interviewee2: Rodman, Edward
Interviewee2: Coles, Arnold
Interviewee2: Clapp, Richard
Other (see note): Johnson, Henry
Sound2: Nicholas, Huntley, Jr.
Writer2: Spooner, Dighton
AAPB Contributor Holdings
WGBH
Identifier: 0eb85ad1adc9078eac4283e46ca90721f520a110 (ArtesiaDAM UOI_ID)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: Color
Duration: 00:00:00
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Citations
Chicago: “Say Brother; Social Control; 327,” 1974-05-29, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-cv4bn9x76b.
MLA: “Say Brother; Social Control; 327.” 1974-05-29. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-cv4bn9x76b>.
APA: Say Brother; Social Control; 327. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-cv4bn9x76b