Community of the Condemned; 25; A Comprehensive Prison System

So, is there any extent of zero desire to treat these enormous populations in these two jails, according to their backgrounds, their crimes or their differences? None of their assets. All of these prisoners coming into jail, they come together, some of them are in for job harvesting, some of them are used for using narcotics, others for burglary, some for our robberies, murderers, almost everything you can imagine. And they are different mentalities, different traits, they just throw them all together. This is the community of the condemned. The story of the forgotten ones, in the world in which they live, the jails and prisons

of America. What are they like? Here is the story as told by leading prison authorities and by the prisoners themselves. Produced for the educational television and radio center, and featuring Joseph D. Lohman, and sociologist, and for four years Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois. Knowledge about man and why he gets into trouble is extensive, much more extensive than is usually realized, but the fact is that the agencies and institutions which are utilized to correct man after they have gotten into trouble do not correspond in their dimension, in their complexity and in their variation with the knowledge we possess about their problems. The jails and the penitentiaries are relatively simple in their structure and organization,

and are designed to do all things for all kinds of man. But we have moved more and more in the direction of making such distinctions as the determination of guilt, let us say, as being separate from the question of what to do with a man if he is found guilty. And furthermore, if found guilty, he may have committed the same act as another, but the fact remains he may have done it for different reasons and therefore needs to be dealt with in different ways. We should, to be sure, send some men to prison because they have stolen or because they have injured others, but there are some who have stolen and some who have injured who do not belong in prisons, but perhaps can be dealt with most effectively by being worked within the free community or in special kinds of institutions. We must send some to prison and some must immediately be put back in the community under probation.

Others must be put in specialized kinds of institutions, and this means that we require in our time an integrated conception of what to do about men with different problems. We must remove this notion that all men must be dealt with in the same way from our thinking and from our practice. This means such things as classification with a view to putting men in different kinds of institutions. This means making the decisions in technical terms, not under the influence of politics or with reference to the particular biases or prejudices of this or that administrator. This means that we must, from the very beginning, whether it be probation, imprisonment or assignment to minimum, medium or maximum security institutions, or if they are later put on parole, bring these functions under a common management, a common technical distinction, and appropriately directed at a man in terms of his needs and requirements. Our target is not the criminal act, not just to strike at the individual who has committed

the act, but the framework of his life which produces such acts. And this means our emphasis, both in the prevention of crime and in the treatment of an offender, requires an integrated approach using all kinds of resources at the appropriate point to the appropriate end. The limitations imposed upon this warden as he administers the prison population by way of a vast variety of resources in dealing with imprisoned men will be the measure of his successor failure in their rehabilitation. If indeed he must keep them in a single institution, if there is little opportunity for separating the women into a separate institution to deal with their very special problems as women, then there will be a single standard applied to all, and indeed it will be essentially a repressive and custodial.

Some need to be educated, such as these younger persons whose education has been cut short and as the consequence was reflected in crime. Others will need quite different opportunities, not the classroom, but perhaps work opportunities such as this one. These individuals need to work responsibly perhaps with their hands, and not just as punishment, but by way of suggesting new skills, perhaps in the construction trades. And this may turn a man who is otherwise merely a waste drill into one who can be self-reliant and can support a family when he leaves the institution. A man may be forced to study in his cell alone, or as an institution with proper resources that can turn him into various kinds of activities, recreation or educational, can permit him to come to peace with his problems in new and imaginative ways. Chuck, how long have you been in this institution?

I've been here about 27,000 times, Chuck. I understand you served time in another institution, or at that time, how long was that? I worked in my, as a juvenile, in a place in Canada. That means, well, over two years, that you've been incarcerated in these instances, and institutions, the considerable size, I understand, that's fair. How many were there in the Canadian institution? All right, I'm 19 and I'm there to 23. I had that 4th class election. I was the same thing here. Well, now, that's a lot of people that you were intramingly with. To what extent were they alive in similar to one or the other? What were these people like? Well, actually, they were all kinds. Some of them went on a kind of alcohol, others came in for our morning, some for our robbery, some on a sex charge, others all kinds. And then, of course, all of them had different mentalities.

From the first time I was being next with the high-income, when they got out, they were a lot worse than when they came in. And there's other kinds, or we'll say they went to high school. They're fairly intelligent. And when they got out, they were almost ruined. Even though it was only the first time they had been to jail. They learned nothing, practically nothing, other than how to steal bad, or how to hold out those persons better, how to drink more. That's about how I know them. All of them together, that's about how. All of them together, that's an interesting phrase, Chuck. Now, all those people who think of the inmate population of the jail or a kind of century, just having a lot in common and being familiar with one another. Do you know these people, or these different kinds of people before you came to these positions? I never knew them before, and I don't want them to know them again. They're the types that, well the average one to the types that were still your blinds, your trim, your blinds,

is that that's all they know. In the jail, they don't learn anything other than to steal. So how could you expect them to know anything else? Well, you described these men having different reasons for being here, with different crimes. Are they dealt with differently? And in any way, dealt with as if they came here for any special reason? No, they're all dealt with the same. There's no difference between the treatment of a person that's been in here seven or eight times, or a person that's just came in and they treat him all the way. There's nothing actually that they can't teach them because they haven't got the facilities to do it. What do they do with them and for them? Well, do you mean in place of like this? I don't know, I mean any jail only has it, if you remember. Well, unless the jail is specifically for one type, they don't get nothing for them.

In other words, they're so different that they can't do anything in common that would make sense for all day. Well now, what does it mean for a person who is arrested and convicted for murdering to be sold and treated in the same way as a man? That's for example, not the politics of a person who's involved in the drug trafficking, or a person who's there for sex events. What does it mean to the men themselves? Well, I usually mean that a person convicted of murder, he has served with the alcoholic. He has the alcoholic world and something of murder, right? And finally, he's very well-run, something of alcohol. And the thing goes with drugs, they talk to one another about various crimes and when they get out, they don't know anything but stealing a possibly common laboring because the jail hasn't passed them anything.

And that's when they're sentenced to some money, the first thing that comes to their mind is, well someone was telling me this is easy, I think I'll try it. Well now, what extent do you see or have you had evidence of an attempt to deal with people in these jails of prison on the basis of the different problems that they have? Well, by clansifying them and by trying to shift to a person that's fairly intelligent and has an interest in spagionism or possibly a machine that by trying to put them on such work as an alien or something that he doesn't know. And they're starting to do that now in some of the places, but they have a long way to go. The most part that's untouched here is that it really is happening. Well now, what about some of the men that you sell who were treated with the mechanisms and the procedures of the jail of the prison?

Do you feel that the very nature of prison and such could ever come to grips with every real problem? Not the way it is, it's a fragment-like side out. Not I know I know I have, anyway. In other words, some men are in prison and you're going to deal with their problems with their sick, have to be dealt with reading another place. That's right. And you have to all work together here under this common circumstance. Yes, sir. No, it's not commenting on that, sir. Now, if you were a prison administrator who would draw on your experience and your insight, your understanding whether to say that what moves the men on who are confined, what is at the seat of their problem? How would you change and diversify by the say of a jail of the men? Well, I would bring all of them under one head first. And then, in the cut-out of jail here, the person had an aptitude for a machine or something like that, an event listed in that work, by shifting to a place that teaches nothing but machine.

And then, if he's a younger person, what are the younger people? Well, I'm in a place where he's going to learn something, not a month, I'm criminal. Yes, sir. If he's a little off his life, a little crazy, he can send him to my genome where he'll receive treatment. Here they may, if they don't receive anything. Then your experience teaches you the lumping them to all together in a way that it does. There's other three of their problems with regular academics. I have raised them and met so much better than when they come in here. What better? You mean better? No, much better. Better there. I think more criminal, more awful towards the community. That's right. Well, thank you very much, Chuck, for this picture of the thinking that will dawn behind bars about the inadequacies of our accrediting systems. The modern arsenal of corrections includes many things. Classification, segregation of the separate institutions, alternatives to imprisonment such as parole and probation,

various types of activities within the penitentiaries and prisons themselves, and usually each of these is administered by a separate agency. In recent years, the trend is toward their effective interrelationship, their integration for your pleas. And our guest today is one who is the head of such a system. Our guest is Mr. Gus Harrison, Director of State of Michigan Department of Corrections, Lansing Michigan. Mr. Harrison entered the system as a social worker, and worked his way to the top, and his present capacity as director. Mr. Harrison, Michigan, your state has an integrated system of corrections so-called. What does that language mean? Well, you were referring to this arsenal a few minutes ago. And I think probably the best way to define this so-called integrated system is by stating that these tools that we use, these activities,

are combined under one administrative head. Now, to us who operate under an integrated system, it makes a lot of sense to be able to take an individual who's been sent to us for violation of a law, and apply the tool which is necessary or indicated in that case, whether the probation, institutional treatment, or probe. I think it gives you a better opportunity to do a good job with the social offender. I think I understand what you mean. I reflect upon an institution that I administer, the county jail. I have some men in there who could have been put on probation, but since that power rests not with my agency, but with another independent one, I find myself looking at prisoners who I think should be on probation, and perhaps some of the persons in the courts have seen me with prisoners that they think should be handled in other ways as well. Each of us is all things to all men.

I know what you mean. I don't want to get in trouble with the courts here, though, Sheriff, the courts decide who is going to be placed on probation. But the probation officers work for us. And they are people who have been trained in the field of investigation and preparing precincts, reports, and the supervision of probationers. And all of our judges in the state welcome these precincts investigations. And of course, these recommendations I think reflect the philosophy of one department of corrections. I think that's the important thing. First, the fact that you do administer probation means, then, that you have a uniform standard to which the judges can repair, and therefore it affects their decisions as a result of the common practice throughout the state of bringing these men under your direction. That's right. And there are other advantages. For example, a state probation officer goes out and conducts a pre-sentence investigation. Plus, totally eventually, the man comes to prison. The report, which is usually a very comprehensive one, is not lost in some file.

It comes along with him. So, the pre-sentence report is then utilized by the prison people in diagnosing and treating the individual who has come to prison. And if the individual eventually goes on parole, the same thing happens. In other words, the information which is gathered at great expense is not lost, but goes with the man and with the attendant benefits thereof. What are these several functions that are covered by your department? Can you enumerate a few of them for us? Yes, I think I can. I should say that our policy, departmental policy, is established by a six-man commission, appointed by the governor and confirmed by our Senate. This commission is by partisan to remove it from politics. The commission establishes policy and expects the director to execute this policy. Now, under the director are several divisions. In Michigan, we have a youth division, which works with youth crime prevention.

We also have a division of probation, a division of parole, a division of prisons, and a division of prison industries. So, as you can see, with one umpire calling the ballgame, how much more effective it would be rather than having several folks waving the flag and getting everybody fouled up, which I think is something that occurs, perhaps, in other jurisdictions, which I think are less fortunate than we are. What did you bring these various functions closer together? What did you inaugurate this integrated system? Well, I was done by statute, the legislature in 1937, enacted a corrections law which integrates all of these correctional functions under one head. Well, we've had some years of experience under it. How do you go about implementing it? What are the procedures and the methods that are characterizing the system today? Well, I suppose you might say that we accomplished this pretty much in the same way

that any good business would do it with one group establishing policy and an executive director carrying it out. The question of training a personnel to understand the philosophies and the objectives of the department, setting up these various divisions that I've mentioned, and the use, I think, of certain resources which are inherent in perhaps one institution or one facility have been used to a great extent. For example, Jackson Prison, largest wall prison in the world. We have close to 6,000 inmates there today. They have a very fine hospital plan. Now, there just wasn't any sense in duplicating this hospital plant in each of the other penal institutions, and we have two other major prisons in Michigan. So what we do is use the Jackson hospital to service the other institutions in that way we are affecting economies

and we are utilizing the best of services that we can get from the medical profession. And as you probably know, doctors are hard to find. Now, let me give you an instance from my experience that documents the need for what you're referring to. I run the Polk County jail. It stands wall-to-wall with the Bedwell, which is a city institution and which receives men from the same courts that commit my men. That I received in the County jail. These two institutions, wall-to-wall, are both our purpose institutions. They must each one do everything that a prison or a correctional system will do or can do for its inmates. The result is each has a hospital. Each one has a separate feeding plan. Each one has all of the various utilities that is required to run such an institution. And being wall-to-wall, only one would be needed to service both of them. And this is what the taxpayers are paying for because we have integrated corrections at the county level at the city level. I suppose this is what you've gotten around in on a state basis now

in the development of the integrated system in Michigan. Well, we always, he could point to ourselves less. Someone think we're in minus, but we think that an integrated correctional system is the best way to go at the entire problem of corrections. Now, let's go back to probation. And if the interest meeting get this picture of the correctional system, mean the one which supplies the probation officers to supervise them in the courts and put on probation. In many states, the probation system is apart from the correctional system and simply in some respect, simulates it or tries to approximate its same objectives. But with an entire different set of persons, how does it work out with you? Well, I already mentioned a few ways in which we derived benefits from the fact that the probation system is under our control. The fact that we can use this information which has been compiled so painstakingly and so carefully is extremely important to us. I think too, as I mentioned earlier, the fact that these probation people are on our payroll.

Makes it easier for us to carry out our objectives. They understand what our philosophy is. And in Michigan, I think the officers are going to use more and more probation. We don't like prisons because we feel that there are too many evils inherently in the best run prison in the world. So if an individual is probation mature, by all means, we urge that he be placed on probation. Now, you have a staff geared to that, and I think that the results are going to be good. As a matter of fact, in Michigan, in the last five years, we have increased the number of playstyle in probation or the percentage in playstyle in probation from roughly 45% to now 52% in a period of five years. This, in other words, isn't sometimes as a good deal of conflict and opposition for all. I know that the attitude of men with administrative prisons is quite different usually from parole boards who stand in the tax relationship from the inmate population.

Now, when an integrated system is going to discharge this function, the satisfaction of parole. Well, there, as you infer, is a pretty dangerous area to tread, and we have been very careful to see to it that the pro board acts independently. It's true that the pro board is part of our integrated system. But nonetheless, no one but the pro board can order the release of a man from our penal institutions. It's the function of the prisons to prepare men for release, not to tell a pro board when the man should be released. Pro boards must operate with a minimum interference if they're going to do a good job. And I think we've worked toward that end and have done it rather successfully. Well, you must have had some problems in your early stages in the light of the traditional ways in which men are sentenced. But modifications come about in the sentencing system to square with this overall system of corrections, which no exists. Well, in mission, we have the indeterminant sentence.

A man serves a certain number of years as a minimum, and then, of course, there is a maximum term beyond which he can be detained. The integrated system, I think, permits us to do a lot more with this minimum and maximum combination, because if an individual comes to us and a certain type of treatment is indicated, then we can give them that treatment within the limits of the time that he's going to be with us. If someone else were controlling probation or the incarceration must be had in a certain penal institution, we might not be able to do as effective a job as we, I think, are doing with some of our people. Thank you very much, Mr. Harrison, for this picture of the progressive integrated collection system. The guest has been Gus Harrison, Director of State of Michigan Department of Corrections, Lansing, Michigan, for nearly 20 years, the career man in the service of Corrections in the State of Michigan. The correctional system of the United States is a complex gathering together

with many agencies and many practices, as old as the nation itself. And in the group of the United States from a primary agricultural nation to an industrial urban nation, many agencies and techniques for dealing with the crime problem have arisen. Unfortunately, these agencies have been maintained as independent aunt entities, unrelated to each other, and quite often working across purposes. Each and many instances is an all-purpose institution, trying to do all things for all men, notwithstanding the fact that they come to these institutions with different problems, different backgrounds that have brought them to their initial adventures with the law. The variety and complexity of the agencies through their very interdependence have failed to do well the jobs that have been assigned to them. If we are to profit from modern criminological science, we must be able to bring to bear these new developments at the appropriate points,

relate them to the problems of the particular men. And that means that the modern prison, probation and parole services, the youth authority, special institutions designed to deal with special problems, must be brought together under a single technical management. After men have been found guilty, we should then address their problems in the varied ways in which they present themselves to us. And we must have at hand an integration of the various resources and developments in criminology to deal effectively with their problems. Indeed, the cross-feralization of ideas from different techniques, from different disciplines will improve any one of the agencies which are now operating. The common management may bring into life all of the inequities which are presently in practice. And we may have as a result of the common record keeping which would be brought about an expediting of the decision-making in other areas, a more effective handling of cases which are eliminated through this cross-feralization of knowledge and information.

As I observe, the control of crime is a complex professional task in a complex society. The techniques must reflect the state of knowledge and indeed those agencies most intimately concerned must contribute to that knowledge. The integrated prison system brings together agencies, affects economies, economies in these agencies, and protects the community to a greater degree than many agencies working in the dark alone and not capable because of their singular approach and method to deal with the particular problems and difficulties of the individual man. We must separate the question of guilt and conviction from the problem of treatment. And the treatment program must be as diversified as our knowledge and our opportunity. And in so doing, we can bring about a more adequate control of the crime problem. This has been community of the condemned,

the story of the jails and prisons of America. Produced for the Educational Television and Radio Center, featuring Joseph D. Lohman, eminent sociologist and for four years, Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois. This is National Educational Television.