Community of the Condemned; 3; Size of Penal Institutions

Well, what's it like in a big present? Well, you're lost, and you can't do any good time on it. A hard time all the way. Because you can't get around to see the people that you want to. And you can't get your problem straightened out. And that makes it a little rough one out of the enemy in there. 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, eminent sociologist,

and for four years Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois. As the crime problem has expanded, and more and more and more men are arrested than in prison, the size of our prison populations has grown, and we have attempted to solve the problems of overcrowding by merely building larger and larger prisons, or adding new cell blocks to the already massive institutions. There are prisons in this country which have as many as 5,000 inmates behind the walls of a single institution. And it goes without saying that the mysteries of such an enormous population are for the most part unknown and never reported to the administration which is holding power over that population. As the prisons get bigger and bigger, the inmate population gets further and further away

from the influence of the men who manage these prisons. Life in a big prison gets progressively more regimented and more impersonal as it grows in size. And the larger the prison, the fewer that are dealt with by the administration itself, either directly or indirectly. As a matter of fact, no more than 10% of the inmates of one of these large prisons ever comes within the reach of the administration. And who are they? The ones who cause the trouble, only the trouble makers. And as a result of that, the administration is known to the other 90% only in the way in which it relates to the trouble makers. The others are left to themselves and remain in constant idleness, no individualization of treatment, and the surface of the institutions are dominated by those least amenable two techniques of reform. One might say in short that the larger the penitentiary, the more it is disposed to reflect the community of the inmates themselves. The community of the condemned

and is a consequence to exercise the collective influence of the prison as a community of men rejected rather than the influence of the administration. Bigness is against the interest of the community, the larger the prison, the least, the lesser possibility that there will be a chance of reformation and constructive return to the free community. This is what most of our prisons and jails are like. Entirely too large, bringing together massive populations in which each individual is no more than a number, with little attention given to his personality and his problems, only up for count, only part of a long line, which finds its way to the dining hall, or to the church services, always overcrowded, always without any individual attention, always lost in the mob, and this mob of inmates becomes influential in their lives, far and excess of that of the administration.

Too many men to do the few jobs which are available, even by way of maintenance, so that they sit idly in the arm, or in their cells overcrowded, cells built for two or three, inhabited by five, six, and with no privacy, only there to exchange ideas about crime and to look to a future on the other side of the law, embittered in hostile, and because there are so many idle in their cells, hour after hour, even day after day, even on two months, with no constructive influences, because there are so many, that it becomes no more than a problem of feeding, housing, and sleeping. This is the character of these monstrous institutions, they must be reduced in size. The populations must be smaller if we are to influence the men individually. For sitting in a cell block in one of the largest common jails

in the United States, and back larger than most penitentiaries, let's talk to a young man who has been in large jails, small jails, big penitentiaries, small penitentiaries, and get his views on the influence of the size of the proof and upon the men. Ralph, you've been in a number of institutions besides this one, and where have you been incarcerated in the past? Well, I've been in Jackson, Michigan, eastern state penitentiary, with Philadelphia. Montana State penitentiary, Shelby County Penal Fire. We form school in Ohio, we form a 20-year-old in Michigan, and different various prisons and college jails around the country. You had really the worst avenue from the standpoint of imprisonment. A young man, that's quite a career, and over the months of the institute, you mentioned the largest penitentiary, in the United States of Jackson, isn't it? Yes, sir, it is.

How large is that? Well, there's about 6,000 static walls and there's about 2,000 hot in the fire. And even compared to the penitentiary, it's also a large one. Yes, sir, it is. Now, Montana, on the other hand, is a small one, not only a small one, some of these other smaller places. What view would you have of these institutions to size? For example, what's it like in a big prison? I want a big prison here. You don't get around to see all the fish that's hard to make. If you got a grape or a beef, you got to go to the camp and the sergeant, and then they just pluck you around. And you'll never get to see what you want to see. They're like, if you're sick, well, there's about three to four hundred guys ahead of you. They just run it through like, a hundred dogs through a pond. So, it's a little hard for a guy in there. So, he's a cool dog. And when he goes to the chowl, I heard him, less right, he's out.

He's dressed through just like he would a dog. And when you want to go to a seal by your closest stuff, certainly not as close as well. They push you around there. Well, now, you're saying that when you're in a big place, you're just the number. There's one a month, many thousand. Did you get any individualized attention? Did you get more opportunity to talk to officials in smaller prisons and jails that you've been in? Yes, I did. Now, is that really good or for the bad? The plan is for better. So, if you got something you want to talk over, or something like that, you've got a chance to see the official or you can not make your camp out of it. It's a big place, I think, where you really got it right. They just take it for all he's scheming or something like that. Well, let me ask you this, from the standpoint of the inmates in a large prison, the administration knows much about what's going on amongst the inmates. They have an idea, but if they wanted to get ready to the point

that they couldn't put their finger on anything. In other words, the men are a law to themselves. Now, we often hear about the trouble, the riots and disturbances, and people associate them with the size of a prison that they take place in beer, rather than small ones. What you agree was one who's lived in such a place. What would it take the larger prison, well, there will be a riot because there will be so much dissension among the officials as well as the inmates. And I give a guy to come up to you to tell you you got to do this. Well, when you leave him, another guy will come up and tell you you got to do the opposite. So, as far as it makes sense, he'll just worry he's gone, or if he's doing it right or if he's doing it wrong. Now, in Jackson, in Eastern State, you had large numbers of fellow prisoners, where they all were working.

Well, there was a lot, not only in Jackson, but about 2,000 working in the rest of his idol. What do they do with their time? Well, there's some who go out the aisle, they have some who go to school, they got the chance, or they just lay around. A few that work, what do they do? Well, they work in a license plate, Garland factory, Taylor Shop, schools, library, and different various jobs are there. Would you say that the men were the preferred to work if they were given an opportunity? Yes, they would. In other words, the ones that are idle don't like to be idle. Well, the majority of them don't like to be idle, because if you don't have no money there, then money that you work with that helps, and if you don't have no people saying, don't money well, you've got to smoke a state issue. That's what's that smoke-like boat there, but if you don't have it. Now, your experience in some of these smaller institutions

were the inmates closer to work opportunities and to the administration to the services, then they were in debt. Yes, they were. Well, now, this guy, one of those places, was falling. Well, like, my tenant there, now they had 200-somebody prisoners. Well, there's all work, and they're going to school. If you wanted to see the deputy ward, you could see him in the yard. You could walk up and talk with him. If you had a good right or something that you could talk with, he'd take you right to his office. Or you could see the ward at any time you wanted it. Well, I don't believe it, because if you're sick and you want to get no makeover to the hospital, well, the ward would see why. And then the deputy would see why. Well, then it would push your running from the captain to the side or to the corporal. So a man there, he could come at any understanding that he's somebody's behind with this form. Okay. Well, let me ask you this, Ralph.

In the light of your experience, and it's been a long, better one. What do you think is the proper size of the penitentiary where the men can, at least, pop it in some measure from there in prison? I would say it went from $1,500 to $2,000 somewhere around there. But not larger than that, I'll show you that way. And when it gets larger than that, what kind of time will they build it? Well, you can stay a higher time all the way. Would you say it's harder to do time than a large penitentiary than a smaller one? Yes, I would. And the... Well, the lightweight on that board is for good. Why is it harder to do time when you're lost and no one pays any attention to you? Well, like in a bigger penitentiary, they just push in line. You've got to go here. You've got to go there. And in a smaller place, you walk in line. It's true. But when you see something like the warden, you can step out of line, or you could raise your hand,

and you'd call you out. If you try to raise your hand, a bigger prison like that, there'll have you, for the deputy warder, or something, you go there to hold for it, distract the attention. Because the emphasis on security and the fear of escape is greater and the larger prison or in the small prison. Well, they would be larger, the larger prison. Because the guys, they figured they got it great. And if nobody hears them, when they start getting 20 figured they want to go to line this place, or a smaller place, you don't have too many problems like that in your life. In other words, then, you feel that the prison should be smaller, and I suspect some shouldn't be there at all. That's the way I should. Look at a lot of ways they can. Thank you very much, Ralph, for this picture of the influence of the size of a infantry on the man and how they feel about it. The American penal population is burgeoning. And at the same time,

our prisons are becoming bigger and bigger. The question of how big they can become and still be positive in their influence is an open question. Let us get the answer from one who is the administrator of one of America's largest and most formidable penitentiaries. Our guest is Mr. Fred T. Wilkinson, the warden of the United States Penitentiary at Atlanta, Georgia. The 20 years Mr. Wilkinson has been a professional prison man, operating through all that time in the federal system. He presides over at Atlanta that most of us know as a formidable place with over 2750 inmates, the biggest of the federal prisons. Mr. Wilkinson, glad to have you here to tell us about this big penitentiary of yours. The size have anything to do with the problem of running a penitentiary? Yes, it has a great deal to do with it. I think, actually, a penitentiary like Atlanta, which of course is an old institution, built to endure,

becomes just what he said, a very formidable sort of place. And with it, come disadvantages. It is more economical, frankly, on a per capita basis, when you think of operations, on the cost, the higher the population, the lower per capita cost, not necessarily total cost. You can show them. Otherwise, it has some very serious disadvantages, I think. As we have longer and longer sentences, but more and more people into these institutions, where, actually, we ought to be replacing them with modern facilities, or so, is to keep pace with this increased population. It means that our program suffer. Our classification system, for example, is deluded terribly, and we admit. I think all the monasteries would admit that we know how to do things that we're not able to do, because, in effect, some of this extra population is placed in cold storage.

You have a certain group who come in there, they cause you little trouble, and they're not very aggressive, unless you're very careful. There's the monastery who just sort of let them slide through during that period. And so, I think that a ponderous place that has anywhere from, well, let's put it this way, I think, no institution ought to be, ought to have a greater population than about 1200. And if I had my desires, I think about, from 600 to a thousand, depending on whether or not you had a large farm that would operate, would be a desirable number. Let's take another look at this population question, Gordon. In a very large kind of density, it was a large inmate population. How effective can you be in imposing a poem at population your will, your purpose, your objectives? Well, it becomes more difficult naturally with such a group. However, in any institutional setting, you've got to point toward controls

and not necessarily enforced regimented controls. I think you can do it by treating people decently and by attempting to develop a climate and a situation that's receptive to people reacting properly. And convinced the inmates that here they are, they're in a community, just as they were on the outside. There are people in there and rules are made for the majority of people. That they have no more right to violate those rules and there are civilian counterparts on the outside. So if we're able to accomplish that, then we do, in effect, impose our desires if you please, on the population and so far as we keep good order, and we keep a decent place. I think we can do that. But if we look back at the heart of our desire, and the heart of the principles inherent in classification and rebotation of people, then we may not read something. And on the surface, you may have a good place.

When you may borrow your phrase, you spoke about the delusion of the classification program as a result of numbers. Are you saying, in effect, then, that the population of a prison is over a certain size, the chances that it can re-evolute is less than what otherwise be the case? Not that there's no question about that, sir. Well, then what is an ideal size for a penitentiary? What ought we to be shooting it from the standpoint of managing an inmate population? For a penitentiary in no greater than 800, say, it's possibly a thousand. And in this, you think you can make effective classification in the modern sense. Yes. Now, let's look at one of these small institutions, then, that you prize and think would be one in which you could be more effective. How would it be more effective? What is it that you would accomplish in terms of these smaller numbers? Well, actually, the very facility itself would not be so overwhelming, would not be unwieldy, just like a military camp or anything else. You get into an enormous place, like we have during emergencies, like World War II,

and get so many people in there they don't know quite where they're going. What's going to happen next? I just wait for somebody to come along and tell them, come on, let's go. And so they follow him. And to some extent, that is true in the large institution. For example, your communication becomes unwieldy. And communication is the heart of the operation in the institution. And as you can get the word, and get out the proper word. So your inmates, then there's not a lot of malicious gossip and grapevine and rumors going on. And your staff can learn the names of individuals. Can you see it? And then make coming down the corridor. You can call them by name. Say, how's it going today? Where are you going? And talk with them about his program, because that staff member will probably know something about it. Now, if you got a larger population of two or three thousand, you're not likely to know there's people. You're more likely to know about 10% of them who are always in trouble who are your big headaches. Now, what about the work

and the other counterpart of its idleness? It's between the two. That's a very good point indeed. Even though we, in our statistics and in our speech and talking about our operations, I'm proud to say, I think here for Atlanta, I'm sure other large institutions are pretty much the same. We always like to say that we have work for everybody. That people got into prison because they didn't know how to work and love other related reasons. And so we assign them to a job. And we can show you rather proudly that here we've got 20 people on detail. We've got 30 and 40. But the facts are, that in most cases, the details are overloaded. There are too many people. It does very little good. If you have a man participating in a vocational training program, for example, to be a plumber, if you're going to put him on a detail of plumbers, it's about twice the size that it ought to be. And you have enough work for maybe five or ten plumbers, and you've got about five or ten

standing out here with a stilts and rents with nothing to do. And so I may look good, but we're not being as effective. That kind of work would hardly be inspiring to the man himself. He probably is contemptuous of that kind of an assignment. That's right. He sort of feels that he's tacked on to that detail. And unfortunately, I'm proud to say this, and I mean this, that in Atlanta, but unfortunately, in some cases, in some prisons, it's something that can't help. You make work. You'll find a job. In other words, you dig a hole the day and fill it up tomorrow. And then makes a very quick dissent set. Of course, that means that work for them is not honorable, but just a way to crack down on when you break them, so to speak. The way you represent it. There's any very much. Well, that one construct it. That would contrast, I suppose, with a word, or a phrase you use a little earlier, namely the individualization of treatment. Right? No. Again, I suppose this is affected by the size of the prison. Yes. You can deal with individuals on individual basis. I mentioned you even know their name,

which is just a minor thing, but it's something that's really important because an inmate, there's not like to be caught up in a big mess of people, and not have any personal identification. Prison people recognize that by the sort of trifling little things that we find them. If you have a certain type of uniform, say a blue denim, and once in a while, you'll see some public coming around. He's got it cut a little differently, or he's somewhere he has managed to bleach out his blue cap. Now, that's a significant thing, the prison field, because he wants to look different. He's disturbed by looking like everybody else, and as just like in the military, you'll find that your recruits are pretty soon to begin to cut their clothes down, and tailor them a little differently, or something like that. Just to be a little different from this mass of people. So the man seeks to be an individual. He wants to be known as an individual, and he ought to be handled that way. So if we have a small population, we're able to do it.

The chaplains get to know them, and they come at church, they can speak to them. The warden will get to know them. All the staff members do, unless you're able to work with the boy, you're able to know his problems, his personal problems, what he thinks about, and if he has a letter from home, that his mother is ill, or he's had some bad news, if you haven't got too many people you're right to know that, and you're looking up and dropping a little note. There's a little personal touch, and he means a lot to the rail, and he means a lot in effecting a change in the thinking of this individual. Well, you certainly indicated the consequence for us of a thoughtless disregard for size, and how it can sign me program. And what's the trend? Are we getting bigger or more rationally planned prisons today? The trend in the thinking of correctional people is that we ought to go to the smaller institution just about the size that I indicate. Unfortunately, as a practical thing, taxpayers may be directed to blame,

but not defying enough pressure because perhaps we've been to blame and of getting for not imparting proper information, just like you're doing now. Thank goodness. And so there's been a lack of knowledge of the real problem, and so people, I think, have been content to say, well, let's just put these trouble makers away. We've met at them, they've rallied our morays, so we passed along, we lock them up. They've been content with that. Well, thank you, Warden, for that caution. And I think that's a good note on which to conclude our discussion. We ought to act on the knowledge we have rather than against it. Our guest has been Fred T. Wilkinson, Warden at the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia. For 20 years, one of America's outstanding professional prison men wore those years in the federal system. He presides over the biggest prison in the federal system at Atlanta. We have come to measure the effectiveness

of our prisons by their size, and paradoxically enough, the measuring stick that we employ should tell us the opposite to what we generally conclude. The large monuments to crime which characterized the American prison system have come to be the standard by which the public judges whether a state administration is dealing adequately with the problem of those who offend. A big, imposing prison for the large confined population means that the law is on the ball. Things are being done. Society is being protected. In fact, these large institutions do the community aid disservice, and they should be assigned for each of us. That something is happening that is dangerous to the security of the community. Life in a large prison comes to be the life of the worst elements of the population of that prison. The troublemakers who comprise

this element of the population they are the ones who define the relationships of the entire prison population to the administration. Many in a large prison become numbers, space occupiers, victims of a bureaucratic process that must handle heads rather than individuals, and the services of the prison as a result become diluted, and the little available work that is there to be done must be spread thin through the entire population. Most of the work becomes a matter of preoccupying the men with serving one another, rather than constructively occupying them with reference to skills that can relate to their future lives. Now, the trend of modern penal thinking is toward another kind of institution, toward smaller prisons, where the climate is one of individual treatment, rather than mass-ordering and forbidding.

The fact that a large prison is perceived, and clean, is no evidence that it is returning men to the community better than when they entered the institution. As a matter of fact, when we are impressed in these terms, we are often deceived, or that a cleanliness of place, or the orderliness of the place, does not mean the evils of the large prisons escape most of us. They are beneath the surface. They are secret and hidden. They are an invisible social process, but nonetheless real, nonetheless consequential. And these secret processes may adjust the individual by making the values of the prisoners dominate over the values of the correctional agency. It gives the criminal population an opportunity to hold sway

and dominate, and does not reflect the superior purpose and intent of the conventional community. 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, Joseph D. Lohman, this is National

Educational Television.