by Howard Zinn
In Camden, people behaved in unanticipated ways. The jurors, first of all. But also the judge, a Nixon-appointed federal judge who had no reputation as a liberal, but who conducted the trial without the monarchical trappings of most courtrooms. He did not require people to stand when he came and left; the procedure was informal and relaxed; the court officers did not behave like cops; the judge was available to defendants in his chambers to talk over matters with him in a pleasant way. This came I think, out of the defendants' attitude toward him. They were strong, even fierce, in defending their rights in court, in fighting for the admission of evidence and witnesses, but they acted as if they expected the judge to be a human being. They didn't write him off from the start, and he came through.
Then there was the informer, Robert Hardy, who had been part of the group that planned the raid, then went to the FBI to tell them about it, and returned to take a leading part in the action. When the Camden people entered the draft board in the federal building (upstairs from where their trial was to be held), the FBI was waiting for them a hundred strong. But, in the ensuing weeks, Hardy did a turn-about. The FBI had deceived him, he said. They promised him his information would only be used to stop the defendants before they could carry out the raid, that the antiwar people were not really to be considered criminals, that they would be charged with, at most, a conspiracy count. Instead, they were allowed to carry the action through and were charged on seven counts, adding up to possible sentences of forty years in jail. Hardy was indignant and became a witness for the defense and a strong factor in their acquittal.
This might not have happened if the defendants had given up on Hardy immediately after he was revealed as an informer. He had once been their friend, and although they were angry, at least some of them maintained human relations with him. When in the midst of all this, his child was killed in an accident, they came to the wake. Human contact was maintained.
There were witnesses, called by the defense, who turned surprisingly from their traditional roles. One was Major Clement St. Martin, who was commander of the state induction center in Newark, New Jersey from 1968 to 1971. St. Martin described in detail how the draft system discriminated systematically against the poor, the black and the uneducated and how it regularly gave medical exemptions to the sons of the wealthy. He said he thought all draft files should be destroyed. He had tried, as commander, to speak out against some the draft's inequities, and one high official of the Selective Service System had told him: "Mind your business, we have 20 million animals to choose from." Under crossexamination, St. Martin was asked if he thought private citizens had the right to break into buildings to destroy draft files. He replied: "Probably today, if they plan another raid, I might join them."
What made all this possible, I think—this extraordinarily bold, imaginative defense, this creation of an atmosphere which brought out the best in the judge, the jury and the witnesses—was one fact I have omitted in the story so far, and which I think is the most important fact about the Camden trial: the seventeen defendants (of the original twenty-eight, a number of defendants' trials were severed) had decided to act as their own attorneys, to defend themselves. The Camden experience is the most powerful argument yet for the idea of self-defense in court. They worked harder to prepare their case than even the most dedicated movement lawyers. During the proceedings they would ask the judge to call a halt while they gathered in a football huddle to make collective decisions. In the courtroom they were a force, outnumbering, out-thinking, outmaneuvering the prosecution, letting the judge know they could not be tampered with, that while they were well mannered, there was the everpresent possibility of rebellion. Three young movement lawyers stood by as consultants, and wisely deferred to the defendants' wishes.
They called witnesses that are not usually called to the stand and fought to get the testimony allowed. One of these was a Vietnamese woman, Tran Tuyet, who described her life in South Vietnam and told a hushed courtroom: "In the name of liberty, you have destroyed our country." Mothers and fathers of the defendants took the stand and made emotional pleas for actions of conscience against the war taken by their sons and daughters. Phil Berrigan came and spoke about how he had come to his views about war and resistance. And the defendants themselves took the stand, telling about their lives, their thoughts, their anguish as they contemplated the bombs falling on the villages of Indochina while they and other Americans did nothing out of line. And how, one day, they decided to do something extraordinary, to awaken their neighbors to an emergency, and to awaken themselves.
It was a remarkable trial. It was only a moment in the long struggle. But the Camden defendants made the most of their moment—and thereby suggested to us how we might make the most of ours.
6
Punishment
When I wrote the following piece, for a book entitled Justice in Everyday Life (Morrow, 1974), I had spent just enough time in jail (it takes only twenty-four hours) to understand why Karl Menninger, a psychiatrist who worked for years with prisoners, spoke of "the crime of punishment." By this time I knew some prisoners, and had spent time observing conditions at Walpole State Prison in Massachusetts and at the Charles Street jail in Boston. I remembered what John Boone, a black prison guard in Atlanta (later to have his tenure as Commissioner of Corrections in Massachusetts cut short because he was too enlightened for the politicians of the state) told me. He said that while a small percentage of prisoners were dangerous to society, most could be given freedom—with help—and society would be better off. Keeping people in prison was cruel to the inmates and dangerous for the rest of us. Today, the United States, with one and a half million people in prison, has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The state of California spends more money for prisons than for higher education. The situation cries out for change. I think you can hear those cries in what follows.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
—EIGHTH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION
If, as Dostoevski said, "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons," then it seems reasonable to say that the degree of justice in a society can be judged the same way. And if prisons are in themselves, monstrously inhuman and cruel (even if not unusual), then as long as we have prisons, we live in an unjust society.
It is the courts that send people into prison, and it may be expecting too much that the courts should stop this practice, but long ago, the Supreme Court made a statement which, if carefully observed today, would end the practice of imprisonment. In 1879, in the case of Wilkerson v. Utah, the Court, interpreting the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, said it was "safe to affirm that punishment of torture...and all others in the same line of unnecessary cruelty, are forbidden by that Amendment." All we need then, is general recognition that to imprison a person inside a cage, to deprive that person of human companionship, of mother and father and wife and children and friends, to treat that person as a subordinate creature, to subject that person to daily humiliation and reminders of his or her own powerlessness in the face of authority, to put that person's daily wants in the hands of others who have total control over his life, is indeed torture, and thus falls within the decision of the Supreme Court a hundred years ago.
We need then to ask one more question: to decide if a practice is torture, shall we ask the torturers or shall we ask the tortured? Are not certain conditions, by their nature, definable only by the people who suffer them? Who but a black person can decide of he is being humiliated? Who but a woman can decide if she has been sexually abused? And so, we will have to listen to the prisoners to decide if what they are living with is torture, and if therefore, not just because the Supreme Court once said it, but because human compassion demands it, the practice of imprisoning people to punish them for past actions must end.
"We have been kidnapped from reality and subjected to life in a vacuum," a prisoner in Massachusetts
wrote.
"If we are what we are being treated as, then we should be shot," wrote another.
Timothy Currier was sent to Deer Island House of Correction September 30, 1970, escaped October 16, and turned himself in November 2. He wrote a statement:
"OK, I'm an escaped prisoner from Deer Island and I'm a felon, and to some, that's all there is to it. Yet that's far from just it. I'm a man, a human being with feelings, wants, needs, and desires as all of us have. Prison life, especially prison life at Deer Island, is a useless and fruitless one. Wasted are long, long hours of my life, wasted are time, money, and effort—all of which are expended to solely maintain the prison and the prisoner. I don't want to be maintained or supported, and I don't want someone to pay my way. I do, however need support. I need the opportunity to get myself together, to concentrate on changing some of my attitudes, hang-ups and such, and I try, I try daily, seeing change as I go on. But I don't need to waste years solely trying to cope with the hassles, frustrations, and restrictions that are so abundant in our prisons. That is 95 percent of an existence in prison—trying to cope with incarceration. It leaves little room for constructive and meaningful things that help me along toward rehabilitation.
"I left prison because I couldn't stand the nothingness—the loneliness each and every day, every hour, every minute. I'm returning because there is nothing to be accomplished 'on the run.' I'm returning now because eventually I would anyway and I choose now. The 'criminal justice' machine is determined that I pay. It cares little of what seems most important to me, and this is my rehabilitation—my ability to reenter society and lead an in-the-bounds productive existence. I feel the people want this. They want their prisons, their correctional institutions to be corrective; they want prisoners to be released ready, willing, and able to settle down into an acceptable lifestyle. They want this, yet sometimes fail to see what that takes, and what it does not take. Simply, some things are inducive to change, positive change, and others are not. What causes change in me is similar to, if not the exact same things, that cause change in everyone. Allowing an existence that has me staring out of a window for eight hours and laying in my cell for the other sixteen, causes me to be stagnant, depressed, and bitter.
"Right now I'd like to plead with the people, to try and cast aside any misconceptions they have about the convict, the ex-convict, the prisons. Try to understand that some of your impressions may be wrong. I would, I am, pleading with you to become aware, to become involved with prisons, with their administration, with their inmates, and with ex-inmates. I pray you let yourselves be heard. You have a lot to say about how our prisons are to be run. Your city and state government represents you. If you are apathetic, unaware, they are apathetic and unaware.
"It's not easy doing this, but I feel it's best. As I was out two weeks I hurt no one, stole nothing, and in answer to District Attorney of Middlesex County, Mr. Droney's statement that I and the majority of men in prison are animals—that was a very irrational statement—I question his sanity. I wonder how it is possible for a man in his social position to harbor feelings such as those about human beings. As is the case so often, he does not know the man, just a record that says very little; and it is easy to classify and categorize, but Mr. Droney could never ever justify.
"We are not animals, we are human beings subjected to a great deal of degradation that makes our attempts to 'get it together' sometimes impossible. We need your help. In a sense I'm asking you to set us free. Help us change such despicable places as Charles St. Jail and Deer Island. Listen if you will, though distasteful at times, to the convict, to the exconvict. Who knows more about his needs than himself? Please listen..."
Who are the people who end up in prison in Massachusetts? Timothy Currier talks above about "such despicable places" as Charles Street Jail and Deer Island. In Charles Street, 60 percent of the inmates are black, in Deer Island, 68 percent. In Boston, 16 percent of the city is black.
But blackness is only part of the story. The poor are the ones who inhabit the jails. Is it because they commit the most crimes? They are the ones who most often get caught committing crimes, because they have the least resources for getting away with their crimes, for covering up their deeds, the least resources for paying fines, arranging bail, hiring first-class counsel, making the right contacts.
Consider these statistics about crimes of the rich and crimes of the poor, given by the President's Crime Commission and a 1969 study done in California:
Only 14 percent of the prison population consists of people who have committed "white collar crimes" (embezzling, fraud, tax fraud, forgery). Yet their thievery adds up to $1.7 billion in one recent year, while the crimes of the poor for the same year (robbery, burglary, auto theft, etc.) added up to $608 million, less than half.
In 1969, there were 502 convictions for tax fraud, each case averaging $190,000. Burglaries that year averaged $321 and car thefts averaged $992. But of the 502 businessmen and clerks convicted of fraud, only 20 percent ended up in jail, with sentences averaging seven months. For burglary and auto theft, 60 percent of those convicted ended up in prison, with sentences averaging eighteen months for auto theft, thirtythree months for burglary.
In the Boston area, people from poor neighborhoods are far more likely to go to jail. People with money enough to go to college don't end up in jail as often. In 1969, of prisoners sent to Walpole, Concord, Framingham, and Bridgewater, only 1 percent were college graduates; 73 percent had received an education from the sixth to the eleventh grade.
Anthony Marino writes about being a prisoner at Deer Island, which he calls "Devil's Island."
"I was sent here two months ago by Roxbury District Court to serve a two-year sentence for possession of drugs and drug-related thefts. A rehabilitation program person was in court in my behalf but the Judge listened to his pleas with deaf ears and told me I would get all the rehabilitation I needed here.
"Well I can't buy this kind of so-called rehabilitation.
"We get up about 7:30 A.M. and are herded to eat a cold breakfast and a cup of lukewarm coffee. Then we proceed to various shops— paint shop, machine shop, electrical shop, cutting room, and construction. These are nothing but handouts where the cons stay during the day. There is no machinery of any kind in these shops, no work or job training unless you happen to be one of the select inmates who work in the officers' mess, administration building, or work release. These inmates are predominately white and conformed to the ideas of the administrators in return for good food (officers' chow), cigarettes, and other special favors the guards give to 'good' cons.
"When I get to my shop along with twenty-seven cons, I can either watch cartoons or various TV quiz shows on the boob tube, play cards, or just bounce off the walls, which I usually do anyway. I cannot leave the shop until lunchtime, when the special today is spaghetti balls and meatballs. Yeah! That's right, spaghetti balls the size of a grapefruit which you can only get at Deer Island because the spaghetti is so starchy it sticks in big lump balls. It really is a task sitting down and trying to make a meal of it.
"Then you have to fight for a spoon because of the spoon shortage. I have seen an inmate eat with his hands because he didn't want to hassle waiting for another inmate to finish with his spoon, then having to wash it, only to be rushed out of the chow hall because it was time to go back to his cell. The other night I saw a kid eat jello out of his hands.
"After lunch it is back to the shop for a repeat of the morning's activities. At 3:30 everyone goes back to the chow hall for the final meal which might be cold soup; but by the time your turn comes up on the line, they are out of metal bowls. So you either take your soup in a small metal cup or on a flat metal tray.
"After supper you go back to your cell, which is approximately five by eight feet with a tiny cold-water sink, a commode, and an old army bed and if you're lucky a wooden chair or table. Then you get to amuse yourself somehow because you are in that cell until 7:30 next morning (fourteen hours) unless y
ou happen to sleep in the dormitory. About 30 percent of the population is allowed to sleep in the dormitory, but the first openings go to the 'good' cons who are also the ones with the good jobs.
"There is hardly any rehabilitation here unless you like to play horseshoes.
"The administration encourages friction among the cons. Many cons use dope (snuck in through visits or corrupt screws). There are frequent fights between cons over dope. Recently a con got stabbed and another bashed in the head with a chair leg, all of this relating to a dope incident. The administration does not care if the cons kill each other—it makes it easier for them to run the joint. Cons should channel their hostilities in the right direction and stop this foolishness.
"Relations between black and white cons are uptight. White racist guards favor white cons and encourage racist attitudes in white cons. For instance, there is a lot of noise going on in my block on a certain night. A white guard comes by my cell and says, 'They're noisy bastards, aren't they?' nodding his head toward the cell next to me, which is occupied by a black brother. I'm supposed to say, 'Yeah. They sure are and they stink too.' etc., by this making friends with the screw. Now when he sees me he might acknowledge my existence and say hi or put in a good word to the deputy for me so that I might get a good job, etc. But instead, I give him a look like he just crawled out of the nearest pigsty and he will probably call me a punk nigger lover to the other screws and racist white cons. I have heard racist conversations among the screws and racist cons about blacks and Puerto Ricans often. The administration is racist and there are three black guards representing a black inmate population of over 50 percent. These black guards have little or no voice in the administration and have it hard bidding for good jobs in the institution...