Blood in the Water

by Thompson, Heather Ann

  Although the election of Richard Nixon in 1968 is commonly assumed to have signaled the beginning of America’s “law and order” moment, the dramatic shift in focus from liberalization and reform in the first half of the 1960s to maintaining civic order and fighting crime had actually first begun during the administration of Lyndon Johnson.2 With the same enthusiasm that led him to authorize the Office of Economic Opportunity and sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Johnson, a liberal Democrat, created the Office of Law Enforcement Assistance (OLEA) in 1965, not only granting a wholly new level of funding to law enforcement and prisons, but also creating the bureaucracy necessary to wage a historically unprecedented War on Crime. The Law Enforcement Assistance Act of 1965 and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 lavished even more federal funds on fighting crime. In addition, landmark Supreme Court decisions such as Terry v. Ohio—which gave the police virtually unlimited powers to stop and frisk citizens without probable cause—intensified the policing of poor neighborhoods and people of color, which, in turn, resulted in record arrest rates. Before long, prisons like Attica were bursting at the seams.

  This profound shift in public policy—a watershed moment that would eventually lead to the United States imprisoning more people than any other country on the globe—had depended upon a serious misperception regarding just how just dire America’s “crime problem” really was. In 1964, when federal and state officials first embraced the more punitive laws and more aggressive policing, the nation’s crime rate was historically unremarkable. Indeed, the national murder rate was only 5.1 per 100,000 when Johnson created OLEA, whereas in 1921 it had been 8.1 and in 1933 was 9.7.3

  As the 1960s wore on, governors and mayors, from conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats, committed themselves to waging a major War on Crime in America’s most fragile communities. However, just because support for America’s new War on Crime was bipartisan didn’t mean its origins weren’t politically complex. This was perhaps most or particularly true for Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, New York’s governor since 1959, when he decided to get tougher on crime. Rockefeller had been a lifelong Republican, but he had routinely found himself in the liberal wing of his own party. Historically, this had benefited him mightily. He was, for example, one of the few of his party to survive the Lyndon Johnson landslide of 1964. But Rockefeller had ambitions beyond New York. A savvy politician, he increasingly realized that the liberal reputation that had earned him such a following in New York was fast becoming a liability—especially if he hoped to win his party’s nomination for the presidency. Throughout the 1960s he had watched Richard Nixon slowly but surely steal his political thunder across the nation. And so, by the close of the decade, Rockefeller had begun to craft a more conservative and more traditionally Republican image for himself. In 1970, Rockefeller made no bones about the fact that he too would be “tough on crime.” This had suddenly become the platform that could get a man elected.

  However, when Rockefeller put a new commissioner in charge of administering the state’s corrections apparatus in 1971, he chose an outspoken reformer named Russell G. Oswald. Oswald had run the parole systems of both Wisconsin and Massachusetts before coming to New York, and he also held a degree in social work. As cochair of the Special Committee on Criminal Offenders, a panel described as having “grown out of the governor’s concern about the increase in the crime rate and out of his intention to search for new solutions,”4 Oswald had been instrumental in pushing for the 1970 legislation that created the New York Department of Correctional Services (DOCS), a new unified department to deal with both those who were incarcerated and those who were on parole.5 In January of 1971 Rockefeller appointed him its head.

  When Oswald took the reins from Paul McGinnis, the commissioner who had helped negotiate the end of the Attica metal shop strike the preceding year, he was determined to lead his DOCS in a bold new direction. Oswald, a squat, portly man who always looked harried and slightly unkempt, came across as kind-hearted. He considered his new job an opportunity to improve the lives of prisoners and parolees. By renaming prisons, jails, and reformatories “correctional facilities,” redubbing prison guards as “correction officers,” and calling prisoners “inmates,” Oswald felt that he was sending a message about his intention to professionalize and humanize prisons.6 Governor Rockefeller may have viewed Oswald’s role as providing “safety and security for the law-abiding citizen,” but Oswald himself wanted to make a bigger mark, intending, as he put it, “to move towards nothing less than the marked reduction of men in the traditional prisons” and toward “an atmosphere of community lifestyle even though in a confining situation.”7 As he saw it, one could not expect an individual to “adapt to a normal setting when he is placed for long periods of time in a totally abnormal setting.”8

  Shortly after taking over as commissioner of corrections, Oswald wrote a memo to the governor in which he pushed for reforms as well as the funding to institute them. He made clear that prisoners across the state had been “clamoring for meaningful changes,” and that, in his opinion, doing nothing “would lead to uncontrollable frustrations, hostility and anger.”9 Having men locked “twelve or more hours a day in their cells is unacceptable to them and me.” He added, however, that “to attempt to bring about change with no new positions and seriously restricted funds is courting big trouble.”10 Oswald was acutely aware that there were a few specific “trouble spots” in New York’s prison system—places that were “more potentially explosive” than others—and he insisted that the governor allocate more funds to avert any disaster.11

  To assist his efforts Oswald had hired a deputy commissioner who seemed to share his views on the need for penal reforms. Walter Dunbar was a pipe-smoking man with horn-rimmed glasses and a long and impressive résumé. He had served on the U.S. Board of Parole as the director of California’s Department of Corrections and had been president of the American Correctional Association.12

  Governor Rockefeller agreed with his new commissioner that prison problems should be dealt with forthrightly and immediately. The prisoner rebellions that had erupted in jails and prisons across New York in the summer and early fall of 1970 had persuaded him that something had to be done, but he tended to believe the answer was to coddle prisoners less. Whereas New York City’s mayor, John Lindsay, had been willing to concede that the jail protesters had some legitimate demands and had even agreed eventually to meet with them, Rockefeller, a Cold Warrior to his core, viewed any prisoner agitation as part of a larger leftist plot, just “one more step toward the ultimate destruction of the country.”13

  Still, Rockefeller could see the merit of endorsing some reforms. First and foremost it might undercut support for the prison “revolutionaries” and thus might halt what his former commissioner had termed “an acceleration of the postwar incidence of social deviants and protests.”14 Since at least 1960, Rockefeller had been hearing from his then-Department of Corrections board that some serious reforms were needed—particularly in the “provision of medical care” and with regard to prisoner morale as a result of “incipient overcrowding.”15 Now it seemed more prudent than ever to deal with these concerns.

  Rockefeller was glad to have Oswald in charge. He had met few penal professionals with such optimism about tackling correction’s myriad problems. But even Oswald’s bright outlook began to dim almost immediately after taking the helm. On his predecessor’s watch there recently had been a major prisoner rebellion at the Auburn Correctional Facility, one of upstate New York’s largest and most troubled prisons. Whereas Oswald had been hoping to work on new programs for prisoners, he was instead forced to deal with the fallout from that uprising.

  3

  Voices from Auburn

  Located thirty miles west of Syracuse, Auburn was another forbidding-looking complex of prison buildings surrounded by imposing walls and anchored by gun towers at its corners. Auburn’s historical claim to fame was that it had hosted the country’s first exec
ution by electrocution, and in 1970 it was known for being one of New York’s most overcrowded facilities. Three months after the metal shop strike at Attica, a group of Auburn prisoners asked their superintendent to let them commemorate “Black Solidarity Day.” Just as Attica’s prisoners had become more politically aware and active, so had Auburn’s. There were various political organizations at Auburn, and two of the most organized of these were the Black Muslims—affiliated with either the Nation of Islam or some off-shoot group—and the Black Panther Party. As one of the leading Black Panthers at Auburn explained the men’s desire for a Black Solidarity Day celebration, “You have days for all your white heroes, we want our days.”1 The superintendent told the men to write to Commissioner McGinnis, but the commissioner punted the decision back to Auburn’s superintendent. By the time the day arrived, November 2, no decision had been made, so the Black Muslim prisoners grabbed a microphone in the exercise yard and announced that in honor of Black Solidarity Day, “no black man should work today.”2

  Following this announcement, three or four men blocked the doors to the yard so that COs could not enter. For the next six hours much of Auburn’s African American workforce remained in the yard listening to speeches instead of showing up for their assigned jobs.3 Aside from a few minor scuffles as the men were ushered back to their cells for the evening head count, the day’s work stoppage had been peaceful and seemed cathartic for the participants. Feeling that things had ended well that day, and also to ward off any possible eruption as prisoners headed inside from the yard, Auburn’s correction officers assured them that prisoners would not be punished for their actions. But then Auburn administrators overrode the rank-and-file officers and decided to place fourteen men they identified as leaders of the protest on indefinite keeplock.

  This betrayal was like a flame to kindling. The following morning four hundred Auburn prisoners, both black and white, refused to line up to report for work and demanded the release of those in keeplock. Meanwhile others gathered in the main yard to see what prison officials would do. After consulting with correction officials in Albany, Auburn prison administrators refused to meet with these men to discuss their demands. Chaos ensued, and amid the cacophony of shouting, yelling, and smashing glass, groups of men in the yard began arming themselves with makeshift weapons while taking hostage approximately fifty COs and civilian personnel. While the prisoners protected most of these men, some were not so fortunate. In addition to four men being badly beaten up, one was cracked over the head with his own nightstick when he refused to surrender it.4

  Eventually the prisoners brought all of the hostages to the center of the yard where, to prevent further assaults, the Black Muslims formed a protective circle around them. To keep them warm in the cool November air, other prisoners gave these terrified men blankets. Then, as all of the men began settling in for the night, the prisoners composed a list of demands that included the following twelve items:

  1. More Spanish-speaking correction officers and counselors.

  2. More black culture courses.

  3. Better medical care and treatment.

  4. Fire incompetent psychiatric staff.

  5. Better quality commissary items and lower prices.

  6. Improved parole proceedings.

  7. Better clothing; for example, rubbers for wear in the muddy yard.

  8. Better food and sanitary conditions.

  9. Better “good time” programs.

  10. Improved law library.

  11. More frequent review by parole board of life sentence prisoners.

  12. Protection from reprisals.5

  After a six-hour standoff, prison officials promised these men that if they surrendered peacefully and released the hostages, they would be able to meet with a correction official to discuss their demands. More important, they gave their word that no prisoners would suffer reprisals. While the former pledge was fulfilled, the latter was not.

  Not only were Auburn’s prisoners beaten and forced to run gauntlets of angry COs with batons after their surrender, but 120 of these men were then rounded up and taken to Auburn’s Special Housing Unit or segregation area, where they would wait indefinitely to learn their fate for having participated in the November uprising. Eventually, six of those men faced criminal indictments. Word that the Auburn protesters had surrendered peacefully but had still been beaten, placed in segregation, and charged with crimes quickly spread throughout the prisoner grapevine.

  This history of broken pledges and unresolved disciplinary hearings is what awaited Russell Oswald when he began his new job as commissioner of corrections. As he put it to Rockefeller, regretfully, “It seems that this entire period has been spent working on the problems at the correctional facilities of Auburn.”6 As Oswald also pointed out worriedly to his boss, Auburn’s prisoners being held in segregation had managed to get the attention of some lawyers who, in turn, were now initiating “an action” against the DOCS in federal court claiming that the prisoners “were being beaten by correction officers and county deputies (with tree trunks, etc.).”7

  In addition to filing a lawsuit against the DOCS alleging guard brutality, organizations including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the New York City ACLU as well as a number of individual lawyers had banded together and obtained a federal order instructing the Auburn administration to “show cause” as to why it was holding 120 men in segregated housing indefinitely. Two of these attorneys, Lewis Steel and Herman Schwartz, were already representing prisoners who had been charged just months earlier with instigating riots in New York City’s jails, and wanted to be sure that men from Auburn were not going to face similarly serious charges without representation. Nor were they going to let prison officials keep more than a hundred other men locked up in segregation forever. These two lawyers would later play important roles at Attica.

  Thanks to the myriad legal efforts of men such as Steel and Schwartz, Auburn’s brass was forced to release most of the 120 men in segregation back into the general population. These administrators were incensed. As lawyer Herman Schwartz pointed out, “This was one of the first times that the prison had lost a disciplinary matter.”8 It also set Oswald on edge. Not only did he realize that he was up against a determined group of prisoner advocates in his prison system, but he was also dealing with substantial pressure from their allies in the court of public opinion. When an assemblyman from Buffalo, Arthur O. Eve, took an impromptu tour of Auburn’s segregated Special Housing Unit and declared that those still being held there (six men the DOCS had decided were the real leaders of the rebellion) were not just receiving inhumane treatment, but were actually “fearful for their lives,” a media storm ensued.9

  Sensing that the situation at Auburn was fast becoming a public relations disaster, Commissioner Oswald assured Governor Rockefeller that he would go to the prison personally to see if things were as bad as Assemblyman Eve had claimed. He would meet with staff, with prisoners in the general population, and with any prisoner remaining in segregation who was willing to talk.10 Before embarking on this visit, however, Oswald sent a letter to the six still confined to segregation pledging penal improvements, but only if they gave up their “deliberately contrived harassment tactics.”11

  Oswald’s hostile reception when he visited Auburn that March seriously tested his earlier view that New York’s prisoners had legitimate grievances. Oswald was used to the incarcerated seeing him as the good guy, the one who would help them when others wouldn’t. Here at Auburn, however, it was clear that many prisoners despised him and it took him completely aback. In their view Oswald had had the power to stop Auburn administrators from harming them once they had surrendered and also could have kept them from so many months in segregation, but he had done nothing. Rather than try to explain himself to these men, or try to repair his relationship with them, the commissioner instead dismissed them as part of the lunatic fringe. As Oswald reported to Rockefeller, “The so-called ‘Auburn 6,’ those indicted for their part in t
he riot, impressed me as being emotionally sick individuals. They yelled and screamed during our discussion, called me a ‘racist pig’ and much less complimentary things, threw water at me and ‘cussed out’ all the correctional personnel.”12

  Oswald’s personally wounding visit to Auburn had left him increasingly sympathetic to Rockefeller’s long-held belief that prisoners had become unreasonably militant. The commissioner still remained hopeful that some of his planned reforms would “ultimately break down the offenders’ negative attitude toward institutional personnel.”13 Making sure that Auburn’s men were allowed to take daily showers, for example, could be “a real breakthrough” in his view. But Oswald’s worry that “the new prison revolutionaries” now posed the greatest threat to the stability of the correction system was beginning to consume him.14

  Oswald wrote to Republican assemblyman Frank Walkley in May 1971 to explain his concern: “Recent court decisions in favor of offenders, greater leniency on the part of the courts, and an increase in the militancy of the offenders—which goes along with the militant and aggressive attitude of many individuals in our society—has without a doubt, brought about increased disrespect.”15 Prisoners’ use of the courts particularly irked him. He hated, for example, that attorney Lewis Steel from the National Lawyers Guild was continuing to tell reporters that guards still felt “free to abuse the prisoners.”16 Oswald also resented, as he put it, the “daily legal harassment [that] continues from the American Civil Liberties Union staff and other legal aid groups.” He also felt “deluged” by the huge volume of mail he was receiving from ordinary citizens regarding problems in New York’s prisons.17 In his view he had done his very best “to ensure that procedures regarding: use of force, use of gas, visitation by justices and judges, mailed-visitation privileges in common-law relationships, disturbance control plans and programs” were clarified and adhered to religiously.18 And yet, as he reported to Rockefeller, “a hard core group” of prisoners seemed bent on disrupting their facility and “failed to respond to all conventional methods of treatment.”19 And to his astonishment, those in segregation at Auburn “continued to demonstrate in their cells, smashed everything they can, throw food, and excrement and obscenities.”20