Chapter 5
1. Across the country, prison administrators reacted to the demise of the “hands off” doctrine with apprehension, resentment, resistance, and predictions of organizational disintegration. See, for example, article by a former director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, James Bennett, “Who Wants to be a Warden?” New England Journal of Prison Law 1, no. 1 (1974): 69–79.
2. Ibid., p. 73. Bennett has written: “Let me point out the importance of developing an objective, unruffled, and dispassionate system of dealing with prisoners’ complaints, petitions and suggestions. The day when the Warden or his deputy was a czar and his arbitrary and capricious word was final is no more.” Time and again the courts were frustrated by being unable to ascertain how decisions at Stateville were made.
3. See Haines v. Kerner 404 U.S. 519 (1972), in which the Supreme Court held that “prisoners’ allegations in pro se complaints should be held to less stringent standards than formal pleading drafted by lawyers in determining whether it appears beyond a reasonable doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.” The consequence is that prisoners more often will be allowed to offer proof of their allegations at a hearing rather than having their suits dismissed on the pleadings.
4. Johnson v. Avery 393 U.S. 483 (1969).
5. Adams v. Pate 445 F.2d 105 (1971).
6. Adams v. Pate 445 F.2d 105, 108 (1971).
7. State of Illinois Department of Corrections, Five Year Plan: Adult Division (1970).
8. Manual of Operation for Special Program Unit, p. 7.
9. Ibid., p. 9.
10. Armstrong v. Bensinger 71 C. 2144 (1972). For a detailed history of this litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who managed it, see David Goldberger, “Court Challenges to Prison Behavior Modification Programs: A Case Study,” American Criminal Law Review 13, no. 37 (1975).
11. There is a widespread belief among the guards that the courts abolished SPU. While technically the courts refused to accept therapeutic justification for SPU, they have never objected to the existence of maximum security wings of maximum security prisons. Sometimes court decisions can be used by the administration to bring about changes that it cannot itself sponsor; for example, the administration may blame the courts for losing SPU, but disassemble it for its own reasons.
12. These were essentially the due process guarantees mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court for parolees at revocation hearings in Morrissey v. Brewer 408 U.S. 471 (1972).
13. Miller v. Twomey 479 F.2d 701 (1973).
14. Morrissey v. Brewer 407 U.S. 471 (1972).
15. Miller v. Twomey at p. 712. In Morales v. Schmidt 494 (1974), the Seventh Circuit sitting en banc held that a three-judge appellate panel had acted incorrectly in reversing a district court which enjoined the prison authorities from interfering with Morales’ right to correspond with his sister-in-law. The Seventh Circuit en banc recognized that the prisoner is not a slave of the state. Most interesting from our perspective is the fact that the state felt that the issue of whether an inmate should be free to correspond with a relative was a crucial enough question to appeal through the federal courts. Inmate Morales had long since been released.
16. Miller v. Twomey at p. 716.
17. Wolff v. McDonell 418 U.S. 539 (1974).
18. Labatt v. Twomey 16 Cr.L. 2351 (1975).
19. Labatt v. Twomey said: “Accordingly, where a sufficiently extended deprivation of prisoners’ rights occurs, notice of the cause of the deprivation, the reason for its continuance, and an opportunity to respond must be provided within a reasonable period of time after the emergency decision has been effectuated and while its extraordinary effects continue.”
20. Murphy v. Wheaton 381 F. Supp. 1252 (1974), still pending 74 C 405.
21. There has been no written decision in this case, 74–1106 (7th Cir. 1974), cert. denied 43 U.S.L.W. 3528 (1975).
22. William Bailey points out that after Miller v. Twomey there was no slackening in the number of inmates’ claims in the Northern District of Illinois alleging that they had been placed in punitive segregation without due process, although there were fewer claims alleging denial of notice and a hearing, “Realities of Prisoners’ Cases under 42 U.S.C. §1983: A Statistical Survey in the Northern District of Illinois,” Loyola University Law Journal 6 (Summer 1975): 527–39.
23. The Harvard Center for Criminal Justice carried out a comprehensive evaluation of the impact of judicial intervention on the processing of prison disciplinary cases at the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institution. The due process requirements placed upon the disciplinary hearings were similar to those extended to Stateville prison disciplinary hearing in Miller v. Twomey. The Harvard group concluded that the efforts to bring due process to the disciplinary hearings had little, if any, effect. Various organizational dynamics eroded the formal requirements so that the substantive outcomes remained unchanged. The Harvard group concluded, as I do, that without the good faith efforts of the administration, the court decisions cannot be effective. The Harvard group goes further and questions whether the judicial process should be extended into the prison setting at all, in light of the peculiar nature of prison society. Harvard Center for Criminal Justice, “Judicial Intervention in Prison Discipline,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 63, no. 2 (June 1972): 200–228.
24. The figures were taken from the captain’s logbooks, which include the daily count, broken down by various locations. Unfortunately, the 1968 logbook could not be found. Thirty days were chosen at random, and the figures were computed by surveying the isolation, segregation, and detention populations on those thirty days in each year.
25. Two samples were chosen. First fifty days were sampled for each of the sample years in order to determine those offenses for which isolation time was being served. The offenses were then collapsed into the categories presented in table 11. In order to avoid contaminating the results by differences in length of sentence in the various sample years, a second sample of twelve days was chosen so that each day sampled was more than fifteen days (the maximum isolation time) from every other day. The results are indistinguishable.
26. The inmates who were summarily thrown into segregation in connection with the commissary boycott have initiated a lawsuit (for money damages) against the prison administration (Arsberry v. Sielaff 74 C 1918). Plaintiffs charged that written and clear requirements for a disciplinary hearing provided for under section 804 of the department’s Administrative Regulations were totally ignored. Arsberry claims that he was taken from his cell on 3 June 1974 and placed in the segregation wing on a tier known as “behavioral adjustment.” Plaintiff claims that at no time was he given a formal statement of the charges against him or any type of hearing whatsoever.
27. See, for example, U.S. ex. rel. Knight v. Ragen 337 F.2d 425 (1964), where the petitioner alleged that “prison officials arbitrarily placed him in isolation, deprived him of adequate nourishment, comfort and liberty without due process of law and denied him medication and drugs.” The Seventh Circuit rejected these complaints: “Except under exceptional circumstances, internal matters in state penitentiaries are the sole concern of the states and federal courts will not inquire concerning them.”
28. In a recently published article, William S. Bailey reports that there were 218 civil rights complaints in the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division in 1971 and 192 in 1973. See Supra. n. 22.
29. In the 1973 sample of prisoner civil rights cases Bailey found that 20 percent of the cases survived a motion to dismiss; of these 36 cases 22 advanced to the hearing stage. Ibid., p. 535.
30. Prison Legal Services administrator Keith Davis writes: “This writer has stood at the gates of the prison serving summons on prison guards being sued by prisoners. He has watched the confusion and fear ripple through the ranks of security officers as they gather around in clusters trying to understand the legal language and harsh rhetoric of the
complaints.” “The Prison Legal Services Project: History and Evaluation” (unpublished paper) p. 31.
31. The following statement made by a reform administrator at the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institution (ACI) perfectly articulates the tension between the rehabilitative ideal and the demands of the courts for rational decision making: “The court decrees work against the inmate. It is too formal, too rigid. It dehumanized the ACI. We have tried to humanize the ACI by abolishing the use of prison numbers. The new regulations work in the opposite direction.” Quoted in “Judicial Intervention” (see n. 23 above), p. 223.
32. The gate house sign-in sheets for fifty days chosen at random were examined for each of the sample years.
33. Personal interview with Gerald Solvay, the Jenner and Block partner who supervises pro bono service.
34. Prison Legal Services is not the only legal aid group to provide legal services to Stateville prisoners. The State Appellate Defender provides representation in criminal appeals, and a group of Northwestern law students has also provided assistance on postconviction relief for some years.
35. Keith Davis (see n. 30 above) has pointed out that “while it is said that more than 95% of the cases presented to Prison Legal Services did not concern institution related problems, nearly 90% of the time of the majority of the staff was delegated to addressing institutional abuses.”
36. This demand called the attorneys’ attention to the legal success of a Rhode Island prisoner group in National Prisoners Reform Association v. Sharkey 347 F. Supp. 1234 (1972).
37. Falconer v. Bensinger 71 C 2255 (1974).
38. Sometimes the lack of organizational efficiency served the interest of prisoner advocates. Davis (see n. 30 above) encountered the same disorganized situation at Stateville that I did: “The prison was in absolute chaos—we were able to use the prison organization against itself. For example, I’d call a lieutenant or a guard and tell him to bring an inmate up front to see me now! The guard might ask, “By whose authority?” I would reply, “Never you mind, just bring him.” It never failed to work. They never checked anything out. . . . In the beginning we were very aggressive. If I had to wait 20 minutes at the gate I would threaten to call Fogel or the Governor’s office. Guards didn’t know what authority I had or where I should be allowed to go. One time the guard at Gate 1 handed me the key to lock people in and out while he went off to check something for us in the record office.”
39. See, for example, the Chief Justice’s speech at the National Conference of Christians and Jews (Philadelphia, 16 November 1972); Burger Report on the Federal Judicial Branch, 1973, American Bar Association Journal 59 (1973): 1125.
40. E.g., Federal District Court (and liberal) judge, James Doyle, in Morales v. Schmidt 340 F. Supp. 544 (W.D. Wisc, 1972) at p. 547.
41. Donald Liebentritt, “The Making of a Prison Guard: 1974” (Center for Studies in Criminal Justice, University of Chicago Law School, 1974, unpublished).
42. Since 1970 there has been a Department of Corrections long-range planning unit at Stateville on the fourth floor of the administration building, but this unit has departmental responsibility and is not a part of the Stateville organization.
43. Hampton was one of the two counselors fired in August 1972 because of his participation in the protest over participation in the disciplinary process.
44. There have been two black wardens (Pontiac and Old Joliet) appointed by Sielaff. Neither is still with the department.
45. Donald Cressey, Other People’s Money (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1953).
46. Personal correspondence.
47. The Joliet factories have resisted unionization, and so the manufacturers perhaps saw in the prisoners a potential pool of future nonunion labor.
48. See James B. Jacobs, “Prison/Town Relationships as a Crucial Determinate of Prison Reform,” Social Service Review 50, no. 4 (December 1976).
49. For an interesting study of ex-convict self-help groups in Chicago, see Patrick McAnany, Dennis Sullivan, William Kaplan, and Edward Tromanhauser, “Identification and Description of Ex-Offender Groups in the Chicago Area,” Final Report to the Center for Research in Criminal Justice, University of Illinois, Chicago Circle (August 1974, unpublished).
50. In a personal interview, former state legislator Peggy Smith Martin explained that many of her constituents who have friends or relatives in the prisons are embarrassed openly to admit their associations with convicted felons but have asked her confidentially to look out for various prisoners’ interests.
51. Several of the gang leaders have expressed privately to me strong reservations about the Reverend Jesse Jackson. They view him as competing with themselves for leadership in the black community.
52. Quoted in a report of the speech by Wayne Hearn, “Are the Inmates at Stateville Mistreated?” Champaign-Urbana News Gazette, 11 April 1974.
53. An individual with a background quite similar to Ma Houston’s is the lay minister, Ann Rubalaca. A black woman in her middle years, Rubalaca, like Houston, has been in constant conflict with the administration for the past several years about whether she can claim ministerial visiting privileges. Many members of the staff consider Rubalaca and Houston serious adversaries, working to undermine the system. The precise content of their ministries is not clear to me, but I believe it involves small favors, like contacting families or employers.
54. Personal interview.
55. The article appeared in Chicago Today on 10 September 1974. It quoted a guard as saying, “We fear for our lives.” It insinuated that George Carney, who burned himself to death in his cell in B house in the fall of 1973, had actually been murdered. In addition, it attacked the racial composition of the guard force, and stated that while the inmates ate food that was barely edible, the warden and his staff were served food prepared by Swiss cooks. One of the top administrators responded to the article in my presence by saying, “that dirty bitch, this almost encourages a riot.”
56. Personal interview.
57. That the guards from whom she received cooperation were the young blacks on the staff was not made explicit in the report but was expressed to me in a personal interview.
58. There are a few other less important groups with contact at the prison. Operation Reconciliation, a program developed by a Joliet businessman, brings citizens into the minimum security unit “to work with” inmates. Currently the program is suspended while the administration is seeking a more stringent definition of its content. At various times in the last few years drug rehabilitation groups like DARE (Direct Action for Rehabilitation and Employment) and group therapy groups like CHANCE have been given access to the prison.
The John Howard Association, Illinois’s oldest and most established prison watchdog organization, enjoyed a harmonious relationship with the prison people until the late 1960s. After that time and under different leadership, John Howard became more of an adversary. On 2 March 1970, JHA released an “Illinois Penitentiary Survey and Progress Report” which called for immediate implementation of the full liberal-rehabilitation agenda: teachers, counselors, more psychologists, more programs, better pay for guards, more relevant job training, etc. On the whole, however, the report was not unfavorable to the new Bensinger administration. On the synoptic press release it was stated: “Joseph R. Rowan, Executive Director of JHA, said, “I have been involved in a number of reform movements in various states and I must say that more changes for the better have been made here in the past several months than I have ever seen before.”
Since 1970 the John Howard Association has had only intermittent contact with Stateville. It has particularly turned its attention to the Cook County Jail. In the fall of 1974, John Howard released a scathing report about alleged brutalities in Illinois’s youth facilities, which are administered by the Department of Corrections. The Department of Corrections branded the report “irresponsible” and banned the JHA from all Illinois penal institutions.
59. The Illinois Prison and Jail
Project received funding from several of the foundations which gave financial support to the Chicago Street gangs in the late 1960s—the Wieboldt Foundation, Playboy Foundation, Field Foundation, Cummins Engine Foundation, the Woods Charitable Fund, and Chicago Community Trust. This is discussed in chapter 6.
60. The recent U.S. Supreme Court case of Pell v. Procunier 94 S.Ct. 2800 (1974) appears to give inmates unrestricted access to the press.
61. Recently, however, Director Sielaff has taken a beating in the press over the issue of furloughs.
62. When we look at the coverage of the 6 September 1973 cell house B takeover in the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Today, we can see the degree to which the establishment press remains dependent upon the definition of the situation presented by the prison administration.
The Chicago Tribune printed thirteen articles concerning the taking of hostages at B house; two of these were letters to the editor. Of the eleven news articles only two were written about the inmates and their grievances. The other nine articles discussed Warden Cannon, Governor Walker, and the prison’s guards. There were seventeen sources either directly quoted or to whom comments were attributed. Three of the sources were inmates; the rest were either officials or guards. The only editorial the Tribune printed on the matter was a statement of praise for Governor Walker.
Chicago Today (now defunct) printed ten articles about the B house takeover; no letters to the editor. Of the ten articles, three were about the inmates and their grievances. Of fifteen sources either directly quoted to to whom comments were attributed, five were inmates. The single editorial printed by Chicago Today praised Governor Walker’s efforts to settle the riot. Noting Peggy Smith Martin’s criticisms of the prison system, the editorial called for amelioration of the conditions that led to riot, but argued that inmates who riot must be punished if order is to be preserved.
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