Our friend Stan Moody tells the tragic story of how a shift in America’s moral consensus transformed a model prison into a hell hole.
America’s Prisons: “Create Spartan Conditions; Get Gladiators!”
February 3, 2011
Author: Stan Moody
In its November 1995 issue, The Atlantic Monthly reported on McKean, amodel federal prison in Bradford, PA. The focus of the article was a mild-mannered warden by the name of Dennis Luther, then about to retire. In thegolden age of the Corrections growth industry, Warden Luther was considered bythe Bureau of Prisons senior management to be a maverick who flagrantly violatedbureau policy.
Bureau policy had adopted the ‘tough on crime’ ethic of the ReaganAdministration and the ‘Take Back Our Streets’ initiative of the 1994 crime billunder the Contract with America. Yet, overcrowded McKean, housing its share of violent criminals, boasted a record of no escapes, no homicides, no sexual assaultsand no suicides–all this for $6,000 a year less per inmate than the federal average and 2/3 the cost at state prisons.
Fast forward to 2009, the Council of Prison Locals, representing federal correctional officers,came out swinging at the dangers in understaffing and underfunding of McKean as the result of a riot involving more than 250 inmates. They were asking Congressto issue stab-resistant vests and to fully staff the prison.
Apparently, the new prison culture that had shoved aside such effective administrators as Warden Luther had successfully put into place a no-frills incarceration program, toughening discipline with hard labor and stripping weightrooms, TVs and computers. Educational and substance abuse treatment programs were drastically cut. While prison population increased from 100,000 to 500,000 in the 60 years from 1920 to 1980, the population exploded to 2.3M in the 26 years from 1980 to 2006 under the jurisdiction of the ‘tough on crime´ politicians in Washington. The new ethic’s success is measured by a 70% recidivism rate.
What did Warden Luther do that was so revolutionary? He simply showed respect: ‘If you want people to behave responsibly and treat youwith respect, then you treat other people that way.’ While other prisons honor staff longevity, McKean’s walls were decorated with plaques reminding both staff and prisoners of their responsibilities to each other.
His 28 beliefs posted throughout the prison included these:
1. Inmates are sent to prison as punishment and not for punishment.
2. Inmates are entitled to a safe and humane environment while in prison.
3. You must believe in a man’s capacity to change his behavior.
To Luther, American prisons were unnecessarily brutal. He believed that common business practices that valued and encouraged human dignity would work, and they did.
We are left today with a system so devoid of human dignity for either staff or prisoners that it defies change without a drastic overhaul from the top down. Managers do not know how to manage, and guards have been taught to regard prisoners as subhuman and treat them accordingly. It is impossible to impress on staff at any level that fair and consistent discipline leads to higher standards and fewer incidents of violence.
To think that there has been an entire generation of prison managers since the Reagan revolution who treat people not according to their future potential but according to their past! It is idiotic, sophomoric and a colossal waste of resourcesand intellect.
Friends of Justice 
The absolute most important way to show respect for inmates is to give them legal materials recognizing their rights to be informed about and participate in their defense and rehabilitation.
There is also a huge variation in the quality of the food depending on whether the prisoners participate in growing and cooking it. Some places seem like they go out of their way to serve bad, unhealthy and monotonous food as a way to punish people. As previously stated, I was a federal prisoner without being charged with a federal offense. I was held in Dane County jail Wisconsin for three weeks. Twice a day there were bologna sandwiches. There was no fresh fruit or vegetables ever at all only salty processed foods filled with trans fats. Women were actually fighting over food. I mean seriously fighting over pieces of bread.
In Dane County, I sent in repeated requests for legal materials starting the first day I was there and didn’t get anything at all — no authorities on habeas corpus or anything else, no forms, and no access to any library. The only provided reading was a bible and a basket of romance novels. There were no news magazines or other educational materials of any sort.
I watched an interview with Richard Fine. He spent 18 months without a charge in a county jail in Los Angeles. He had been an attorney for decades and was a former assistant US Attorney. He said that there was no functional law library there at all.
Texas State Law Library will lose all state funding as of September 2011 if current budget bills become law. Both houses of Texas Legislature slate it for zero funding.
It is my experience that prisons exist to punish. Secondarily, they have become huge and expensive jobs programs. The time for rationalizing them and tweaking them is past. We must shift our focus to the “end” of prisons as a response to economic and social inequality and come up with a whole new paradigm for dealing with economic dysfunction and racism/inequality. As an interim solutions, prisons should be immediately turned into institutions of vocational and academic training; at least this would be addressing a key root cause of racism and inequality.
Hornblower