by David Ward
a process involving the following: losing interest in the outside world, viewing the prison as home, losing the ability to make independent decisions, and, in general, defining oneself totally within the institutional context … this constellation of reactions is assumed to be traumatic to the individual’s personality and sense of self and to be a particular source of difficulty when the individual is ready to leave the institution.7
This project made an effort to gather data to test the accuracy of the complaint that Alcatraz caused psychological deterioration. Our task was complicated by the fact that the psychological assessments in inmate records from the 1930s and 1940s must be treated with skepticism, because they were made by the chief medical officer, who was trained as a surgeon, not a psychiatrist. (No social worker or psychologist was ever employed at Alcatraz.) Even more unreliable are descriptions of behavior in inmate files that seem psychological on their face—“antisocial personality,” “psychopath,” “emotionally unstable,” “impulsive,” “easily provoked,” and so on—but came from custodial personnel and work supervisors trying to make sense of behavior they regarded as puzzling, irrational, or threatening. Lieutenants and captains, like guards, took the position that only they “really knew” the prisoners; in their view the consulting psychiatrists from the Public Health Service who were called to the island to decide whether a prisoner was psychotic were subject to the guile and manipulation of men who are experts at “conning” the naive.
With only rudimentary social history and no standard psychological test data available, we focused on cases in which there was a diagnosis reported by a mental health professional. These judgments occurred when the custodial staff was convinced that an inmate’s behavior was so bizarre that genuine mental illness might be present and called for psychiatric consultation. Thus, the empirical basis for testing the claim that the Alcatraz regime was psychologically destructive was limited to cases in which the staff asked for psychiatric evaluations, along with a few judgments of what seemed objectively to be bizarre behavior made by the prison’s chief medical officer. Confirmed diagnoses of serious disorders generally resulted in confinement in the mental health ward in the prison hospital, followed by transfer to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners at Springfield, Missouri.
Despite numerous allegations that confinement at Alcatraz constituted “cruel and unusual” psychological punishment, we found that only a very small number of men experienced serious mental health problems during their confinement on the island. Of the 508 men whose records in prisons before, at, and after Alcatraz were included in our study, forty-one (8 percent) were diagnosed as psychotic during their confinement at Alcatraz. This figure has to stand on its own, because we do not know what proportion of prisoners in a standard penitentiary during this era displayed symptoms of serious mental health problems, and we do not know whether the psychological problems experienced by these Alcatraz prisoners would have appeared in any other prison in which they were housed.
It is likely that at least some of these forty-one men brought their psychological conditions with them to the island—in other words, their mental illness cannot be attributed solely to the effects of the Alcatraz regime. Of the twenty cases for which relevant information was available, five had a prior history of psychotic episodes or had been previously certified psychotic. In addition, there is the possibility that in some cases Leavenworth or Atlanta staff mistook genuine pathological behavior for rationally calculated misconduct or feigned mental illness and transferred to Alcatraz an inmate who should have gone to Springfield. Such may have been the case for nine prisoners in the study sample, who were diagnosed as psychotic by consulting psychiatrists within their first six months on the island—possibly too early for Alcatraz to have caused their mental declines.
To evaluate the reliability of these diagnoses, we reviewed transfers to the Springfield Medical Center and the records of those inmates who spent time in the mental ward at Alcatraz. The choice of these two indicators is based on the assumption that inmates who had been diagnosed as psychotic or seriously mentally ill would have been hospitalized in at least one of these two settings. Seventeen of the forty-one inmates were placed in Alcatraz mental wards one or more times and twenty-five were transferred to Springfield.
The dilemma posed by prisoners who had been diagnosed as mentally ill but assaultive at other prisons emerges clearly from the example of number 1800. He began a seventeen-year sentence for bank robbery at the Atlanta penitentiary in March 1942 and was soon involved in assaults on other inmates. After being diagnosed as suffering from “Dementia Praecox, Catatonic and Paranoid Features,” he was transferred to the Springfield Medical Center in November. He and two other inmates attempted to escape through the front gate by taking hostages, including the warden and his secretary. He threatened staff with a knife and had to be forcibly subdued, and the Springfield neuropsychiatric staff supported 1800’s transfer to Alcatraz.
He arrived on the island in March 1944 and soon accumulated fourteen misconduct reports, including destroying the toilet, sink, bedding, and light fixtures in his isolation cell, as well as trying to stab inmate Henry Young. In June 1944 senior officer Frank Johnson reported being attacked by the prisoner: “While being questioned by Deputy Warden Miller, [no. 1800] became enraged and struck at me. I warded off the blow and hit him over the head with my billy.”8
In November 1947 number 1800 was checked into the prison hospital, where he told the chief medical officer that he had three hummingbirds in his cell. The doctor and a guard searched his cell “but found no birds [and 1800] then stated that someone had stolen his birds. He did not eat his supper, breakfast or dinner [because] he wanted his hummingbirds. . . . He knew that the Deputy Warden had put these birds in the stew and he did not want to eat his little birds.”
In February 1948 he was back in the prison hospital, as the surgeon–chief medical officer reported to the warden,
[admitted] with another attack of catatonic excitement . . . a type of schizophrenia in which the patient is very violent, often needs restraints, and is often a very difficult nursing problem. This patient is very untidy and filthy in behavior. He is completely unable to care for himself. It has become a daily routine to clean his cell of feces and feed him. . . . It has been necessary to restrain him in order to prevent him from killing himself. It has been necessary to administer large doses of sedatives to quiet him. . . . It is advisable to transfer this man to the Medical Center as soon as possible.
On April 13, 1948, number 1800 was transferred to Springfield, where the staff determined that his fear of being killed by another inmate (Henry Young) was the cause of his “catatonic excitement” evident at Alcatraz and that, having been removed from the island, “he had a remission of this condition.” His transfer to Leavenworth was recommended by Bureau headquarters, with a proviso, “If he causes trouble, consideration could then be given [to a return] to Alcatraz.” Determining the extent to which confinement at Alcatraz, in and of itself, provoked serious mental health problems appears impossibly complex in cases like this.
Other studies of psychological disorders associated with long-term confinement have reported a positive relation between the onset of these disorders and length of confinement.9 More specifically, they found that as the amount of time served increased, the severity of psychological problems experienced by the inmates also increased. This line of research led to the expectation that the onset of these problems would occur after the inmates had spent a substantial amount of time at Alcatraz. The data from our study, however, did not support this prediction. Of the forty-one inmates diagnosed as psychotic at Alcatraz, sixteen received these diagnoses within the first year of their confinement; only ten inmates had been at Alcatraz five years or longer.
The preceding analysis suggests that if the conditions of incarceration at Alcatraz promoted the onset of psychosis, they did so only for a very small number of inmates. This conclusion was supported by almost all
of the one hundred former prisoners and employees we interviewed. They identified the same handful of inmates as “crazy”—generally defined by the prisoners as not being able to “stand up” to the rigors of doing big time. Only three of fifty-four inmate interviewees reported that their own mental health had been seriously affected by confinement at Alcatraz; however, two of these men maintained that they had not been so negatively affected that hospitalization, psychotropic medication, or psychotherapy was required; no. 1600 was the exception (see chapter 13).
How were the majority of Alcatraz inmates able to withstand the psychological challenges that were an acknowledged part of serving time on the island? The inmates themselves had a clear idea of who was “crazy” and who was not; they made an important distinction between genuine mental illness and feelings of depression, frustration, anger, and hopelessness that almost every man experienced at one time or another. The majority of Alcatraz inmates—those not in the “crazy” category—were simply better equipped to stand up to the challenging conditions; after all they were old hands at doing time, including considerable time in tough state prisons. They understood that spending some years behind bars was an inherent risk of the life of a bank robber or ransom kidnapper, and they brought to Alcatraz ways of adapting to, and coping with, harsh prison conditions.
This conclusion is consistent with the very limited amount of research that has been done on the effects of long-term confinement. In their study of men in Illinois, Connecticut, and Minnesota state prisons, MacKenzie and Goodstein noted that different prisoners react to the experience of confinement in different ways. While those who were new to prison but faced long sentences reported a high level of “stress,” inmates “who had received long sentences and had already served a lengthy time in prison appeared to have developed a method of coping with the experience.”10 Sociologist John Irwin makes a similar point, focusing on the importance of what he calls “pre-prison orientations.” “Many offenders,” he writes, “have considerable foreknowledge of prison and are relatively well prepared for what will happen to them during their confinement.” Irwin cites a study of prisoners in a long-term facility in England by Taylor and Cohen that concluded, “those persons who were involved in systematic crime before their sentences acted very differently than . . . ‘situational’ criminals.” Applying this idea to inmates in this country, Irwin states, “The old-style thieves, who were numerous in American prisons, learned about prison as they learned other aspects of a thief’s life and took prison in their stride.”11 Most of the inmates at Alcatraz certainly fit into this category.
The point here is that for more than 90 percent of the gangster-era prisoners, confinement at Alcatraz did not produce such serious mental health problems that they could not function effectively in other prisons after transfer or in the free world after release. That very few inmates were diagnosed as psychotic and were transferred to the Springfield Medical Center does not mean that doing time on the Rock had no emotional impact or more subtle influence on inmates’ post-Alcatraz adjustment. Every inmate we interviewed talked about the boredom, loneliness, and what George Kelly called “the absence of everything that makes life worth living.” What we have tried to make clear is that the great majority of men in this particular prison population brought to the island with them values, associations, and lots of experience in doing hard time in other prisons that made it possible for them to adjust to and endure the Alcatraz regime.
Finding an answer to the question of which factor, or combination of factors, related to the experience of imprisonment affects a prisoner’s postrelease adjustment is one of the great challenges in criminology. Speaking to this point, criminologist Donald R. Cressey has cautioned that it is inaccurate to talk about offenders “ending up” in prison since sooner or later, almost all of them—even “public enemies”—get out:
These prisoners, and thousands who preceded them to confinement, were forcibly removed from social relations in which they were participating and were locked behind walls of concrete and steel where, we are prone to say, they “served their time,” “paid their debt to society,” and, perhaps, “learned their lesson.” But they did more than pay, and serve, and learn in their prisons. They lived in them. Each participated in a very complex set of social relations, including a wide variety of social contacts, associations, bonds, alliances, compromises, and conflicts between hundreds of prisoners, guards, administrators, teachers, tradesmen, and professional personnel like social workers, psychologists, and physicians. These social relations are really what make up any individual convict’s prison, but the fact is that we know very little about them.
Perhaps it is for this reason that we are inclined to speak of the effects of prison life in generalities. We say prisons reform men. We say prisons are schools of crime. We say locking men in cages creates emotional problems. We say prisons make timid souls into “confirmed,” or “hardened” criminals. Some of us even say . . . that only rarely does the prison have any appreciable effect on either the subsequent criminality or the subsequent non criminality of the men it cages.
The prison, as such, does not do anything at all. It just sits there upstate, across the bay, or on the edge of town ugly, menacing. What counts in the subtle specifics of each prisoner’s participation is prison life.”12
Below we relate some of the “subtle specifics” of Alcatraz inmates’ lives on the Rock to their lives after their release from prison.
WHAT WORKED ON THE ROCK
DURING THE GANGSTER ERA
Nearly two-thirds of the men who served time at Alcatraz during the gangster era did what no one expected them to do: they succeeded in building productive lives in the free world after years of imprisonment under the harshest conditions the federal government could devise. How did this prison achieve this result when none of the standard rehabilitation programs or personnel were ever present on the island? How could hundreds of prisoners labeled “menaces to society” emerge from Alcatraz and become law-abiding, even respectable citizens.
We cannot answer the legitimate question of whether the decisions of Alcatraz inmates to change their lives would have occurred if they had been confined in a standard penitentiary. Almost all the Alcatraz inmates had spent considerable time in other prisons but for most of them, their years at Alcatraz constituted the longest single stretch of time served and was the defining element of their prison careers. Therefore, it is toward Alcatraz that we must look if we hope to understand the basis of what criminologists call “desistance”—the absence of criminal conduct compared to earlier stages of an offender’s life.
Clearly, something worked at Alcatraz from 1934 to 1948—and just as surely that something was not any single factor or characteristic, but a complex of factors working in concert. Some of these have been identified in preceding chapters. Here we bring together elements that were likely to contribute to the prison’s unintentional rehabilitation of so many habitual and incorrigible offenders from the gangster era.
• The inmates simply got older, and by the ends of their relatively long terms they had settled down and were ready to abandon their criminal careers.—Criminological studies for decades have found that getting older has always been the most powerful influence on desistance in crime. The criminal activities of most felons eventually come to an end and, as indicated by the case studies in chapter 13, this was true even for the most notorious gangsters in the country.
• The Alcatraz inmates followed a convict code that provided a basis for inmate solidarity, a set of principles for coping with long-term confinement, and guidelines for getting along with other inmates and for dealing with the staff.—Adhering to this code helped prisoners maintain their psychological well-being through years of very difficult imprisonment. It elevated the needs of the group above self-interest, encouraged integrity and perseverance in resisting an oppressive regime, promoted loyalty and trust among inmates, and thereby helped defuse conflict.
• Most Alcatraz i
nmates had the psychological support of friends and associates during their criminal careers.—The presence of rap partners and old friends created a prison environment with less conflict and more congenial relations among prisoners. This support in turn helped inmates cope with the prospect of long terms and to maintain a positive psychological orientation that was essential for survival both at Alcatraz and after release. These friendships also encouraged an ethic of mutual assistance that resulted in, among other things, many inmates’ receiving legal help and advice from a small number of writ writers and self-trained jailhouse lawyers knowledgeable about the law and legal procedure. Filing writs related to their convictions and sentences and constructing grievances against prison authorities was a satisfying—and legitimate—form of resistance. In the pursuit of this end, the Alcatraz convicts had basic legal resources and plenty of time with few distractions to develop their complaints.
• The population at Alcatraz during its first fifteen years was exceptional; its members were well equipped in terms of intellect, skills, and character to cope with imprisonment and to succeed as law-abiding citizens after release, if they resolved to do so.—Compared to the populations of other penitentiaries then and now, the gangster-era convicts were not typical prisoners. They included prominent gangsters, thieves, bank robbers, leaders and key participants in escape plots, and men instrumental in organizing protests and strikes. They were more likely to possess intelligence, ambition, leadership ability, self-confidence, and determination. They attributed imprisonment to their own wrong decisions, not to being poor or a victim of racial discrimination (80 percent of the population was white), or to having psychological problems or parents who were negligent, abusive, or absent. They understood if you did the crime, you will probably have to do the time. These factors helped this particular population of prisoners psychologically survive their years on the Rock and succeed in the free world after release.
