Stateville- the Penitentiary in Mass Society

by James B Jacobs

  Ross Randolph had followed a somewhat unconventional career in the Illinois prison system. He held a college degree and began his prison career as a schoolteacher at Pontiac, later joining the FBI before his appointment as warden of Pontiac by Governor Adlai Stevenson. Randolph was transferred to Menard following the bloody riot of 1952 (which called an embarrassed Stevenson back from the presidential campaign trail). Randolph managed a much more relaxed prison by not insisting upon the enforcement of the myriad petty rules which Ragen insisted on, and he received favorable scores from reformers when compared with his Joliet rival. Unlike Ragen he was quite active in the local Chester community5 and was skilled in his relations with powerful downstate politicians. He was also comfortable with academicians and had early in his regime invited Southern Illinois University classes into Menard. The well-known prison reformer Meryl Alexander, then on the faculty of SIU between his rise to assistant director of the United States Bureau of Prisons and his subsequent appointment as director, was a close friend of Randolph’s and applauded his appointment as Ragen’s successor in the Department of Public Safety.

  As director, Randolph continued to centralize prison administration at the expense of local autonomy. “Civilians” were introduced into Stateville’s administration. George Stampar, a Ragen appointee as supervisor of parole services and a Ragen protégé, was made Stateville assistant warden in 1965. Stampar was the first individual with a college degree (a master’s in sociology) and the first “outsider” to be appointed into the Stateville chain of command. In his early years, he encountered “total resistance” to his attempts to liberalize some of the old rules.6

  Two civilian educators were appointed in 1968. While Stateville had had civilian school administrators for many years, the Randolph appointees moved to professionalize the educational program by eliminating such corruption as the sale (for a carton of cigarettes) of General Education Diplomas (for high school equivalency) by the inmate instructors. They also unsuccessfully pressed Warden Pate to assign the educational program a higher priority so that its operation would not be disrupted whenever there was a need for extra hands in the industries.

  Randolph made various moves to liberalize the Stateville regime. The first, and symbolically the most important, was his “easing” of the inmate dress code. Almost immediately after taking office, Randolph permitted the inmates to take off their caps if they chose to do so during the hot summer months. Even today this decision is recalled with emotional anguish by Stateville guards and administrators. Later he allowed talking in the dining room and while marching in line. Stateville officials were quick to predict that “capitulation” on the dress code would mean more demands and further capitulation. The next summer, inmates were allowed to take off their shirts on the recreation yards. Later, when the order was reversed, “it was impossible to get them back on.” Pate and his top staff were frustrated and demoralized. The authoritarian system was being undermined by the prison’s own central office for reasons attributed to jealousy and politics. The Pate regime became increasingly defensive and ritualistic. Each liberalization of the rules was resisted, finally accommodated, and then held out as the farthest step which could be taken before “giving the prison away.”

  Randolph introduced outsiders to Stateville as he had been accustomed to doing at Menard. Between 1965 and 1970, various entertainment groups were allowed behind the walls for the first time. Where Ragen had absolutely refused to accept any federal grants for fear of losing control over the programs which they would implement, Randolph welcomed the first federal monies being made available through the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. Outside groups (e.g., Northern Illinois University) were permitted to bring educational courses into Stateville, despite Warden Pate’s fear that the individuals sponsoring such programs had their own selfish (and sinister) motives.7

  Randolph also eased some of the restrictions on employees. By 1966, the income of Illinois guards had probably fallen the farthest behind private industry since the 1920s. Turnover soared (see table 5). While Randolph could not increase pay scales, he did eliminate the practice of placing tickets in the guard’s personnel folder for such offenses as “having a dirty assignment.” The old elite which ran Stateville chafed at this relaxation of the rules and considered it the beginning of the “employees all going to hell.”

  Between 1961 and 1965, an underground union of employees with approximately fifty members existed at Stateville. It was completely resisted by Warden Pate and the administration. In fact, a sergeant was ordered to join, and his wages were paid for by the institution in order to report on its activities.8 Randolph permitted the union to surface and officially recognized it in 1967, allowing checkoffs for union dues to be made from the payroll. Ironically, the union grew during this period because of the fear that Randolph was going to replace all the Ragen people. In 1967, the employees’ union voted to join a national union, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSME), and the membership began slowly to identify with the mainstream American labor movement.

  Randolph now had the power to reverse the long trend of inter-institutional transfers whereby Stateville was able to exile its inmate troublemakers to Menard. In 1964, when Ragen was director of public safety, Stateville-Menard transfers prevailed over Menard-Stateville transfers by a ratio of 5 to 1; by 1966, Randolph had reduced that ratio to 1.5 to 1.

  Far more fateful for Stateville’s organization than Ragen’s departure as warden was the passage of Illinois’s new criminal code, which adopted the Model Penal Code of the American Law Institute. The legal reformers completely revamped the substantive criminal law and included a section on sentencing and parole which made offenders serving life sentences (whether indeterminate or determinate) eligible for parole after twenty years, minus time off for good behavior. In short, after eleven years and three months, a felon sentenced to life might be paroled.9

  This legal reform, which was effective 1 January 1962, immediately had a dramatic impact upon a prison where hundreds of felons were serving flat sentences of ninety-nine years or more and were not eligible for parole until one-third of the sentence had been served.10 The assistant warden estimates that “approximately three hundred old-timers went to the Parole Board in 1962 and 80–95 percent were let out.”11 This estimate is consistent with the parole figures for the Joliet complex as a whole for that year. In 1961, there were 739 paroles (from Stateville, Joliet, and the Honor Farm). In 1962, there were 1,046 paroles. The figure has remained at close to or above 1,000 ever since.

  The parole of so many old cons in the early 1960s had important consequences for the entire prison organization. Because the industries were paying jobs, old cons with years of experience were concentrated there. Over the years these men had become skilled in their jobs. Some had been on the job since the equipment had been installed. The supervisor of the furniture factory at the time recalls that more than half of his men were released on parole between 1962 and 1964. When these inmates were paroled, civilians had to be hired as instructors and supervisors. The prison industries, once the pride of the Ragen system, never again showed a profit. Even in a period of rising inflation, the dollar volume of sales decreased steadily after 1964 (see table 6). The same was true for the Honor Farm, which had consistently bred prize herds and had shown a profit in every year until the late 1960s.

  Scores of civilians were added to the Record Office, General Office, Chief Clerk’s Office, and the Bureau of Identification to take the place of the old-timer inmate clerks. Heretofore, the entire administration of the prison from accounting tasks to record keeping was made possible by using inmates under the direction of a single (or perhaps two) civilians in each office. With the parole of many clerks and bookkeepers, there occurred a crisis in administration. From 1962 to the present, one can see a steady decline in the number of inmates filling positions of responsibility within the formal organization. One of the ironies of the past decade has been the dec
line of inmate incumbency of responsible organizational positions (as teachers, vocational instructors, accountants, clerks, etc.) at the same time that the reformers advanced a philosophy of rehabilitation.

  The parole of the old cons, the rising proportion of minority inmates, and the increasing inmate turnover (see table 7) all contributed to the demise of the traditional inmate social system. Some of the best jobs in the prison were abolished. Shorter prison terms gave less reason to find a good job. The “rat” system died when the old cons left. The intricate accommodation system that had joined guards and inmates together deteriorated. New racial consciousness made cooperation between guards and inmates more problematic. The few privileges that once attracted inmate cooperation became fewer and less valued. The booming economy on the outside pumped more money into prisoners’ hands than ever before.12

  While the Pate regime faithfully carried on the Ragen legacy, the inmate population no longer fully acquiesced in the legitimacy of official authority. The racial composition of the inmate population had already changed to a black majority in the mid-1950s, coinciding with the emergence of the civil rights movement on the streets (see table 8). The civil rights movement contributed directly to politicizing the inmates at Stateville. To be sure, both black numerical superiority inside the prison and the example of black civil rights activity on the streets were factors facilitating the rise of black nationalism and the organization of the Black Muslims, whose activities directly challenged the traditional relationship between keeper and kept.13

  The Black Muslims were a nationalistic religious movement with an eschatology based upon the “chosenness” of the black race and the perniciousness of “white devils.” The Muslims urged upon angry, disillusioned, and frustrated “so-called Negroes” a positive collective identity based upon moral superiority. For the first time, they linked the prisoners’ situation to the struggles of other marginal groups in the society.

  The movement was supported by symbolism (the scimitar and tusk crossed as swords) and by a myth of creation (the primacy of black people), armageddon (delayed by Allah from 1917 to 1984) and messianic resurrection (in the form of Elijah Muhammad). No more fertile ground for the movement could be found than the prison, where a majority black population existed under the authoritarian rule of a homogeneous southern white cadre of guards.

  It is impossible to understand the vehemence and determination with which the prison resisted every Muslim demand, no matter how insignificant, except by understanding that what seemed to be at stake was the very survival of the authoritarian regime. Permitting Muslims to possess a copy of the Quran did not on its face threaten prison security, but recognition of the Muslims as a bona fide religious group,14 entitled to all the deference and legitimacy of the traditional religions, was perceived as a grave threat to the moral order of the prison and to the Ragen world.

  The Muslims called the prison racist, discriminatory, and repressive. They linked its inherent defects to the basic illegitimacy of the white government that ruled America. The Muslims posed a greater threat to the prison organization than earlier ethnic gangs. Their fervent hatred of the white race escalated the traditional boundaries of conflict between guards and inmates and was an especially emotional issue for the white guard force drawn from southern Illinois’s rigid caste system.

  While Ragenism never blatently supported racism, blacks were expected to occupy a lower caste and conduct themselves with an appropriate “Uncle Tomism.” Until 1962, few black inmates held good jobs and no black employees were in positions of responsibility. Cell assignments and special details were strictly segregated.

  The Muslims’ definition of their situation as requiring organization, group participation, and communion challenged the basic tenets of traditional penal administration—that all inmates are equal, that no inmate speaks for any other inmate, and that an inmate must do his own time. While the Italians from Taylor Street in the 1950s might have maneuvered to obtain a good job or the best prison “hooch,” they did not define the prison as a communal experience.

  Early in the 1960s, Muslims began huddling together on the recreation yards, carrying on teachings, prayer, proselytizing, and other organizational activities. From the outset they attracted some of the prison’s most persistent and belligerent “troublemakers.” Whether troublemakers were attracted to Muslimism or whether attraction to Muslimism automatically defined an inmate as a troublemaker is difficult to resolve when posed in this way. The Muslims offered legitimacy and significance to the frustration, bitterness, and egotism of some of Stateville’s most recalcitrant inmates. The officials countered by purging Muslims from their jobs, blocking their legitimate prison activities, and suppressing them whenever possible. Not surprisingly, many of the leaders ended up in segregation.

  The Black Muslims surfaced as a problem for prison officials at Stateville in 1960, although a few scattered disciplinary reports identify Muslim inmates as early as 1957. An internal memorandum dated 23 March 1960 lists fifty-eight Stateville inmates as having had at some point an affiliation with Islamism, Muhammadism, or Muslimism. By 1965 the number was 175, of whom 100 were listed as still being at Stateville. On 26 July 1960 the first collective Muslim disturbance occurred within the segregation unit.

  At 2 p.m. the above date, after placing the lower east section of the Segregation on Isolation the inmates on the upper east side started a disturbance, yelling and shaking the doors to their cells. I sent officer and he and captain came over and went on the gallery to see what the trouble was. The inmates demanded to see Warden Ragen, claiming they were being mistreated by having their Moslem writings taken from them, also they claimed inmate was the cause of all the trouble.

  The organizational development of the Muslims was accompanied by a politicization of the relations between inmates and officials and among the inmates themselves. Unlike the ethnic “gangs” of the 1950s, the Muslims articulated their prison concerns in the vocabulary of political and social protest. Claiming that they were being discriminated against on the basis of race and religion, they invoked their ideology to resist “repression.” In June of 1964, six Muslims in segregation presented Stateville officials with the first written inmate demands in the history of the penitentiary.

  1. We demand the use of the Chapel for Islamic religious services once to two times a week.

  2. We demand that Arabic books and African historical books be put on the High School curriculum.

  3. We demand to purchase the Holy Quran and all other Islamic religious periodicals.

  4. We demand the right to contact our spiritual advisors and religious ministers, particularly: Honorable Mahmoud Shawarihi, Deputy Director of the Islamic Federation of the United States and Canada.

  5. We demand that a religious minister for Muhammad’s Temple No. 2 be allowed to hold religious services once to two times a week in the Stateville and Joliet prison chapels.

  6. We demand to have one to two meals a day cooked Kosher Style within the prison by one of our cooks.

  7. We demand that Muslims whatever their locations be allowed to attend religious services.

  8. We demand the right to say our Salates (prayers) on time at the prescribed time from five to seven times a day (together whenever and wherever a Muslim can be found).

  9. We demand to attain and to purchase Muslim’s newspapers and magazines.

  10. We demand the right to correspond by mail with any Imam within an Islamic Capital, National or international.

  11. We demand the suppression, and “Genocide” oppression of the Islamic religion be stopped forthwith, now, and forever-more.

  12. We demand that religious persecution, intolerance and special punishment be stopped now, immediately, and forever-more.

  13. We demand that any Islamic program, including “Muhammad Speaks” be added to radio-T.V. activities in Stateville and Joliet Prisons and to embrace all Penitentiaries within the State of Illinois.

  14. We demand the right to pur
chase and attain Islamic religious emblems and symbols as other inmates are allowed to purchase by and through their reverend, priest and rabbi.

  The demands indicate the uniqueness of the Muslim movement behind the walls. They do not merely ask the officials to more faithfully carry out their duties, i.e., better food, more recreation, fairer parole decisions. These demands assert rights and freedoms inconsistent with traditional definitions of imprisonment and require a radically new relationship between the prison castes. To meet the demands would have required the administration to disregard a definition of inmates as a degraded caste that must be made to accept the inferiority of its place. Coming from inmates, especially black inmates who, particularly, were expected to “know their place,” these demands challenged the Ragen Weltanschauung which depicted the “good inmate” as passive, obedient, humble, and morally inferior.

  Shortly after the presentation of the demands, Stateville experienced its first collective violence in more than thirty years. The inmates of the segregation unit, incited by the Muslims’ leadership, burned their cells, broke up their sinks and toilets, threw food and missiles at guards and embarked upon a hunger strike for a period of several days. While the insurrection was contained within the segregation unit, it introduced an era in Stateville where mass confrontation with authority became a possibility.

  For the Muslims, organizing was not simply a means to achieve certain advantages in the prisons. It was an end in itself. While Muslim leaders wrote frequently to the warden that their religion demanded their obedience to authority, their organizational activities and desire for communion necessarily brought them into conflict with the traditional system of authority. On the recreation yards, the Muslims clustered together in defiance of the prisons’ rules.15 In most cases they dispersed when ordered to do so, but confrontations were not uncommon. In his reports to the warden the disciplinary captain described a pattern of defiance ranging from refusing orders to cursing, spitting at, and striking guards.