In June 1971, at a baseball game between a visiting Southern Illinois University team and the Stateville team, two black inmates began a fight on the ball diamond. When the officers came in to break it up, inmates poured out of the stands. They knocked seven guards to the ground, kicked and beat them, and then dispersed. No reason for the violence was ever articulated. The administration attributed the incident to a gang conspiracy, but gang leaders denied any planning and pointed out that the inmates involved in the fight were not gang members. Whatever the cause of the melee, there is no doubt that, once it had begun, gang members actively participated. Again, the institution responded with a general lockup and transferred approximately one hundred troublemakers, including many gang leaders, to segregation in B house.
The ball diamond incident broke out at Stateville after Assistant Warden Revis had been transferred to the Joliet prison to deal with the deteriorating situation there. The gangs had completely intimidated the staff of the Old Prison. Independent inmates could not trade at the commissary or exercise on the recreation yards without paying off to the gangs. In a manner reminiscent of Stateville during the 1930s, when a gang member was brought before the disciplinary court, fellow gang members would leave their assignments, gather at the disciplinary unit and chant gang slogans while the hearing was in process. In several instances, the guards let the defendants go without punishment rather than precipitate a riot. Revis’s transfer stimulated an immediate confrontation. One evening in June, an entire cell house refused to lock up their cells. As was often the case during the seventies, demands were made for Revis’s resignation. When the inmates finally returned to their cells in preparation for being released from the cell house for night yard, Revis deadlocked the entire cell house, initiating a lengthy general lockup at the Joliet Prison.
The crisis in control convinced the liberal Bensinger administration that drastic security measures needed to be instituted. SPU was constructed during the summer and early fall of 1971 to provide a super-maximum security situation for the most disruptive inmates. Between September and December 1971, over a hundred Stateville inmates were transferred from B house to SPU. Each inmate had to be forcibly taken from his cell. Tear gas, shields, and mace were used on a daily basis. Part of the solidarity of the resistance can be explained by the decision to transfer the gang leaders last. Each indian felt compelled to make a strong show of resistance before he was dragged out of his cell and off the tiers in order not to lose face with the leaders. The violence continued at SPU, where for the first six months guards could not walk on the tiers without being pummeled with porcelain, steel, and feces. The prisoners completely destroyed the cells. The entire unit was then rebuilt with the inclusion of the most sophisticated security technology.
Even with the removal of Bull Hairston of the Stones and Hy Smith of the Disciples and scores of other leaders, gang violence at Stateville escalated, while employee morale continued to decline. Director Bensinger responded to the deteriorating situation by removing Warden Twomey’s Stateville superintendent, George Stampar, and once more calling upon Revis, who was in poor health, in July 1972. Shortly after Revis’s return to Stateville as superintendent, two Stones attacked and seriously injured several lieutenants with baseball bats in E house. During the incident, leaders of both the Disciples and the Stones led groups of gang members from the chapel and from several recreation yards to the scene of the assault. Finally, Assistant Warden Meyer persuaded the gang leaders to give up the two assailants, but he allowed one of the leaders to accompany them to isolation to make sure that there were no reprisals. The prison was placed on lockup for a month.
On 11 January 1973, a guard was fatally stabbed and thrown off the gallery in B house. On 24 January about three hundred inmates reported to sick call as a demonstration of gang strength and solidarity. On 13 March a guard was attacked by an inmate with a knife. The assault was widely attributed to a “hit” ordered by the gangs. On 18 March the inmates assigned to the dining room staged a strike. On 18 April a known gang member killed an inmate and wounded another in the officer’s dining room apparently in retaliation for their interference with a homosexual prostitute “belonging” to the Stones. On 29 April, a full-scale rumble broke out between the Disciples and the Stones on D yard (apparently because of a gang killing at Pontiac some weeks before), quickly drawing in the inmates from C yard as well. As the captains and lieutenants moved in to break it up, the inmates turned on them. A shot fired from one of the towers ricocheted off the ground, hitting one of the leaders in the back, thereby dispersing the crowd. There were dozens of injuries to both Stones and Disciples. Six inmates were taken to outside hospitals; fourteen were placed in the Stateville hospital, and approximately fifty were treated and released. Some hundred inmates proceeded to the hospital gate and demanded the right to monitor the medical attention that their fellows were receiving. They refused to disperse for several hours. This incident was followed by the longest lockup in Stateville history, almost six months’ duration.
All but two of the cell houses had been released from the lockup by 6 September 1973, the date of the B house takeover. In an action initially instigated by Disciples, Stateville’s largest cell house was seized and ten hostages were held. Once all the cells were unlocked, the leaders of the Stones joined the leaders of the Disciples in drawing up demands.
1. No prisoners will be singled out as leaders of the uprising.
2. Amnesty for those participating in the uprising, including immunity from prosecution.
3. Removal of Supt. Vernon Revis, Supt. George Stampar and five other Stateville officers.
4. Review of Stateville conditions by members of the news media.
5. Improved medical facilities.
6. Improved educational system.
7. A grievance committee to meet with prison officials at least once a week.
8. An end to experimental medical programs at the prison.
9. Modified disciplinary procedures.
10. End of censorship of prisoners’ mail and selection of newspapers.
11. Psychological evaluation of all present prison officers and officer candidates.
Director Sielaff negotiated the end of the rebellion by outlining his reform program and promising to take up several of the inmate demands. The inmates thought that they had been promised amnesty but this later proved not to be the case. At the trial of the ten inmates accused of leading the insurrection it became clear that several of the guard hostages had been raped, a fact overlooked in media praise for the dispatch with which Governor Walker and Director Sielaff “peacefully” negotiated an end to the riot.
Violence continued. In the summer of 1974 the gangs organized a coordinated “boycott” of the inmate commissary, claiming that prices were exorbitant. Inmates who intended to trade at the commissary were threatened with violence. In several instances those who tried to defy the gangs were severely beaten. The administration finally responded by summarily removing thirty-five gang leaders to segregation. Almost overnight the boycott dissolved. The gang leaders immediately appealed to the courts (see the discussion of Arsberry v. Sielaff in chapter 5, n. 26).
Finally inmates took over a cell house and seized hostages at the Old Prison in April 1975, protesting the transfer of three leading members of the Black P Stone Nation to Menard. One inmate, said to have been an informant, was stabbed to death during the day-long insurrection. In a subsequent press conference, Director Sielaff disputed charges that “the gangs ran the prisons” but publicly admitted their presence and strength throughout the system.
At the same time that the gang-oriented inmates were challenging authority, the prison guards were becoming increasingly demoralized. The new reform administration seemed to them “pro-inmate” and unsympathetic to the problems of keeping order. The lowest point in guard morale coincided with Revis’s year-long absence from the prison. With Revis gone and George Stampar serving as superintendent, and with John Twomey the incumbent war
den, the old Ragenites felt that they had lost all influence in the administration of the prison. The number of disciplinary reports (tickets), the number of inmates sent to isolation, and the number of privilege denials was lower between June 1971 and June 1972 than during any other period between January 1970 and December 1974. During Revis’s absence, guards tended to retreat from actively disciplining inmates.
For the first time in Stateville’s history, guards were afraid to come to work. At SPU the guards were demanding hazardous duty pay, and, throughout the system, the growing guard union (discussed at length in chapter 7) was demanding a return to tighter discipline and control.
Not only did the emergence of the gangs place a strain on the roles of correctional officers, it also placed a severe strain on civilian roles within the prison. It became harder and harder for those individuals charged with running rehabilitation programs to carry out their goals without bargaining with the gangs. In exchange for their commitment to keeping order in the programs, the gang leaders were informally shown deference and allowed a voice in decision making. The school and TV college, for example, have been largely controlled by the gangs for several years. Inmates could not remain in school unless they were members of the Stones. The following letter was seized by the guards.
Comrade T. and B.H.,
Found out yesterday that they’re definitely moving the college and high school to B house on the 11th of September. That’s a bunch of bullshit. . . . You know what time that is. S. has [the director] under control and there won’t be any static from him about your getting into college. Simba and I both got back without any trouble. There may be a problem with these honkies if you try to transfer before they move us to B house because they are going to claim that they don’t have any cells. . . .
When an instructor from a local community college brought an automotive course to Stateville, the gang leaders came around to ask whom he worked for, whether the course would be worth anything, and how long he would be there. The instructor has told me, “The gangs are highly disciplined. It’s remarkable the way they are able to keep the class in order—there are no disruptions. It would be a much more serious challenge to carry out the program without them. I don’t know if I could do it.”
Gang leaders also attracted the most attention from outsiders. Just as on the street, some of these outsiders saw in the gangs the potential for a powerful constructive force if their energies could be redirected. The part-time Episcopalian chaplain has probably been closer to the gangs over the past several years than any other full or part-time employee. He encouraged the gang leaders to enter Right Angle, a group therapy program based upon “reality therapy.” The gang leaders saw in the program an opportunity for mobility and contact. They were further encouraged to attend by the fact that at the end of the meetings they were given an opportunity to transact “nation business.” While their motives were transparent, the chaplain hoped to bring them to a better understanding of their personal situations once they began participating. As the gang leaders entered Right Angle, the independents left it until most of the therapy groups became homogeneous.
Prison reformers, like Dorothy Mason of Operation Push and Peggy Smith Martin, the Illinois legislator, regularly met with the gang leadership on their trips to Stateville (see chapter 5). The gang leaders have been, and continue to be, the spokesmen for the inmate population in articulating concerns to the outside. There is, in fact, no other way for outsiders to become accepted by the inmate population. Being seen with the gang leadership gives them credibility with a large majority of the inmates. In addition, it reinforces the status of the extant leadership.
Throughout these years of challenge, the administration has maintained the public position that it “refuses to recognize the gangs.”35 It is an article of faith among administrators today that gang leaders are not to be dealt with and that the prison contains only inmates, no leaders nor organized groups. While this policy has enjoyed widespread verbal support, in actuality the policy toward the gangs has been a divisive issue for the staff.
The top custodial staff and those individuals trained under Ragen have been the most resistant to any concessions to the gang presence. Administrators who entered the system laterally from a college background have tended to be more flexible. Stampar noted, “I tried to deal with the gangs when I was superintendent. The gangs are here and they must be recognized—the leaders have tremendous power—no doubt they could inflict terrible damage on the place if they wanted to. They have not done it so far because there is nothing to get out of that kind of thing.”
While affording them no formal recognition, security and administrative personnel have nevertheless had to accommodate to the gangs and their leaders. The chief guard, while adamantly maintaining that he doesn’t deal with gangs, told me that in several cases he has called upon gang leaders to discuss problems he has had with various gang members. In one case, he brought to his office one of the Latin King chiefs to discuss the pressure being placed on a Spanish-speaking inmate (not a King) at the commissary. The chief was able to resolve the situation in a couple of days. In another situation, a Disciple refused to move from his cell to isolation; the situation could have been explosive. The chief guard called the Disciple chief to his office and discussed the matter with him. The gang chief then went to the cell of the irate inmate and talked to him about the pros and cons of provoking a violent confrontation. The next morning the inmate went peacefully to the hole.
The closest the administration came to formally recognizing the gangs as a legitimate force in institutional life was the formation of Project ABLE (Adult Basic Learning Enterprise). This project was the creation of several old cons, one of whom had become an important leader in the Latin Kings. ABLE was an attempt to develop a dialogue between inmates and staff over issues of inmate concern. As originally conceived it would have been a formal council containing representatives of the administration, guard force, clinical services, and inmates. Even before it was accepted by the administration, the counselors and other civilians were meeting with ABLE organizers in order to discuss strategies for getting the project off the ground. While ABLE has always sought to bring inmates into formal organizational decision making, the following document illuminates some of the ambiguity of ABLE’s goals:
The real purposes of Project ABLE are:
1. To establish rapport between everyone concerned with Penal Reform and Rehabilitation of those incarcerated in prisons: the Department of Corrections, the Parole and Pardon Board, Institution Officials, the Resident population, and the Communities from which our residents came, and must eventually return;
2. To open up an avenue for the Resident population to have a voice in the decisions, policies, and programs which affect their daily lives;
3. To coordinate the efforts of all concerned people that want to work toward these ends, and to assist them in every way possible.
In retrospect it seems incredible that an administration as traditional as Stateville’s would ever have accepted the legitimacy of an inmate council. What was at stake in ABLE’s recognition was the relationship of inmates to staff within the Stateville organization. Never had inmates been given a formal role in questioning, debating, or deciding policy or in setting institutional priorities.
Like everything else at Stateville, the legitimization of ABLE partly depended upon particularistic relationships. Lowell Fentress, the prime moving force behind ABLE, had been a prisoner at Stateville for more than twenty years. Having literally grown up within the prison, he maintained excellent relations with various administrators. Most important, he was Superintendent Stampar’s clerk. In the course of daily interactions he was able to convince his boss that much could be gained by attempting to turn the destructive energies of the inmates to constructive pursuits.
This argument was particularly persuasive in the aftermath of Attica. Indeed, ABLE’s motto, as if to remind the administration of the dire consequences that might result from re
fusal to cooperate, was “Let’s do it different from Attica!” The chief guard recalls that discipline had so thoroughly broken down by late 1971 that he was willing to accept ABLE in order to forestall a riot. The idea of “inmate involvement in their own corrections” (as ABLE put it) was also palatable to Director Bensinger, who was looking for changes that would indicate the sincerity of his commitment to reform.
From the outset the gangs dominated ABLE. The preamble to the charter implicitly spoke of the factional organization of the inmate populations: “Project ABLE at the present time represents the efforts of a small group of those incarcerated, who are really concerned with the welfare of their people” (my emphasis). ABLE was not intended to be a democratically elected council but a kind of confederation representing the interests of various constituencies. In the provisions for membership it was provided that “Membership in Project ABLE is open to any organization, group or individual.” A group could ask for representation only if it had at least fifty members. An executive committee was designed that would conduct most of the actual business of ABLE. In addition the members of the executive committee were to be given a “special detail” which allowed them almost absolute freedom to move around the institution in order to keep the inmate council in touch with the grassroots. There was one provision inserted in order to provide a check on any single gang’s gaining too much power: “Equal Representation. There is to be equal membership accorded all Organizations and Groups which shall operate solely for a check and balance of power so that no one Organization or Group can seize control of the Project.”
The special details were approved in January 1972 by Superintendent Stampar. Eight inmates were given the most coveted privilege in a maximum security prison—complete freedom of movement. The eight inmates were drawn as follows: one each from the Black Panthers, Disciples, Vice Lords, and Latin Kings; one from the independent white and one from the independent black populations; and two from the Stones.
Stateville- the Penitentiary in Mass Society Page 21
