Convicts Speak Up
Phillips, Mel
Convicts Speak Up Inside: Prison American Style, edited by Robert J. Minton, Jr. Ran- dom House. 325 pp. $7.95. Reviewed by Mel Phillips "Tn order to know what our prisons A are like, we must...
...The book includes a complete tran- script of a parole board hearing which clearly reveals the mentality of the board members...
...Those words are part of Robert Minton's introduction to Inside: Pris- on American Style, a collection of un- censored writings by convicts confined in California and representative, I be- lieve, of most prisons in America...
...The board gave no reason or explanation to the convict for the denial of parole...
...It was ignored...
...Convicts Speak Up Inside: Prison American Style, edited by Robert J. Minton, Jr...
...Some listen to the radio or watch television to the point of ex- haustion...
...The indeterminate sentence is too often administered by the parole board in an arbitrary and summary man- ner, without any system of checks and balances of a judicial nature...
...Most convicts spend consider- able time reading, both for relax- ation and knowledge, if a prison library is available and properly maintained...
...Of these available books, most were outdated...
...in practice, consider the words of con- vict Walter Burckhard: "With fairly benevolent beginnings, it works like this: The judge sentences you to the state prison...
...There is frequent abuse of this type of sentence, which is the root of much of the despair convicts endure, and a major cause of the "unrest" which leads to prison strikes and race riots...
...If you were sen- tenced to three years, no more, no less, you would know when you will leave...
...These convicts con- ducted a seven-weeks study of the li- brary in one prison...
...Inside details the case of one con- vict with a small sentence who was de- nied parole nine times in nine years...
...it did not suggest any steps of constructive self- improvement it would like to see ac- complished before the convict could be favorably considered for parole...
...In theory it sounds progressive...
...Instead it digs deeply into the true problems that exist in the cold and hard world of prison reality: survival, race riots, homosexuality, library fa- cilities, indeterminate sentences, pa- role board practices, and institutional punishment...
...This is called the indeterminate sentence...
...The book effectively exposes the bureaucracy of the California system which produces failure through sys- tematic perpetuation of an archaic concept of penology, one that destroys the convict as a human being and re- duces him to a mindless animal who must be caged, so it is said, "for the protection of self and society...
...It should be noted that although Califor- nia is the most populous state, its penal roster of some 30,000 men is disproportionately large, close to fif- teen per cent of the total U.S...
...They found it inefficiently run and not serving the varied needs of the prisoners...
...A few write, draw, or paint...
...The public and public officials should read the disclosures as a first step in determining the penal reform measures most urgently needed for the sake of prison inmates and society...
...Say you sold marijuana, the sentence is from five years to life...
...Twelve pages of Inside are devoted to a report of a "Saturday Morning Study Group...
...Their forceful writing and perceptive analysis disclose a "system" that engulfs thou- sands of humans in a steel cocoon of abnormality, perversion, cruelty, vio- lence, and petty bureaucracy, from which they cannot extract themselves, except through years of servitude...
...The writing in Inside will offend, if for no other reason than the language...
...Presumably the hard writing in In- side was smuggled out of prison by Minton, for he uses pseudonyms to protect the writers, many of whom are in prison or on parole, from harass- ment and punishment...
...prison population...
...Seven- teen thousand books were listed in stock, but only 3,000 were on the shelves...
...What does a convict do with literal- ly hundreds of thousands of hours spent in prison...
...Min- ton, who bears the unlikely label of "specialist-authority" in penology, en- tered the California penal system as an outsider and for two years worked with inmates at San Quentin and Soledad in developing group discussion programs...
...This means that the very least time you will spend in prison and on parole is five years, the most, for- ever...
...This disturbing collection of convict essays, prose, and poetry does not in- volve the proverbial and petty issues of grievance generally heard by the pub- lic...
...Of prime concern to the California convict, and directly related to the parole board, is the indeterminate sen- tence...
...Inside: Prison American Style should not be ignored...
...Through his skillful editing, Minton lets the convicts speak for themselves—and speak they do...
...Reviewed by Mel Phillips "Tn order to know what our prisons A are like, we must be in them or listen to the men and women who are...
...The study, including constructive recommendations, was turned over to the prison administra- tion for remedial action...
...one is left to wonder just how bad this country's other penal systems are...
...Others join in "bull" ses- sions...
...This method is supposed to rehabilitate men...
...It is shocking and meant to be just that, in the hope, faint though it may be, that the shock value may create a public awareness that will lead to the use of new concepts of penology...
...The articulate convicts have produced a forthright indictment of California's penal sys- tem, which, paradoxically, is consid- ered one of the best in America...
Vol. 35 • August 1971 • No. 8
