Boing Boing » prison

Prison and racial segregation: why a Jewish guy eats with the Aryan Brotherhood

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 04 May 2013 01:09:25 +0000

From a 2009 Southern Poverty Law Center report, David Arenberg describes his life as a Jewish guy inside a heavily racially segregated state prison where he faces violence and even death if he doesn't eat with the Aryan Brotherhood. Arenberg uses the essay to jump into a harrowing view into the rise of serious, politicized neo-Nazi skinheads in prison -- guys who make the Aryan Brotherhood look like moderates.

Not that there's anywhere else I could eat. The prison yard is broken down into five distinct racial categories and segregation is strictly enforced. There are the "woods" (short for peckerwoods) that encompass the whites, the "kinfolk" (blacks), the "Raza" (American-born people of Mexican descent), the "paisas" (Mexico-born Mexicans), and the "chiefs" (American Indians). Under the strict rules that govern interracial relations, different races are allowed to play on the same sports teams but not play individual games (e.g., chess) together; they may be in each others' cubicles together if the situation warrants but not sit on each others' beds or watch each others' televisions. They may go to the same church services but not pray together. But if you accidentally break one of these rules, the consequences are usually pretty mild: you might get a talking to by one of the heads (who, of course, claims exemption from this rule himself), or at worst, a "chin check."
Eating with another race, however, is a different story. It is an inviolate rule that different races may not break bread together under any circumstances. Violating this rule leads to harsh consequences. If you eat at the same table as another race, you'll get beaten down. If you eat from the same tray as another race, you'll be put in the hospital. And if you eat from the same food item as another race, that is, after another race has already taken a bite of it, you can get killed. This is one area where even the heads don't have any play.
This makes it difficult for me, of course, to fit into the chow hall. Jews, as we all know, are not white but imposters who don white skin and hide inside it for the purpose of polluting and taking over the white race. The skinheads simply can't allow me to eat with them: that would make them traitors of the worst kind — race traitors! But my milky skin and pasty complexion, characteristic of the Eastern European Ashkenazi, make it impossible for me to eat with other races who don't understand the subtleties of my treachery and take me for just another wood. So the compromise is that I may sit at certain white tables after all the whites have finished eating. In exchange, I must do free legal work as directed by the heads (Jewish lawyers, even jailhouse lawyers, are hard to come by in prison) and remit to them a portion of the legal fees I collect from everyone else I do legal work for on the yard.

David Arenberg Reflects on Being Jewish in State Prison (via )

Sen Chuck Schumer took $100K from private prisons, now gets to help decide whether to send undocumented immigrants to jail

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 21:43:34 +0000

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is one of the key figures in the political wrangle over whether undocumented immigrants in the USA will be legalized or deported. He's also the recipient of over $100,000 in campaign contributions from the private prison industry, whose profits would skyrocket if his push for prison for all those people is successful.

Chuck Schumer is the lead Senate Democrat working on immigration reform--he gets to decide whether millions of undocumented immigrants will be imprisoned or legalized. Yet he’s also taken over $100,000 in campaign contributions from the private prison industry. Is it any surprise he’s pushing for billions more dollars spent on increased enforcement and detention of immigrants?
We can’t trust Sen. Schumer to push for fair legislation when he’s accepting money from private prison companies that have a strong interest in jailing as many immigrants as possible. How much of an interest? The two corporations from which Sen. Schumer took money, GEO Group and CCA, made $296.9 million in profits from the jailing of immigrants last year.
Tell Sen. Schumer to return this money immediately.
If 15,000 people sign, we'll personally deliver your petitions to Sen. Schumer and demand a response.

Sen. Schumer: Give back the money (via Making Light)

Photos of suffragettes in Holloway Prison

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 19:12:23 +0000

Charlotte sez,

It's International Women's Day today and the London Feminist Network (to whom I proudly belong) have organised the most awesome fundraising event for our conference later this year, a film launch for "Banners and Broad Arrows." In 1832 the women of the United Kingdom were excluded from the Parliamentary franchise. After 71 years this injustice remained. In 1903 the Women's Social and Political Union was formed. This is the story told through their own eyes.
A lecture by writer/director Nigel Shephard, who will be presenting his work so far on the film Banners and Broad Arrows. He tells the story of the Suffragette Movement from its inception in 1903 to its demise at the outbreak of war in 1914, using original still photographs taken by the Suffragettes themselves. The really cool thing about this lecture is that there will be a whole load of pictures on display that have only recently been released from the Official Secrets Act. These never previously published photographs were smuggled out of Holloway prison by campaigners.
This is a great opportunity to discover the history of the suffragettes through their own photographs and to meet the director and share in developing ideas for the film. Please, please come along to demonstrate your support at this first fundraising event to take the film into full production. It's only £10 a ticket and all profits are being split equally between the film producer and the London Feminist Network."
THE KINGS HEAD THEATRE UPPER STREET ISLINGTON 7.30PM SUNDAY 24TH MARCH 2013

Banners and Broad Arrows - never before seen photographs of the suffragettes in Holloway prison (Thanks, Charlotte)

Prison ID photos from 1915-1940

David Pescovitz — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 17:26:41 +0000

In 1975, photographer/filmmaker Bruce Jackson, who has spent decades documenting prison life, was visiting Arkansas' Cummins Unit, a state prison farm. While there, he stumbled upon a drawer filled with old prison ID photos snapped between 1915 and 1940. Jackson recontextualized these as a unique form of portraiture in his book "Pictures from a Drawer." Accidental Mysteries posted a collection of these striking images.

Former inmate's description of minimum security Federal prison: sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll

Mark Frauenfelder — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 00:33:13 +0000

I recently started listening to the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Wikipedia describes Rogan as an "American martial artist, stand-up comedian, actor, writer and color commentator."

In the latest episode Rogan interviews Victor Conte. From Conte's Wikipedia entry:

Victor Conte (born c.1950)is a former musician with Tower of Power and the founder and president of BALCO, a sports nutrition center in California. He served time in prison in 2005 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute steroids and money laundering.

I enjoyed the entire interview, but the most interesting part to me was hearing Conte talk about his four-month prison sentence at the Taft Correctional Institution (near Bakersfield, CA). It's a privately-run minimum security federal prison with 1,700 inmates, and Conte's account of the goings on there is astounding:

Sports complex "The first morning, when I woke up it was a kind of university-campus like setting. I walked out and in the middle of the courtyard was a huge sign that said 'Sports Complex.' Basketball, football, baseball, soccer, bocce ball, volleyball, handball. And I looked around and there were about 500 guys there. And they all had on equipment; there was a soccer game and a baseball game going on."

Rec center "I looked over I saw the rec center. And I walked over to that and looked in and there were six pool tables, six foosball tables, six ping-pong tables."

Music department "Then I went through this door and there was this huge music department. Three different musical groups were practicing. I said, 'Do they have concerts here?'

'Oh yeah! We have a routine on Friday nights and the bands play concerts outside.'"

Drugs This is my first 10 minutes -- I was on the compound I started walking with some guys around the walking track and I went [sniff] -- 'Are they smoking weed around here?' And they said, 'Yeah! You want some weed?'

I said, 'Listen, I don't want anything to do that with this kind of stuff. I don't want to get in any more trouble that I'm already in.' But yeah, anything that you wanted -- alcohol -- any and every type was $25 for 8 ounces. They had meth, they had steroids, they had cocaine."

No fences "There's no fences around the the place, about every 200 feet they have a sign on a stake that says 'Out of Bounds.' I got there on December 1 of 2005. That Christmas, about 25 guys just walked out on the freeway and they had their families pick them up and they left. So it's kind of an honor system."

Female prison guards as hookers "It didn't take me long to figure out, they had several really nice-looking female correctional officers there. You know, hair done up, big chest. It was kind of stunning to me. And they said 'Listen, you want some action?' I'm telling you the straight scoop. My understanding is on average they were making about $30,000 a month."

Some prisoners don't want to leave "This young kid came in that same first day I was there and my cubie was a guy named Evil. And he said 'Evil, I'm going to have to do something bad because I'm supposed to go home tomorrow.' And I said 'You're supposed to go home and you want to stay here?' He said, 'Yeah if I go home I've got to start paying rent!'"

JRE #277 - Victor Conte, Brian Redban

American once placed in solitary confinement in Iran explores solitary confinement in US prisons

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:55:07 +0000

Brilliant multimedia, multi-part feature in Mother Jones by Shane Bauer, one of the American hikers who was arrested by Iranian authorities on the Iran-Iraq border, then placed in solitary, then eventually released.

In this investigative feature, Bauer goes inside the notorious isolation units of California's Pelican Bay prison.

Even before reading the piece or watching the video, one has to respect the man for the sheer pain of the PTSD that must have induced. This is just 7 months after he was freed from prison in Iran, and was his first time behind bars since being released.

Snip:

"So when you're in Iran and in solitary confinement," asks my guide, Lieutenant Chris Acosta, "was it different?" His tone makes clear that he believes an Iranian prison to be a bad place.
He's right about that. After being apprehended on the Iran-Iraq border, Sarah Shourd, Josh Fattal, and I were held in Evin Prison's isolation ward for political prisoners. Sarah remained there for 13 months, Josh and I for 26 months. We were held incommunicado. We never knew when, or if, we would get out. We didn't go to trial for two years. When we did we had no way to speak to a lawyer and no means of contesting the charges against us, which included espionage. The alleged evidence the court held was "confidential."
What I want to tell Acosta is that no part of my experience—not the uncertainty of when I would be free again, not the tortured screams of other prisoners—was worse than the four months I spent in solitary confinement.

"Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons." (Mother Jones, thanks Mike Mechanic)

Skidoo: the LSD-fuelled Alcatraz movie with Groucho, Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Lurch, and everyone else

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 13:10:38 +0000

On our family holiday this summer, we had the great good fortune to be shown around Alcatraz Island by Ranger Craig Glassner -- among other things, the Ranger responsible for the excellent documentary about the Occupation by Indians of All Tribes that is screened in the visitor center there. Craig let slip that his favorite Alcatraz movie is Skidoo, the 1968 Otto Preminger wacky stoner comedy with Groucho Marx, Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Burgess Meredith, Ted "Lurch" Cassidy, and just about every character actor you've ever enjoyed.

It's an LSD-fuelled romp about a retired hit-man (Jackie Gleason) who voluntarily sends himself to Alcatraz to kill his best friend, who has betrayed the mob-boss of all bosses (played by Groucho Marx, who appears to either be stoned or simply method acting in many of his scenes). Meanwhile, the mobster's daughter has fallen in with a wandering tribe of hippies who get taken in by her mother, Carol Channing, and end up involved in a jail-break that coincides with a mass dosing of Owsley's finest LSD for everyone on the prison island.

It's got trippy dance numbers, silly comedy, hippies, and, well, everything. It's out on DVD after a long purgatory on the trashheap of history. I just watched it. It is something. It is something else.

Skidoo (1968)

UK prisons to open outsource call centres; David Cameron urges business to switch to prison labour

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 11:18:12 +0000

The UK prison systems will soon supply in-house call centres on contract through industry partners. One such partner, UrbanData Ltd, sent out sales solicitations to potential call-centre customers last month touting the advantages of prison labour: low overheads and "British Regional accents" (UrbanData subsequently went into administration). The Ministry of Justice characterises this as a rehabilitation scheme, and says that prisoners will earn a minimum of £3 per day. A Welsh call centre called Becoming Green recently made headlines for firing non-prison labourers even as it brought in extra day-release prisoners to work at the £3/day rate. Here's more of UrbanData's solicitation, as published in The Guardian by

In a ONE3ONE prospectus, David Cameron urged businesses to take advantage of the opportunity working prisoners offered. "Prisoners working productively towards their own rehabilitation will contribute to the UK economy and make reparation to society," he wrote.
"Many businesses, large and small, already make use of prison workshops to produce high quality goods and services and do so profitably. They are not only investing in prisons but in the future of their companies and the country as a whole. I urge others to follow their lead and seize the opportunity that working prisons offer."

Prison call centre plans revealed

Call centre brings in prison labour at £3/day, fires regular workers

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 12:28:58 +0000

Becoming Green is a Welsh call centre that brought in cheap prison labour at £3 per day. These workers were supposed to be receiving temporary on-the-job training, but just as they were brought on, non-prisoner workers who'd been doing the same job for a real wage were fired. The company claims these two facts are not related.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) confirmed that dozens of prisoners from Prescoed prison in Monmouthshire, south Wales, had done "work experience" for at least two months at a rate of 40p an hour in the private company's telephone sales division in Cardiff.
People working in the prisons sector described the scheme as "disgusting" and a "worrying development".
After establishing an arrangement with minimum security HMP Prescoed late last year, roofing and environmental refitting company Becoming Green has taken on a staff of 23 prisoners. Currently 12 are being paid just 6% of the minimum wage. When contacted by the Guardian last month, that figure was 17 – 15% of the company's call centre staff.
The company confirmed that since it started using prisoners, it had fired other workers. Former employees put the number at 17 since December. However, the firm said firings were part of the "normal call centre environment" and it had hired other staff in a recent expansion.
Becoming Green said the category D prison had allowed the company to pay the prisoners just £3 a day for at least 40 working days but added that they could keep them at that pay level for much longer if they wanted.

Prisoners paid £3 a day to work at call centre that has fired other staff

What paper means in prison

Rob Beschizza — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 23:32:57 +0000

"The vast majority of altered paper is harmless. Some officials tend to look the other way when toilet paper is crafted into chess pieces (using an age-old prison paper mâchè recipe of toilet paper and water: wetted, molded, dried and wetted again). But where a rook and a knight have an innocuous purpose, the same manipulation of toilet paper can be used to make a deadly knife, called a "shank," which, it is said, can disappear with a flush" — Katy Bolger for The Awl.

Prisoner's toothpick replicas of Final Fantasy weapons

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 10:42:00 +0000

A prisoner in Wales made these astounding Final Fantasy weapons out of toothpicks, only to have them confiscated because they were so realistic that the prison authorities felt that they constituted a threat to safety. It's this kind of dogged, enthusiastic creativity that makes dinners with my Welsh in-laws so exciting!

Prisoner Builds Final Fantasy Swords out of Matchsticks (via Neatorama)

Stephen Fry and Brit talk-show guests marvel at American prison system's brutality

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 22:31:09 +0000

In this clip from QI, the talk/quiz/comedy-show that Stephen Fry hosts, Fry asks the participants "where one percent of Americans can be found." The correct answer is prison, and the contests proceed to make a series of horrified remarks and jokes about this startling fact.

(via Sociological Images)

Stephen Fry on American Prisons Facts [youtube.com]