criminal justice 4

Introduction

As an American, I feel a great sense of both honor and pride to live as a citizen of the United States. Besides the many ways in which our country leads and contributes to the world, we also embody the virtues of kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. Someday, I hope, leaders will extend those same Judeo-Christian values to the mil- lions of people our land of second chances locks inside prison cages.

A branch of the United States Department of Justice predicts that 6.6 percent of American residents will find themselves in a state or federal prison at some point during their lifetime. Although the rate of incarceration in the United States is much higher for mem- bers of minority groups, the broad numbers published by the year 2000 census indicate that our country’s population approaches three hundred million people. Of this population, our government expects that nearly twenty million people will serve time in prison. That amounts to nearly one in every fifteen people. Many more will experience confinement through the nation’s jails and probation system.

Government statistics indicate that 13.5 million people spend time in some form of confinement each year. Ninety-five percent of those we incarcerate return to their communities after serving their sentences. Further, nearly eight hundred thousand people work in- side prisons and jails as guards, counselors, administrators, and psy- chologists, among many other positions. Whether we recognize it or

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not, the jail and prison system touches everyone in our land of the free.

I know what it is like inside.

Almost two decades have passed since Judge Jack Tanner, from the Western District of Washington, sentenced me to serve a forty-five- year prison term. That was way back in 1987, when I was twenty- three. Ronald Reagan was enjoying high approval ratings in his second presidential term. His war on anyone affiliated with illegal drugs was just blasting off, benefiting from wide public support.

I was not a drug abuser, just a kid from an affluent suburb in north Seattle. That didn’t stop me from orchestrating a distribution scheme responsible for supplying hundreds of thousands of doses of cocaine. Our group did not use guns or the threat of violence. The clientele t o whom we sold was from similar suburban backgrounds. Our purchasers were consenting adults, people who were not ready to embrace government admonitions that they should “just say no.”

Cavalierly, I perceived myself as a late-twentieth-century swash- buckler, but government prosecutors did not view me in such an in- nocuous light. They frowned upon the lifestyle I had been leading. With n o legitimate source of income, I drove Porsches and Ferraris. I lived in an oceanfront penthouse condominium on Key Biscayne, just off the coast of Miami. From that gated community I directed others to distribute cocaine in cities from coast to coast.

Arrogantly, I lived as if I had impunity from the law, blowing tens of thousands of dollars in cash each week as if I were a rock star. I dressed in expensive, tailor-made clothing, wore gold watches with diamond bezels made by Piaget, Cartier, and Rolex. My offshore race boat was christened The Outlaw, and that is how law-enforcement officers rightly perceived me.

When the bust came down, agents arrested scores of people in cities from Seattle to Miami. I had just returned from Marbella, on

INTRODUCTION xv

Spain’s Costa del Sol,where I had leased some property on the coast- line and was setting myself up to establish a new life as an expatriate. I had been trafficking in cocaine for less than two years. During that time I had accumulated enough money to live off a small business I planned to put together, or I thought perhaps I would educate my- self by enrolling in college. My hopes at that time were to leave any prospective legal problems behind me, on this side of the Atlantic. The criminal justice system put an end to the fantasy life I had been leading.

Because I had had little if any direct contact with the cocaine itself, I deluded myself into believing that no jury would convict me. My high-priced criminal attorneys helped foster those foolish thoughts, of course. Such lines as “There is a big difference between an indictment and a conviction” and “With the right amount of money you can win” gave me the false sense of confidence to think I could skate through my troubles. Knowing I stood guilty of every charge against me did not then influence my conscience. Remorse failed to register with me until after the jury convicted me on every count, until after the judge had imposed the forty-five-year sentence that would control and constrict what seemed like the rest of my life.

Scores of other people, my associates and co-conspirators, were related to my case. The government had charged us, under multiple indictments, with distributing cocaine worth several million dollars. My case was big news in mid- 1980s Seattle, a time when Scarface and Miami Vice were establishing a romantic image of drug traffickers in popular culture.

Just as legislators during Prohibition had been committed to eliminating the poison of alcohol, public officials in the early eight- ies were increasingly determined to stomp out the scourge of drug abuse. Those lawmakers demanded sentences for drug offenders like me that would exceed the sentencesjudges impose on many murder- ers, rapists, child abusers, and armed robbers.

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Because of the way the system was and is set up, the only way for a drug offender to lower a potential prison term is to cooperate with the government in the prosecution of others. Most of the people who had been involved with me in the scheme chose such a route. Rather than serve decades of imprisonment, they chose to mitigate their sentences by pleading guilty, providing testimony against me and assisting in the prosecution of others.

I understand the choices they made. I feel no anger toward them or anyone else. Like me, they had been reared in suburban back- grounds, where the concept of having to live in prison was about as incomprehensible as living with leprosy. When prosecutors gave them an easier way out, they took it.

My frame of mind was different from theirs. It was not that I had any more allegiance to a criminal code, or any code at all. As my be- havior and values suggested, my character was weak. I lived under the delusion that because law-enforcement officers had never caught me with any cocaine, because I knew there were no tape recordings of my voice or videos of me engaged in illegal activity, a jury would never convict me. The testimony of others, I thought, would not be enough. I was wrong. After my conviction, our country’s interpreta- tion of justice demanded that I be sentenced accordingly. It is for those reasons that I have served virtually my entire adult life as a fed- eral prisoner.

I blame no one but myself.

When I began the term, our nation confined about five hundred thousand people. Other than those associated with my case, I was not acquainted with anyone who had served time. In fact, I think that prior to my ill-advised foray into cocaine trafficking, I hadn’t known a single person who had been arrested. I certainly did not know anything about prison.

Now, of course, I know the criminal justice system intimately, and

INTRODUCTION x v i i

I know prison as well as I know my own skin. After two decades of continuous confinement, it feels as if the world of prison and prison- ers is all I know. I continue to live through a period of explosive growth in America’s prison system. Population levels inside have rocketed by a factor of four. With 2.2 million people serving time in confinement on any given day, I expect that nearly every citizen now knows someone whose life has been disrupted as a consequence of confinement. That was not the case when I came in.

We have celebrity athletes and entertainers who battle through the criminal justice system. Superstar corporate executives like Michael Milken, Bernie Ebbers, and Martha Stewart have served time alongside gang members and felons who live without hope or interest in contributing to society as responsible citizens upon their release.

In August of 2003, Supreme Court associate justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered a powerful speech to the members of the American Bar Association. Recognizing that it costs American tax- payers over sixty billion dollars per year to house, feed, and care for the 2.2 million people serving time in our nation’s jails and prisons, Justice Kennedy suggested that it is our responsibility as citizens to know what happens after the prisoner is taken away. With both a personal interest in the topic and a unique perspective from which to view the system of confinement in this country, I am the person to tell that story.

Prison has become mainstream, touching the lives of tens of mil- lions of Americans. It is a closed society, almost secret in its opera- tions. My own life has been a long odyssey through confinement, one that I expect will require several more years before I can anticipate release. The journey has brought me into contact with tens of thou- sands of other felons; I am well prepared to describe this world.

I have served time in maximum-security, medium-security, low- security, and minimum-security institutions. I have held a job

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assignment in the federal prison system’s only supermaximum- security prison, where terrorists, both foreign and domestic, serve their time. I live under the same rules and regulations, eat food from the same menus, share the same toilets and showers, as murderers, rapists, tax evaders, and corporate criminals. I listen to the stories of these men, observe their behavior, and witness the values by which they live their lives.

Ever since my prison term began, I have worked to redeem the crim- inal actions of my early twenties which led to my confinement. It has been integral to my adjustment to work toward reconciliation with my community. Others have not been so eager-for reasons this book will explain-to embrace the values of law-abiding Americans.

One of the choices I have made is to participate in independent personal development programs that have resulted in bona fide aca- demic credentials. I have earned an undergraduate and a graduate degree from within prison walls, and I work with several universities to contribute to the education of others. Despite the lengthy sentence I serve, God blesses me with a calming peace.

Discipline and action have helped me build and nurture an exten- sive and supportive network of friends and mentors who continue to enrich my life. They help me focus on achieving the goals I set. Many other prisoners have different values, and as such, they make deci- sions differently than I.

This book seeks to expose readers to the adjustment patterns of the full range of prisoners, some of whom allow rage, hatred, and bitterness to consume them. It describes how the prison experience influences their behavior as well as the preparations they make for the rest of their lives; it explores any expectations they may have for release. I ask men to describe the thoughts that zip through their mind as they participate in bloodshed, as they acquire and use weapons, or as they engage in criminal rackets within prison walls.

INTRODUCTION xix

The men whom I have chosen to help me describe America’s prison system come from various backgrounds. I have selected peo- ple who represent prison populations from across America. Some of the men serve sentences of less than one year, while others have no release dates. Some of the men have served numerous previous terms and hail from urban ghettos, while others have never been confined before and come from the sheltered life of suburbia. Some of the prisoners struggle with literacy, while a small minority hold advanced university degrees.

Prison, to a somewhat limited extent, is a microcosm of the larger world. Its population may be, on average, darker of skin color, more volatile, and cruder than people in most typical American commu- nities. But all prison populations draw from each and every class of society.

It has been my intention to provide readers with an authentic taste of prison life, and so readers may cringe as I expose the lan- guage and describe the violently charged atmosphere. To help others grasp how this panoply of personalities adjusts to what amounts to a shared life inside these restricted communities, I frequently portray the prisoners in their own words, complete with their individual ar- got, profanities, vulgarities, and racial epithets. Through these vi- gnettes and stories, readers may gain an understanding of how prisoners respond to the myriad complexities that accompany a life in confinement, and why different men make the choices they do.

I have not always identified the racial or ethnic backgrounds of the characters I present, and I hope that readers will not take umbrage at such offensive terms as “nigga,” “nigger,” “muthafucka,” “mother- fucker,”“pussy-ass bitch,” “cocksucker,”“cunt,”“Uncle Tom,”“cracker,” “spic,”and the like. This racist and sexist language is common inside the American subculture of felons. It is not restricted to the prisoners or particular racial groups. Staff members, too, use such vulgarities in conversation, regardless of whether they are speaking to a colleague or

x x INTRODUCTION

a prisoner. These are crass communities, and in order to bring the readers inside, I have written this story using the authentic language of the prison environment.

Besides speaking with actual prisoners, I have also pulled infor- mation from published legal cases that explain or further illuminate various aspects of prison life. Readers may remember the deplorable pictures of American troops humiliating Iraqi prisoners at the noto- rious Abu Ghraib prison. As some passages in this book will make clear, humiliation by prison guards is far from the worst thing Amer- ican prisoners have to fear.

I have made every effort to provide a comprehensive description of this growing American subculture that exists at taxpayer expense. As ugly as it may be, it is a picture of American prisons in the early twenty-first century.

Because I am a prisoner, I have not been eligible to interview or speak candidly with those who set the policies of and staff America’s prison system. I have made numerous formal attempts to present my work to those who work at executive levels in the corrections profes- sion. I hope to learn through discussions with them, and broaden the perspective from which I write, but my written efforts go unan- swered or are rebuffed. Indeed, I was formally reprimanded for sending one of my earlier published books to a warden. The execu- tive staff member required that I sign a paper acknowledging that she had warned me, and ordered that I never attempt to provide any- thing of value to a staff member again.

Over the years I have had informal opportunities to speak with countless staff members of lower pay grades. My understanding that their career prohibits them from speaking with me in an official ca- pacity, however, tempers the conversations I have with them. It is a shame that the perspectives of corrections professionals cannot therefore be included in any representative capacity in this book. I only hope that my work leads to a more comprehensive evaluation

INTRODUCTION x x i

of the prison environment and perhaps to some kind of forum in which these men and women can present their own viewpoints.

I am certain that all sides would benefit from an open debate on the motives that stand behind the punitive policies of today’s prison system, a debate that should include those who administer the na- tion’s prison system, those whom the system confines, and taxpayers whom the prison system ostensibly represents. My choice of lan- guage is deliberate; I say the system “ostensibly represents” because those who choose careers in corrections have zero accountability to taxpayers in relation to either “corrections” or rates of recidivism among prisoners. Prison workers may face demotion or termination if prisoners escape, or if institutions run over budget. For such fail- ures, they are regularly held accountable. Clearly the objective is to lock people in caged communities for the duration of the sentences imposed.

No one measures the so-called corrections profession, however, by how many offenders it prepares to live as law-abiding, contribut- ing citizens upon release. Although her statement contradicts the lit- erature published by corrections administrators, one of my former unit managers, who now supervises a prison education department, told me, “We don’t care anything about the preparations you’re mak- ing for release or what you do when you get out. The only thing we care about is the security of the institution.’’

The reason she doesn’t care, of course, is because to her I am a prisoner and not a human being. There is no relationship between her success as a corrections professional and her efforts to help peo- ple succeed upon release. It is my considered opinion that instead of providing a bridge to society, prisons erect barriers to reentry in the community. Instead of inspiring corrections, they inspire continual failure. The corrections machine has never been held accountable by the taxpayers who fund it for its ineffectiveness at preparing people for law-abiding lives upon release.

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As The New York Times reports, our nation’s prison population has grown more than tenfold over the last thirty years. It now con- fines people at eight times the rate of France and six times the rate of Canada. And, of course, prisoners in America serve longer sentences than in any other Western nation. Still, American taxpayers know very little about what goes on inside these closed communities. I am convinced administrators want to keep it that way. What is worse, as prisoners move deeper into their lengthy sentences, they often forget the purpose of imprisonment and adapt to the twisted world in which they live.

As Justice Kennedy observed in his groundbreaking speech, pris- ons are closed societies. Administrators go to great lengths to design policies that not only physically isolate offenders from society, but also confine their thoughts and restrict their interactions with those outside of these barbed-wire bureaucracies. Prisoners have’no access to the Internet, to e-mail, or even to basic word processors. Prisoner telephone access in the federal system is limited to an average of only minutes each day, and those privileges are routinely taken away for offenses as trivial as a three-way phone call with family.

In federal prison, administrators prohibit many from visiting with people in the community whom they did not know prior to confinement. For example, Dr. Sam Torres, who chairs the Crimi- nology Department at California State University, Long Beach, wants to visit me as a consequence of contributions I make to classes he teaches in corrections. Besides leading his distinguished depart- ment, Dr. Torres also is retired from an earlier career as a senior United States parole officer. In that position, he met prisoners locked in federal prisons of every security level. When he requested to visit me at a minimum-security camp, however, the warden denied Dr. Torres permission because we do not have a relationship that pre- cedes my confinement. This system of “corrections”hinders my abil- ity to build mentor relationships with law-abiding citizens who can

INTRODUCTION x x i i i

help my transition to society. As future chapters show, policies and practices discourage prisoners from preparing themselves for even legitimate careers they want to pursue upon release.

Those of us in prison live as the pariahs of society, and it is only through extraordinary efforts that some men are able to cultivate networks of support that will help them overcome the obstacles cer- tain to follow confinement. I question whether such policies can help prisoners prepare to lead contributing, law-abiding lives upon release. It would seem that such isolationist policies are more likely to contribute to America’s surging prison population levels through increased recidivism. Indeed, those high recidivism rates suggest that serving time in today’s prison system makes it increasingly un- likely that a man can function successfully upon return to his com- munity.

My goal throughout this book is to help readers understand what happens to the prisoner after he is taken away. My hope is that it will inspire a debate on steps legislators and administrators can take to increase the effectiveness of this sixty-billion-dollar investment of public funds.

If the end goal is to warehouse human beings, then the American prison system is a costly but effective design. On the other hand, if the goal is to prepare people to live as law-abiding, contributing cit- izens, then objective data suggest that our prison system is a stellar example of failure, ripe for reconsideration.

Minutes after I finished the draft of this manuscript, an officer an- nounced an order over the loudspeaker at the federal prison camp. He wanted me to report to the control center. Expecting bad news of some kind, I addressed and stamped an envelope. Then I sealed my manu- script pages inside and dropped the package into the outgoing mailbox before reporting. It was a good move, because soon after I presented myself, officers locked me in steel cuffs for placement in solitary con- finement.As a long-term prisoner who writes about the prison system, I am not surprised when administratorstake steps to silence me.

“What did you do?” the officer cuffing my wrists asked me. He wanted to know the reason for my removal from the general popula- tion.

“I didn’t do anything that I know about,”I said. “Living in the un- known is just part of being a prisoner. Isn’t it?”

“Well, you must have pissed someone off,” the officer said while driving me across the street and into an adjacent prison complex. “A lieutenant told me to come lock you up immediately.”

Despite serving years of confinement, prior to that morning I had never been locked in segregation for disciplinary reasons. I did not then know what was going on. When we arrived at the segregated housing unit, an officer with whom I’d had no previous interaction unlocked the steel door and spoke to the officer escorting me. “Why’s this asshole here?”

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“Don’t know. Lieutenant ordered me to lock him up. No reason given.”

“Strip down,” the SHU officer told me. “Take everything off and throw it in the corner.”

I removed my shoes and all of my clothing as directed and stood naked before the two officers.

“Take your wedding ring off too. I don’t want you taking nothin’ into my hole.”

“What d o you mean take my wedding ring off? It’s just a silver band, and the policy authorizes me to keep it on my finger as long as, it has n o stones. I don’t want to remove it.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you want, asshole. And don’t tell me about n o policy. This is my hole and I’m running it.” The officer stood before me in a challenging position, as if he wanted to fight. “Now are you going to take the fuckin’ ring off or am I?”

“I’m not resisting you,” I said while holding my open hands out to my sides. “I’m just asking you to show me where the policy concern- ing wedding rings has changed.”

“Turn around and face the wall!” The officer barked the order as if he were a drill sergeant.

I complied and stood naked, nose to the wall. The officer grabbed the wrist of my right arm and yanked it behind my back, bending it up at the elbow toward my shoulder. “When I give you an order you fucking follow. Got it? I’ve enough problems in here and don’t need n o fuckin’ scum bags questionin’ my authority. Now are you going to take the ring off or am I?”

I contemplated challenging the officer further, then realized this is a small battle in the longer war of surviving a lengthy prison term. I removed the ring and handed it to him. He then issued me an or- ange jumpsuit and locked me into a tiny cell designed to hold two prisoners. Two men were lying on their steel racks and another was stretched out on the floor. With no room in the cell, I slid the mat

PROLOGUE x x v i i

that a guard had handed me onto the concrete beneath the rack, my head near the toilet. It left no walking room in the filthy space.

During the fifteen hours I spent in the cell, no officer came to ex- plain my change in status. Although I would have welcomed an ex- planation, it wasn’t necessary. I surmised that the administration was taking steps to remove me from the population because of pub- lishing efforts I make to help others understand the prison system. They don’t like such information leaving prison perimeters.

At three the following morning, my suspicions were confirmed. That is when officers unlocked the cell door and ordered me into chains. They marched me onto a bus that drove me to an airport in a neighboring community. In small steps because of the chains bind- ing my ankles, I boarded an airplane full of convicts. We began a long flight that would keep me in transit for six weeks.

After stops for prisoner exchanges in Montana and Seattle, the plane landed at a federal transit center. I hobbled off and waited in a large holding cell with more than a hundred other prisoners of every security level. Administrators began processing us into the facility, By midnight I learned that I was being transferred to the minimum- security camp in Lompoc, California.

This was good news. Although I am from Seattle, administrators had locked me in prisons far away from home throughout the course of my imprisonment. It felt good to leave the old prison camp, where the warden had interfered with my mail and opportu- nities to receive visitors. He was particularly sensitive to my work and did not want me connecting with the world beyond prison boundaries.

After fingerprinting, photographs, and pages of admittance forms, a guard escorted me to a pod on the third floor of the facility. He locked me into cell number 412, where another prisoner lay on the lower bunk. My cellmate’s body and limbs, I noticed immedi- ately, were tacked out in gang-style tattoos.

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“What’s up, holmes,” I said, using the vernacular of hard-core convicts. My adjustment has taught me that using a common lan- guage with the men around me can help defuse potentially volatile situations.

“What’s up,” he said. “Where you headed?” Virtually every prisoner in the facility is in transit. I am reluctant

to tell the new prisoner that I am on my way to a minimum-security camp, as I know that those in higher security resent campers. “I’ve been in a long time,” I said. It was a transparent effort to let him know that I was not new to confinement. “On my way out to Lom- poc now. Where you headed?”

“I just left USP Pollock last February,” he said, confirming my as- sumption that he had been held in high security. It is a badge of honor among hardened criminals to be locked inside a United States penitentiary. “I’m back on a parole violation. Heading out to Otisville, in New York.”

“It’s a good joint,” I said, letting him know that I was familiar with the federal prison system. “One of the best in the East from what I hear. You from New York?”

“I’m from the Southwest. They got me down as a confirmed gang member, so I can’t serve time out here.”

My cellmate told me his name was “Funalito,” a nickname that he translated for me as John Doe. He was in his late twenties, and as we spent time talking, I learned that he had begun serving time in cor- rectional institutions during his early teens. Infatuated with gang- sters and criminals, he had led a violent life. His current conviction stemmed from a drug-trafficking offense that brought a sentence of less than five years.

Funalito’s criminal history required him to begin serving his term at a medium-security facility in Oklahoma. Within a few weeks of his arrival at the federal correctional institution El Reno, he said, a pris- oner disrespected him in a card game. Funalito sought permission

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from the shot callers of his gang, the notorious Barrios Aztecas. Per- mission granted, Funalito lured his target into a card room, then be- gan pummeling him with a steel padlock that he had clenched inside his closed fist. When the man fell to the ground, Funalito began stab- bing his mark profusely with an icepick-like weapon.

“I was trying to kill the motherfucker,” he said. “But the cops rushed in and I had to bust out runnin from the card room. They caught me a few weeks later. After confirming me as a gang member, they sent me out to the new pen in Pollock. That’s where I served my time.”

More than a decade had passed since my security level dropped, removing me from the constant presence of penitentiary perils. One of the things I hated about being in transit was that during the pre- carious status prisoners endure while being transported from one prison to another, administrators herd predators together with prey. The atmosphere is tense. It is like filling a tank with rattlesnakes and rabbits, wolves and sheep. A prisoner must remain alert to avoid al- tercations.

I spent thirty nights locked inside that cell with Funalito. During that time he described the values that drove his life and the reasons behind the choices he made. I listened to his justifications for com- mitting his life to a prison gang; he was willing to kill people he didn’t even know if it was for the gang’s cause. Funalito would read the Bible at night, but had no compunction about describing how he spilled the blood of many other people on both sides of prison fences. I listened to him describe which gangs were at war in the prison system and thanked God that I would soon return to a minimum-security camp, where such barbaric behavior does not exist.

Besides Funalito, I met and interacted with several other high- security prisoners during the month I passed in Oklahoma. Several of the men were serving multiple life sentences. Just as in the pen,

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some of those in transit engaged in the predictable prison scams of manufacturing alcohol out of orange juice and sugar. Others were hoarding food. A few openly pursued homosexual relationships. I kept myself busy doing push-ups all day, and pacing along the tier of the fully enclosed unit. With some difficulty, I tried to keep my eyes from staring and interpreting the demonic tattoos inked on so many arms, necks, faces, and foreheads.

After a few false starts, guards locked me in chains, and I joined another group of prisoners for a flight from Oklahoma to Califor- nia. We stopped first in Sacramento for a prisoner exchange, then traveled on to Victorville, California. I was called off the plane and marched into a line of several prisoners. Guards assigned us to board one of the many buses operated by various law-enforcement agen- cies. A deputy ordered me onto a bus heading for the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles. The bus was transport- ing mentally deranged prisoners. I felt as if I were the only sane man on the bus. One prisoner sat behind me conversing with the evil spir- its in his head.

“I’m a kill you, muthafucka,” he kept saying. “I’m a fuck you up.” When I looked back I didn’t know to whom the man was speaking. His eyes were glassy and looked as if they were staring into space. As the bus began to move, he simulated a grip on an imaginary ma- chine gun. He acted as if he were blasting at cars along the road. “Die, you bitch muthafucka!” he would yell between vicious laughs as he imagined himself a sniper.

Seated directly across from me was another gem of a human be- ing. Despite his wrists being cuffed together and fastened to a chain around his waist, the man managed to slide his hands into his pants. He began masturbating in plain view. The prisoner was oblivious of the others on the bus as he focused his gaze on any females he could see through the window. In prison, such nutcases are known as “gunslingers.”

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Once we arrived at MDC Los Angeles, officers realized that I had been boarded onto the wrong bus. They removed me from the tank with the deranged prisoners and marched me back onto a bus headed for the San Bernardino County Jail. “Bullet”was one of the other prisoners who accompanied me for the journey. He had been serving time in USP Victorville. As a consequence of his plunging a fiberglass shank into the stomach of a chow hall guard who had rep- rimanded him for taking three pieces of toast, he was sent to court in Los Angeles for prosecution. Following his legal proceedings, Bullet joined me for the bus ride back to the jail, where he would be held until his return transport to the penitentiary.

Bullet’s neck had large, solid block letters in blue-green ink that identified him as a Bulldog. The Bulldogs are a prison gang based out of Fresno, CaIifornia. Besides the marking on his neck, Bullet’s arms were sleeved out with prison ink. He had daggers printed on each of his cheeks and a tribal design that extended across the bridge of his nose and down and around his chin. His forehead had horn drawings, and he had a bulldog graphic inked on the back of his bald skull. The man looks scary.

Whereas I had positioned myself in the back of the bus for the ride to San Bernardino, Bullet parked himself on one of the mid- dle benches. While the deputy was locking the cage that separated the prisoners from the driver, he ordered Bullet to move to the back of the bus.

“Fuck you, bitch,” the convict responded. “I’m a sit wherever the fuck I want. What, is you scared?”

“I’m giving you a direct order to move to the back of the bus,” the deputy responded.

“And I’m telling you to suck my dick, motherfucker. Now what you gonna do with your bitch ass?You can stand there giving orders or come back here and do something about it. It’s on you.”

“Oh, you’re one of those,” the deputy said. “I’ll see you back at the

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jail.” The deputy turned around and retreated toward the driver’s seat.

“That’s what I thought, punk. You ain’t got the stones to fuck with no real man. We’ll see what you and your fifty cops can do.”

“You know what?” The deputy turned around. “We got those fifty cops. They stand ready to kick the shit out of punks like you.”

“Fuck you,” Bullet said, completely resistant to authority. When we finally returned to the jail, about a dozen officers were

present to welcome the bus. They escorted Bullet off first and marched him to a cell by himself. Officers then locked me and other prisoners in an adjacent cell; they removed all of our cuffs and chains. I n the cell next to me, Bullet reached inside his pants and defecated into his hands. He smeared the excrement across his chest, his arms, his neck. After covering himself, he began taunting the guards.

“You motherfuckers want some of me? Come on and get it. I’ve got all you can handle.” He yelled invectives at every uniform that passed. In time, a group of guards rushed him. After subduing him, they carried Bullet out of the cell horizontally. The last time I saw him, his arms, legs, and body were strapped in a chair like a barber’s that was bolted to the floor in the center of a locked cell.

After processing me into the San Bernardino County Jail, a deputy directed me to cell 5 of the B-south range. A total of ten in- mates were crammed into the small cell. I remained there for five days before guards called me out to chain me up with twenty-eight other prisoners for the final leg of our journey to Lompoc. After m a h n g the six-hour drive, and going through the lengthy admit- tance procedures, I walked onto the camp compound just before seven in the evening on July 13,2005.

Like in every other federal prison, prisoners at Lompoc camp are crowded into tight quarters. We have two large dormitories here, each holding more than 150 men in rows upon rows of bunk beds.

PROLOGUE xxxiii

I am assigned to the top bunk, above “Leroy,”a totally blind inmate who makes his way around with a tapping stick. If I stretch my arms out I touch the men who sleep in the bunks beside me; when I sleep, my head is less than twelve inches from the man who sleeps in the bunk behind me. The space is so crowded that I do not have access to a personal locker; I keep my toiletries and clothes in duffel bags beneath my bunk. There is no room for a writing desk, or even a chair in the housing unit. We wait in line to use the bathroom.

The minimum-security camp at Lompoc requires all inmates to work full-time jobs. There is a dairy where inmates work on a farm, a slaughterhouse where inmates tend to cattle and ranching duties. There are construction projects and maintenance crews. Having been here for only five days, I have been assigned to pick up debris and sort through garbage on a recycle crew while I await my perma- nent job assignment. I expect administrators to assign me a job that will require me to work forty hours each week, as that is one way to slow my writing.

Most prisoners who transfer from one minimum-security camp to another minimum-security camp come via unescorted furlough. Despite my having minimum-security points, as a writer, such priv- ileges are denied me. That is why my transfer took six weeks. It is more difficult on my wife than anyone, as she will now uproot her life in Colorado to reestablish herself here in Lompoc.

’ This is the life of a prisoner. It is the life I live because of the bad

decisions of my youth. Through this book I describe what it is like to live inside.

1 In 1982 I graduated from Shorecrest High School in Seattle. I was a teenager who was driven by such status symbols as Calvin Klein jeans and Armani sweaters-part of the in crowd, but only a mediocre student. I didn’t concern myself much with academics.

Like most of my friends, I had parents who were business owners. As a spoiled adolescent, neither advancing my education nor devel- oping a social conscience held much interest for me. For the first three years out of high school, I followed the script and worked for my father. Then, at twenty-one, tired of responsibility and lured by excitement, I joined with like-minded friends in a scheme to enrich us all through cocaine distribution.

Because everyone involved was of similar age and opinion, we did not listen to those wanting to steer us clear of the folly we were about to embark upon; I failed to grasp the seriousness of my criminal wrongdoing. As idiotic and shortsighted as it sounds, neither my friends nor I then considered that our actions could actually lead us into the vise grip of the criminal justice machine. We knew that dis- tributing cocaine was against the law, but our self-indulged minds could not bring us to accept that we were criminals.

The subject of jail or prison was not one that my friends or I iden- tified with or thought about. It was a matter that may have con- cerned others, but not me. I did not even understand the difference

E

2 Michael G. S a n t o s

between the two categories of confinement. Then, in 1987, five years after high school, I was arrested. Trapped.

As much as they would have liked to help, my parents had no influ- ence to absolve me from the troubles I had created, or from the shame I had brought our family. I have been incarcerated ever since that ar- rest, and now, in my early forties, I know very well that there is a dif- ference between jails and prisons. Although society uses both as a response to crime, I now know firsthand that each serves a different purpose in confining people.

The popular media and perhaps my imagination shaped my per- ceptions of incarceration prior to my arrest. Like many Americans, I suffered from the misconception that all people who serve time live in barren cells and have little freedom of movement. I pictured long corridors of concrete and steel, and men confined to three-walled cells separated from the hallway by evenly spaced steel bars. I as- sumed that guards locked prisoners in their cells for the duration of their terms, that the men slept on steel racks bolted to concrete walls. Guards, I presumed, were always close by to observe and direct those who were serving time.

In those days I had no idea that living experiences could vary so dramatically from one place of confinement to the next. In one jail, a man may sleep soundly and without worry for his safety. Then, without warning, guards may transfer him to another. The new spot may require the prisoner to remain alert to the constant threat and inescapable presence of predators, sexual and otherwise. He must know not only how to live among violent men who have no hope for a better life, whose concepts of self are rooted in their ability to in- still fear in others, but also how to strip naked and share shower space with them.

As I moved deeper into my lengthy journey through the criminal justice system, I learned to live in jails of every kind. And although I a m of average height and build, I have learned to live and grow in

INSIDE 3

prisons of every security level without once having had to use a weapon, to spill or draw blood. Others have not been so blessed.

After the arrest at my residence on Key Biscayne, marshals trans- ported me to stand trial in Seattle. It is the city in which I was reared and where I faced a criminal indictment exposing me to the possibil- ity of life imprisonment. With such serious criminal charges, the judge declined to issue me the possibility of bailing out of jail by posting a bond. Because I was a cocaine trafficker, the government rightfully had reason to consider me a flight risk.

Being transported cross-country as a prisoner is a horribly dehu- manizing experience, but it is one that I have come to know well over the decades I have served. The United States Marshal Service accepts the responsibility of transporting prisoners across state lines. To en- sure security, they lock each prisoner’s ankles in manacles that make walking difficult. Then the marshals wrap a heavy steel chain, the kind that children use to secure their bicycles, around each pris- oner’s waist. Following that, the marshals lock wrists into handcuffs that weave through the waist chain. These security measures effec- tively restrict the movement of legs, arms, and hands.

Over the years, I’ve spent much time chained up for transport, but it was never more difficult than on that first road trip on my way to Seattle. I hadn’t yet grown used to my new status as a federal pris- oner. The worst part, for me, was neither the chains nor the crippling restrictions on my movement. It was fighting the demons torment- ing my mind about what my future held, that and having to live in the constant company of other prisoners, other people in chains whose history I didn’t know and whose behavior I could not predict.

We traveled on buses and airplanes authorities reserve for prison- ers. Traveling days begin around three in the morning, when a guard comes by the room and unlocks the door. The politically correct term for guard is “correctional officer,” but at that time I had not seen any “correcting” taking place. The guard uses his flashlight to

4 Michael G . S a n t o s

wake the prisoners for transport. If the prisoner doesn’t respond to the beam of light in his eyes, then the guard may whack the steel rack of the bed with his heavy flashlight, or use his steel-toed boot to kick it. Prisoners are simply cogs in the machine, and guards have the re- sponsibility to keep that machine moving on schedule.

Progressing through each phase of the criminal justice process is very impersonal. During the transport, guards herd hundreds of prisoners together. Other than the fact that each of the prisoners in custody has at least been charged with breaking the law, neither the guards nor the marshals know much about the people they trans- port. The very nature of their job requires the officers to treat all prisoners as inanimate objects rather than fellow human beings. Their primary concern is security.

The officers d o not know who among the prisoners are dangerous terrorists and who are being transported to face charges of failing to report a portion of their income on a tax form. Accordingly, the peo- ple wearing law-enforcement uniforms, with their heavy leather belts o n which they attach an arsenal of handcuffs, flashlights, canis- ters of Mace, and other weapons, regard all prisoners as a threat. The job may not be anything personal to the officers, but for the incom- ing prisoner, the process is intensely invasive and dehumanizing. Perhaps that is the point.

My trip to Seattle from Miami took about a week. We had to stop in several cities along the way to load and unload scores of prisoners. When I finally arrived in Seattle, the marshals locked me into a small county jail as a pretrial inmate. The federal government did not then have its own holding facility in the region. Marshals confined people being held without bail for charges in federal court, like me, in one of many surrounding city or county jails. The marshals initially elected to place me in the city jail of Kent, Washington.

Kent is a suburb southeast of Seattle.When I was confined there in 1987,its jail was relatively new. With a capacity for perhaps two hun-

INSIDE 5

dred people, it is tiny compared with other places where I have been held, and it is as clean as a well-run medical clinic. I was there only during the initial months of my confinement.After it became clear to prosecutors that I was not going to plead guilty or participate in the prosecution of others, the kid gloves came off and they transferred me into the mayhem of large county jails, which I will describe later. Looking back, I now suspect that the relatively tranquil Kent City Jail was an inducement to cooperate, but I did not recognize it at that time.

The facility itself is designed in the shape of a geometric dough- nut, more like an octagon than round. The perimeter sides of the gray concrete-block building contain either small living units for the prisoners, or administrative and support offices. The living units themselves hold fewer than thirty single-man rooms, and a dayroom with tables where prisoners take meals or play cards and board games when they are authorized to be outside of their rooms.

Guards are not stationed in the living units themselves. Each area of the jail is equipped with a sophisticated electronic surveillance system that allows a centrally located staff member in the control center to monitor the goings-on throughout the entire facility. Fur- ther, the walls separating the living units from the building’s interior corridors have large windows. Staff members make continuous rounds walking the corridor, relying upon each other to patrol the living units. The center of the building holds an open-sky courtyard, a concrete recreation square enclosed by the jail’s interior walls. The ceiling of the courtyard is of steel mesh, designed to discourage es- cape attempts. Through it prisoners catch rare glimpses of blue and, much more often in the Pacific Northwest, the ubiquitous clouds above. The courtyard provides the only opportunity a prisoner in Kent has to breathe fresh air. I spent as much time as I was allowed walking in loops around that confined space.

The city built that small facility to confine prisoners for relatively

6 Michael G . S a n t o s

brief periods. Most of the men the jail confines await release on bail, serve sentences of less than a year, or are prisoners in a holdover sta- tus as they conclude legal proceedings and await release or transfer to a more permanent facility, like state or federal prison. At any given time, the jail confines its share of prisoners who serve sen- tences of a few weeks or months for offenses like domestic violence, driving while intoxicated, disorderly behavior, and so forth. Other prisoners, however, expect to serve several months in the jail, and perhaps several years or decades in a prison after that.

Administrators in the Kent jail use a carefully designed series of incentives to induce good behavior and compliance with jail poli- cies. The physical structure of the jail itself seems designed to en- hance the staff’s ability to manage the population in this way. After prisoners are fingerprinted and processed into the Kent City Jail, guards ordinarily issue them a jail jumpsuit and a sleeping mat. Then the guards assign the men to an area of the dayroom’s floor in Living Unit C. Unit C is not the lowest of the graduated living units, as guards lock recalcitrant, troublesome prisoners in isolation cells. The dayroom floor of Unit C, however, is the first step for incoming prisoners at the Kent City Jail and represents the bottom rung on the jail’s graduated living standard.

Through the surveillance equipment, staff members can monitor not only telephone conversations, but conversations inside the living units as well. On a weekend, when city officers make more frequent arrests requiring jail time, the dayroom of Unit C, designed to hold thirty people, might become home to an additional fifteen people sleeping o n the floor. Guards d o not allow profanity. They do not al- low smoking. Nor do guards allow rudeness or talking in loud voices. Some prisoners refuse to embrace the control of such rigid rules and do not advance their living situations through compliance. But for those prisoners who do comply with the Kent City Jail’s strict code of conduct, graduation from assignment on the floor of the

INSIDE 7

dayroom to one of the single-man rooms in the initial housing unit is a sweet reward.

Other than providing a semblance of privacy, the rooms in the initial housing unit are not special. Each has a steel rack for a sleep- ing mat, and a steel desktop with a steel stool. Each room is equipped with a stainless-steel toilet bowl. The steel sink is attached to the toilet. Rather than faucet handles, the sink has push buttons to regulate the flow of water. The walls and floors are of bare concrete, and each room has a nonopening window that is too narrow for a human body to pass through. Despite the spartan nature of the room, most prisoners try to behave without incident in order to get out of the dayroom and into a much more comfortable single cell..

Staff members hold daily inspections of the living quarters. Those inmates found to be unsanitary or in breach of some other jail regu- lation are demoted to a lower housing status. Some men move back to the dayroom floor from the single-man room, while guards trans- fer those found guilty of more serious rule violations to segregation. Segregation, also known as “the hole,” means the prisoner remains locked in his closet-sized cell for twenty-three hours a day; he also lives with additional restrictions. The prisoners who comply with the rules of the jail for a sustained period of time, on the other hand, earn privileges and advance to better living accommodations. A measure of hope is thus available.

Whereas prisoners in Unit C live in a transientlike atmosphere, with new bodies appearing each morning, sprawled on sleeping mats across the dayroom’s concrete floor, those prisoners who grad- uate to Unit B live in a more relaxed atmosphere. In Unit B, each prisoner has demonstrated his willingness to comply with the jail’s rules while assigned to Unit C.

In the higher-ranked unit, there are no transients sleeping on the floor. With carpeting on the common floors, and oak doors rather than steel, Unit B is much quieter. The single-man rooms in Unit B

8 Michael G . S a n t o s

have oak bed frames with springs and mattresses rather than steel racks and mats. They have porcelain bathroom appliances with faucets instead of stainless-steel fixtures with buttons. And square tiles rather than unfinished concrete cover the Unit B room floors. What is more, guards grant those assigned to Unit B more out-of- cell time than the prisoners assigned to Unit C. They may use those extra hours of free time to talk on the telephone, play table games with others, watch television, or sign up for recreation in the court- yard. Each evening, the prisoners in Unit B receive an extra snack.

Those prisoners who remain in the Kent City Jail long enough, and who maintain a record free of any disciplinary infractions, graduate to Unit A, which is reserved for jail trustees. The trustee unit resembles the softer Unit B in appearance, but trustees hold their own key to the wooden doors separating their cell from the open area of the living unit, and the only time guards require them to remain locked in their rooms is at night. The cell is more like a bedroom. In addition, each room has the special advantage of a small television equipped with cable access that the prisoner is free t o watch while lying in bed.

Those prisoners whose behavior merits advancement to the trustee unit earn their privileges not only through rule compliance, but also through work they perform in the jail itself. They sweep, mop, wax, and buff the ceramic tile floors to a high gloss. Trustees cook the meals and deliver them, under staff supervision, to each liv- ing unit. Trustees clean the windows and maintain the jail’s grounds. Some work as clerks, helping jail officers to manage inventory and order supplies. Recognizing that the promise of rewards is better at shaping behavior than the threat of punishments, administrators encourage the prisoners to abide by the rules and defer to the poli- cies of th$ Kent City Jail in exchange for potential privileges.

I served my time relatively easily during those months when I was held in Kent. I never saw a single fight, never saw an effort by

INSIDE 9

prisoners to subvert staff authority. There were no weapons, no gangs, no rapes or escapes. All the prisoners were eager to take ad- vantage of the incentives offered, to move into better conditions. It is clear to the prisoners of Kent that jailers cannot influence release dates, but through their use of incentives, the jailers have the power to determine each prisoner’s living accommodations. And more im- portant, by behaving well, so do the prisoners themselves.

I minded my behavior and graduated from the entry unit to the intermediary housing unit. Finally, I moved into the trustee unit. The space gave me room to think, to contemplate what I would do with the many years I would have to serve if a jury were to return a guilty verdict. Since the court would not consider releasing me on bond, I would have liked to remain in Kent during my entire pretrial period. Though I knew how I could improve my living situation through good behavior while in the Kent City Jail, I had no tools with which to influence the nameless, faceless prison administrators who would soon decide to send me to another institution to await trial. Before I turned twenty-four, marshals transferred me into the madness of a large county jail, exposing me to new and different ex- periences of confinement.

Hard-liners may disapprove of jailers or corrections officers pro- viding an opportunity of any kind to people who have been charged with wrongdoing. The idea of allowing inmates to earn their way into taxpayer-funded cells with televisions may be a bit hard for them to swallow. Such people cling to concepts of vengeance, and thirst for a more punitive criminal justice system, expecting those in confinement to suffer through every stage of the process. America has the world’s highest incarceration rate, accompanied by the world’s highest recidivism rate, suggesting that such hard-line stances may make for bad public policy, and an ill-advised drain on the public purse.

INSIDE 11

2 While I was being held in Kent, I didn’t know how good I had it. How could I? I was in jail. Since I had never been locked up before, the thoughts passing through my mind were about my longings for home and questions of how much time would pass before my release would come. I did not yet have any concerns for my safety during my impatient wait for the ordeal to end.

That complacency changed quickly the morning guards ordered me to roll up my bedding and prepare for transfer. It was an abrupt command, and as a new prisoner I did not expect that others could uproot my life so easily. I wasn’t told where I was going, but after mar- shals wrapped me in chains and packed me into the backseat of their Ford LTD, they drove south. I surmised that they were transferring me to the Pierce County Jail. The sudden change ended my ruminations about the future. It gave me more immediate concerns to consider. I knew I would need to adjust and fight it out through each day.

As in most large jails, administrators jam Pierce County with well over double its intended capacity of inmates. Locking several hun- dred inmates into separate wings of five floors, that jail stuffs fifteen hundred prisoners into a building designed to hold fewer than eight hundred. When a prisoner enters, guards record his fingerprints and snap those snazzy mug shots. They eventually lead him from the bullpen to the assigned cellblock.As I took those steps I had been a

prisoner for several months already, but I was not prepared for what was to come in this new environment.

After a new prisoner passes through those gates of hell, an immedi- ate assault to the senses slams him. So many bodies crammed into the concrete block create an overwhelming noise and stench. Always on, the television blasts out sounds of rap music. The pungent odor of dried urine and tobacco mixes in the air. New prisoners carry a vinyl mat on which they sleep; each prisoner finds his own floor space. Bodies sprawl all over the floors and tiers of the block in no dis- cernible pattern. Walking into a large jail is like being sent to the rough part of town to set up house on the sidewalk of a crowded street.

When I entered the county jail, my days of being locked in a small, well-designed, and efficientlymanaged suburban jail were be- hind me. I was not helping prosecutors, so they had no reason to coddle me. It was time to live with the consequences of the choices I had made. And the newest consequence was the foreboding environ- ment of a large, overcrowded county jail.

With thousands of prisoners to manage, guards in large penal facil- ities consider prisoners the way fishermen consider the thousands of fish they haul in with a good netting. The job description requires the guards to treat each prisoner the same, so they make no effort to con- sider the individual. No classifications separate rapacious predators from obvious prey. Everyone survives-or not-in the same pool.

z The large county jails differ from the small, well-run Kent city jail in many ways. The most glaring, to me, is the lack of any construc- tive outlet for nervous energy. Prisoners overflow with it. In my ex- perience most penal administrators place a fairly low value on enlightened concepts such as the use of merit systems to shape be- havior. That seems the primary focus for administrators who man- age the daily lives of the prisoners in Kent.

There may be good reasons for such a stance. Swelling population

1 2 M i c h a e l G . Santos

levels in large jails may so overwhelm administrators that imple- menting and monitoring merit systems or other quality-of-life and rehabilitation programs is simply impossible. Whatever the reason, in large city or county jails, where we measure population levels in the multiple thousands, and where many offenders begin serving their terms, administrators herd prisoners together and essentially ignore the adjustment inside the cages. It is interesting to note that because this kind of environment is the first stop for so many pris- oners, it is perhaps extraordinarily important to the way that men new to the prison system set their expectations, and methods of be- havior, for their entire terms.

Ronald MacLean describes his first encounter with the criminal justice system, which he experienced when he was twenty and ad- mitted into the Baltimore City Jail,in Maryland. His descriptions re- mind me of those months I served in the Pierce County Jail. I met Ronald while we were serving time behind the fences of the federal prison at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Both of us had more than a decade of imprisonment behind us when we spoke. He and I were assigned to the same housing unit, and we sat at an outside picnic table while he told me about the early days of his first period of confinement. When locked up, he said, each prisoner must fend for himself.

Like many prisoners who serve time in large city or county jails, Ronald said the environment he remembers resembles that of a glad- iator school. “That place is a tough jail, man, I mean wild. It don’t make no difference if a guy wants to mind his business and do his time. Unless he knows someone that is known up in the jail, or cats know him for having some power out in the streets, a muthafucka better be ready to get down, to fight for real. And I ain’t talkin’ ’bout with these here,” Ronald explains while holding up clenched fists. “A cat gotta make his self known. Better he gets hisself a shank, or if he ain’t got time to find n o blade, then a nigga better be lookin’ for a mop ringer, a chair, or a pool stick. Word! ’Cause as soon as a

INSIDE 13

muthafucka come through the do’, and the po-lease lock that gate behind his sorry ass, it’s on. Every nigga in the block gonna be scheming on his shoes, his watch, his cig’rette,and the ways he carry hisself. If a muthafucka be soft, or pretty, cats gonna notice and word gonna spread. He gonna be tried. Oh believe dat! Niggas gonna try him. Dey want dat ass.”

Ronald is describing how events unfold for the new prisoner who walks into the bullpen, a large cage where jailers hold prisoners dur- ing the receiving and admittance procedures. The tank, with three solid concrete walls and one wall of steel bars, is about half the size of a typical high school classroom, perhaps twenty feet by fifteen feet. In a large city jail like Baltimore, where police constantly arrest felons and lock them into custody,the jail’s bullpen always resembles a can of packed meat. Ronald estimates the bullpen holds forty peo- ple, and during peak times the population inside the cage can dou- ble, to more than eighty.

After Ronald’s own arrest at one in the afternoon, guards pro- cessed and then placed him in the cage at four. He remained there until guards assigned him to a housing unit after two the following morning. Some prisoners, he says, are crowded in that cage for more than twenty-four hours before a cell opens for them.

It is when guards lock the prisoner inside the bullpen, Ronald ex- plains, that all the other prisoners’ eyes bore into him. I certainly know what that is like. Experienced prisoners constantly observe the goings-on of everyone and everything in the cage. They watch how a man reacts when another prisoner asks him for a cigarette. Someone else might demand the sandwich from his lunch sack. Prisoners take kindness for weakness in jail. It is more acceptable to throw food in the garbage than to allow another prisoner even to insinuate that he is applying pressure to take it.

Other prisoners listen to a man’s tone of voice, observe his posture and the personal space he commands within the jail tank. A mean

14 Michael G . S a n t o s

face helps. Most important, those looking to extort, otherwise known as “putting their press game down,” will try to ascertain whether new prisoners know anyone in the jail or the prison system. Predators will mark for exploitation the poor souls who lack contacts or acquain- tances in the jail, the ones who appear lost, vulnerable, or frightened. As Ronald explains, “Niggas gonna try anyone who be soft.”

Ronald grew up in the Westport Projects, a tough neighborhood in South Baltimore. Rather than blemishing or disgracing one’s character, in his community being arrested and confined brings a badge of honor. “I don’t give a damn ’bout doing time. I always ex- pected it. And when my time comes I intend to stand up and bring it like a man. I know I can do mines anywhere.”

He is close with three of his uncles, each of whom is serving a multiple life sentence in the Maryland prison system for murder. “My uncles is the type a muthafuckas they ain’t never gonna let outta prison. But they tough and they get mad respect up in the joint. Ain’t nobody gonna fuck with me in the jail ’cause every swingin’ dick up in there knows I’m playing for keeps. Anyone who comes at me gonna have to see my peoples too.”

Within a few hours of the time that guards locked Ronald in the holding tank, prisoner orderlies managed to smuggle him some cig- arettes. That simple gesture let others in the tank know that Ronald had friends in the jail, that he was not alone. There were scores of prisoners already settled in who resided in the same housing projects where Ronald and his brothers lived. Through telephone calls home, those prisoners already knew that Ronald had been arrested; they rightfully surmised that he would soon be in the holding tank await- ing transfer to the living units.

News in confinement spreads like a gasoline fire. It did not matter to which housing unit guards assigned Ronald. With each unit hold- ing more than one hundred men, Ronald expected that he would

INSIDE 15

have relationships through his criminal network wherever guards sent him.

Whereas administrators ordinarily assign new arrivals at the Kent City Jail to a barren receiving unit and encourage the prisoners to be- have in a manner that allows them to advance to better housing, at the Baltimore jail, and in most large detention centers, prisoners await the first available bed. Each housing unit is identical in its furnishings. Once guards assign a prisoner to a particular unit, only a disciplinary infraction results in a change to a different housing unit. Behavior in violation of the rules can result in a transfer to more onerous condi- tions, but good behavior will not result in any appreciable difference for the prisoner. My experience of living as a prisoner for nearly two decades, and the information I have gathered from interviewing hun- dreds of other prisoners, convince me that this is a consistent man- agement formula among correctional administrators.

Ronald says that he did not proceed into the jail with any notion of changing his behavior for the better. Nor did the corrections offi- cers express any interest in whether Ronald corrected his behavior or changed his values. He was arrested for participating in the drug rackets, and he expected to return to the drug rackets upon his re- lease from his four-year term. Ronald knew that his initial prison term would enhance his status, that it would show he could take the punishment and survive a stint in even the toughest of conditions. He would emerge from prison with more power and street credibil- ity than he had when he went in, enabling him to expand his crimi- nal enterprises.

Influenced by twenty years of living in an urban ghetto, with fam- ily members, acquaintances, and role models all having served time, Ronald was committed to a life of crime and what he considered easy money. For Ronald, a stretch in confinement was an obligation incidental to the choices he made. As a young black thug who quit

16 M i c h a e l G . S a n t o s

school in the ninth grade, being locked up was something he knew he would face more than once in his life. He lived the prophecy.

After Ronald passed ten hours in the holding tank, guards finally escorted him to Unit N. Unit N, like all the living units in the Balti- more jail, has an open floor space on the lower floors known as the flats, with a parallel row of approximately twenty-five two-man cells stretching along the walls. An identical row of cells sits directly above the first-floor cells on a second tier.

The cells are of concrete construction and so small that a man can touch the opposing walls by extending his arms; only one person can stand on the floor at a given time. Two metal racks for sleeping mats hinge to one wall, one directly above the other. If the jail is crowded, guards assign another prisoner to lie on a floor mat beside or under the lower rack. A commode-and-sink unit stands between the bed’s end and the far wall of the cell. Approximately two feet of narrow walking space separate the rack‘s edge from the opposite wall. An in- candescent bulb lights each cell, illuminating graffiti-covered walls full of gang member’s names and signs. From a guard’s station at the end of the unit, jailers control the sliding steel bars that lock the oc- cupants in their respective cages.

Each unit contains a common area where the men can watch tele- vision, mostly rap videos, or play table games. Young thugs control the televisions in large jails. If they don’t broadcast music videos, they tune in to talk shows. Tables are used for games, not writing or reading. The flats also contain a community shower room where up to eight prisoners shower side by side, locker-room style.

The community showers, Ronald says, sometimes serve as a cen- ter for horseplay. He remembers one incident where the horseplay turned nearly fatal. “There be this bully in the unit who goes by the name Money,” Ronald tells the story. “Money be the kind a mutha- fucka who like to start shit up. A new cat, Young Buck, come on the block. As he be walkin’ out the shower, Money, always playin’ a nigga

17

for a fool, taps Young Buck on his ass. Young Buck don’t go for that. “Later that afternoon, Young Buck calls Money out the cell. The

cell is at the end of the tier. When Money steps out the cell and onto the tier, Young Buck has him trapped in the corner with nowhere to turn, completely out of sight from anyone who isn’t on the ramp. Now Young Buck be a big cockstrong muthafucka, a real live mutha- fucka from the hood, know what I’m sayin’? When he has Money trapped, Youngster just starts driving that steel up in da bitch. My cell is right next doe. As I hear the work, I step out my cell to see what da fuck up. Know what I’m sayin’?Money is tryin’ to fight him off, but he just losin’ too much blood. Muthafucka just keeps stickin’ da bitchass muthafucka with that shank over and over again. And hard. The piece is hittin’ him in the eye, in the neck, in the face, in the chest. Eve’y muthafuckin’ where. Blood is shootin’ out, splatterin’ the walls and coverin’ Money’s face. I just step back in my cell and let Young Buck handle his bi’ness. Know what I’m sayin’?”

Ronald describes several other incidents of violence that he claims to have seen while locked in the Baltimore jail. Stabbings oc- cur regularly, he says, as tension constantly fills the cellblock.“It’shot up in dat bitch! I’m talkin’ a hun’red degrees with no air circulatin’. Niggas go mad crazy.”

Many of the guards working in the jail hail from the same West- port housing projects where Ronald lives, and he doubts the ones he knows receive much training. Indeed, Ronald claims that while on the street he sold drugs to several of the people who were then work- ing in the jail. Some of the female guards, he claims, supplement their income by working as prostitutes in the jail. “I popped a few a dem hos my damn self. Sheee-it.”

According to Ronald, while he was there, many employees made his time easier by smuggling contraband to him. It is not unusual, he says, for guards to work while intoxicated or high, and many are sus- ceptible to bribes or corruption. “Niggas come work in there for a

18 Michael G . S a n t o s

paycheck, but it be straight ghetto. What dey really after be a bribe for bringin’ in some dope or booze or whatever. Guards is quittin’ or gettin’ fired on the reg’lar, some be gettin’ busted; some worked for only a few weeks before movin’ on. I’m tellin’ you, man, the jail is just like the projects.”

Ronald’s description of the Baltimore jail reminds me of Pierce County. Those jails differ from the small Kent City Jail.Yet they are like what I hear from scores of other prisoners locked in other large deten- tion centers-places like Rikers Island in New York, the Cook County Jail in Chicago, or the Los Angeles County Jail in California.

Architects design large jails and detention centers to hold thou- sands of prisoners as they wait through court proceedings, or pris- oners who are serving sentences of less than a year. They focus their resources on confining rather than even making the pretense of “cor- recting” anything.

The operations at the Kent City Jail, I conclude after my many years of experience living in confinement, are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to jail design and management. In Kent’s jail, community showers do not exist. And guards do not tolerate horseplay of any kind without sanction. There are few areas out of staff members’ direct line of sight, and electronic surveillance equip- ment keeps sentry whenever the human eye is blocked.

The merit-based housing system gives the prisoners a sense of control over their own lives. It is a management technique that, in my opinion, results in better working conditions for staff, less volatility, and more control over the jail or prison population.

During the many months I served in the Kent City Jail, there was not a single incident of violence, with or without a weapon. Prison- ers focused their energies on incentives and the attempt to improve their lives in confinement. I did not notice any problem with staff tcrnover; they managed with what seemed to me a high degree of professionalism. Administrators in the larger facilities that others

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describe to me and that I have experienced may simply lack the re- sources to manage their jails in such a manner. Or they may lack the vision to appreciate the advantages that come with management through the promise of incentives rather than through the threat of punishment. Some administrators are certainly indifferent to a pris- oner’s adjustment, as long as he is locked up. The security of the in- stitution is paramount, and the prisoner’s preparation for release is of secondary, and in some cases zero, importance.

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3 A few weeks after Judge Tanner imposed my sentence, my status in the criminal justice system changed further. With conviction, the class switches from “pretrial” to “convicted felon.” Numbers replace names. A move follows into the correctional system, which considers the men more like packages than people. The system determines the appropriate institution as the classification process begins.

Prisoners never meet or speak with the corrections professionals who decide where they pass their first years. As convicted felons, they do not interact with the people in charge of structuring their lives. Only objective data from the written record matter. From their for- mulas and systems, administrators make their decision. In my case, they ordered a transfer from the Pierce County Jail to a United States penitentiary in the East.

That order would separate me from my family and support group in Seattle. Despite my having n o history of violence, weapons use, escape attempts, or previous confinement, I had just learned that an institution The New York Times describes as the most violent federal prison in America was about to swallow me.

The system would cage me within the forty-foot walls that sur- round that penitentiary alongside nearly three thousand men, many of whom never expect to leave prison. Those felons live without hope of anything better. Every prisoner in the penitentiary breathes

only whispers away from extortion attempts, from savage gang rapes, from bludgeonings and stabbings.

“It’s muthafuckin’ ruthless up inside dis bitch. Vicious! And I likes it,” a fellow inmate called Crip Tank told me while waiting for guards to process us inside. Crip comes from Compton, the Califor- nia city that gangster rap music glorifies. He proudly asserts his alle- giance to thug life, and especially to his particular set of the Cali Crips. Crip’s speech pattern flows with the loud, violent, rapid-fire sound of a submachine gun blasting bullets. “It’s all about da block up in dis bitch muthafucka. Tic tic tock it’s da block. Know what I’m sayin’? Give it up or get fucked up.”

Within each large prison system, like the Federal Bureau of Pris- ons (BOP) or any state-level department of corrections, administra- tors operate multitudes of individual institutions. Those systems operate supermax facilities to hold offenders who pose the most dangerous threat to society. A step below supermax is the peniten- ’ary,a high-security institution filled with men convicted of violent imes. Administrators call medium- and low-security prisons “cor- ctional institutions.” Those with minimum-security classifications

e their time in camps. All prisons differ from jails and detention ers, which are intended for short-term stays. n prisons, especially penitentiaries, a new inmate must situate

mself among thousands of men who have decades of confinement ther behind them, in front of them, or both. A distinct culture ex-

ists inside, and a wild anarchy dictates acceptable behavior. Some men, such as Crip Tank, instinctively like this environment, but the penitentiary was a new world to me. I was still in my early twenties when I began my immersion in the rules, policies, and customs of

king into that penitentiary, I know that only my mind and my can carry me through; I haven’t yet developed the temperament

22 M i c h a e l G.Santos

“to be ’bout my work,” as Crip Tank advises me. I recognize that I make it through with a guardian angel watching over me, because in spite of the constant madness, some good force keeps me from crashing. Walking into that penitentiary corridor is like driving the ramp to the freeway in the opp6site direction of traffic; it is like speeding headfirst into an onslaught of danger.

The penitentiary corridor is twenty yards wide and as long as a football field. It connects all of the housing blocks, each of which holds more than five hundred men. Except during the brief windows of time when guards authorize prisoners to walk from one area of the pen to another, the main corridor is like a long, narrow cavern. The floors shine brilliantly from countless coats of institutional wax. It is quiet except for the light buzz from the ballasts of fluorescent lights that never rest and the jingling keys of a few guards who patrol the corridor.

That calm changes with the quickness of a lightning storm when guards announce movement. The corridor becomes electric as thou- sands of men bust through the newly unlocked doors and rush in every direction. The air is charged with explosive energy.

Crip Tank thrives in such an atmosphere of chaos. “You gots to take shit up off muthafuckas up in here. Be ’bout yo business. Dis da penitent’ry. A cat gotta be strong in dis muthafucka. A nigga gotta live, gots to move quick, be on top yo toes. Can’t never slip. ’Cause if you slip you might get got. Dis da block, muthafucka, where a nigga gots to make a bitch hurt in da dirt, in da glass in da ass.” He speaks so fast that his words tumble into each other. “I’m gangsta, an origi- nal gangsta. O.G. muthafucka and don’t get it twisted. Dis my house, where a real thorough muthafucka knows how to get down.”

It’s as if Crip Tank is psyching himself up when he is about to walk into the corridor and enter “the mainline,” the penitentiary’s general population. Some guards, I see, make more allowances for the high-energy tension of penitentiary prisoners. That becomes

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obvious as one of the officers gives an order for Crip Tank to step away from the locked gate leading into the corridor.

“Fuck you, bitch. Who da fuck you think you talkin’ to? Suck my dick! I’ll fuck you up right here right now.” The guard just looks on as Crip stands there spitting venom. It is as if the guard hears it all every day. Another prisoner walks by wearing a dark blue sweatshirt with a blue rag hanging from the back left pocket of his sagging khaki pants. It is the traditional attire of Crip gang members.

“Wussup, homey?”Crip yells as the prisoner steps past us, on the same side of the locked gate as the guard.

“Whereyou from, cuz?”The prisoner stops by the guard to respond. “Compton. Santana block, cuz.” The guard looks at the newcomer as if he might bring a calming

xesence. “Is this your homey?” “What dis bitch muthafucka want?” Crip Tank is back into the

:onversation. “He be talkin’ that punkass shit to a muthafucka.” Crip Tank grabs the steel bars of the gate and shakes it on its hinges. “Let me out dis muthafucka!” he yells.

“Yo, homey. Chill. I got dis.” The new prisoner, Woo Woo, is a ip member of a different set. He speaks with the guard and agrees escort Crip Tank to D house. “Keep your boy right,” the guard says to Woo Woo as he begins to

nlock the gate. “Boy!” Crip yells. “Who da fuck you callin’ boy?I got inches a black dick I’ll stick deep in yo ass, muthafucka, you talk e like that.”

‘Chill,cuz.” Woo Woo tries to calm the fire in Crip Tank. “It’s live up in here but you gots to fall back a minute.” The guard ignores the commotion and unlocks the gate. The movement is on.

During that ten-minute span, the corridor is like a hurricane of ivity. It brings an opportunity for the thousands of men locked in

different blocks to meet, to mix it up. A thriving illicit economy akes for all kinds of action. Those movement times give prisoners

24 M i c h a e l G.S a n t o s

opportunities to settle accounts, penitentiary style. The corridor is packed with people, some running, some walking. It is like the exits of a stadium following a football game. Some think it a good time to draw blood.

Tank passes through the corridor while Woo Woo stops other Crip members to introduce him. They clench fists and bump knuck- les in greeting. Tank does not know the others, but their Crip affilia- tion makes them family.

“You a Crip till you die. Any time you see a Crip in distress, any- where, ev’ywhere, you get down. We be the untouchables,” as Crip Tank tells it. “And I’m in da game deep. I think ’bout Crippin’ when I sleep. I think ’bout Crippin’ when I wake. I won’t stop. Can’t stop till the last drop. Won’t stop till I hit da dirt.”

As Crip Tank and Woo Woo weave their way through the mad- ness in the corridor, Crip Tank spots two cats talking with their back against the wall. Just then a raging Mexican, wearing a hairnet, his arms sleeved out with tattoos of seiioritas and daggers, rushes one of the men. “Wuzz up now, vato,” Tank hears the man say as he slams a sharpened piece of steel down into the startled man’s shoulder. Blood springs out in spurts as the man tries to run away. The at- tacker chases after him in hot pursuit.

“Shit be jumpin’ up in dis bitch,” Crip Tank says to WOOWoo. “Looky dat nigga there. He leakin’. Das what I’m talkin’ ’bout. Dis wild. I likes dis action here. Muthafucka betta be ’bout his business. I need to get me some heat up dis muthafucka here. I gots to stay strapped twenty-four-seven.”

“You got that, homey. I’ll get you right,” says Woo Woo, assuring Crip Tank that he will supply him with a weapon.

“That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout. A muthafucka gots to stay ready S O a nigga ain’t got to get ready.”

“I feel ya, cuz.” Just then Gangsta Pimp catches a glimpse of Crip Tank as he and

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Woo Woo turn into the D Unit cell house. “Wuzz up, you lil’ young muthafucka? I knowed you wasn’t goin’to make it out there in Lom- poc. Git me my money.”

Gangsta Pimp, who leads another clique of thugs, is happy to see Crip Tank. They are on good terms from the time they spent locked up together previously. Gangsta Pimp, who has more than twenty years in on a life sentence, had bet Crip Tank that his red-hot temper would result in administrators transferring him far away from the penitentiary in Lompoc, which is close to Crip Tank‘s family in Cal- ifornia. “What you need up in here?”

“I’m a need ev’y muthafuckin’ thing, you black muthafucka. I’m jus’ now comin’ up off lockup.”

“My nigga,” Gangsta Pimp says as he knocks knuckles with Crip Tank. “Woo Woo, I got him. Come up wit me. I’m a bless you up in here.”

Gangsta Pimp leads Crip Tank to his cell. As a consequence of the influence he wields over so many other prisoners, Gangsta Pimp en- joys the privileges of a single cell. Inside, he keeps a commissary worth thousands. “Ooh, my nigga. You got cake up in here.” Crip Tank admires the rich belongings of his homey. Gangsta Pimp grabs two large knit laundry bags and starts loading them with food, toi- letries, and clothing to set Crip Tank up. Then he hands Crip Tank two balloons. “Dat’s you there, muthafucka.” - “What da fuck is this?”Crip Tank asks.

“Just take it, muthafucka. It’s eleven-five. Give it to your home- boys. They’ll tell you what’s up in here. I gots to scatter. Meet me out by the chapel on the next move.”

“I ain’t going to no chapel, nigga. The only god I pray to is da Crip god.”

“Man, cut all that bullshit with me, nigga. Meet me by the chapel. I’m a bless you with some heat.”

Crip Tank lugs his two bags of belongings to his tier. He walks

26 M i c h a e l G . S a n t o s

into his cell and starts stacking the commissary in the locker. Junebug, his homey from the Ace-Trey Crips, comes by to welcome Crip Tank to the Penitentiary. “Nigga, what you doin’ up in my house? I thought you was headin’ out to Lompoc.”

“Man, fuck Lompoc. Some nigga dropped a dime on a mutha- fucka out there. Had me locked down in the box for six months. I’m here now. Wussup? Wuss poppin’ in dis joint?”

“Nigga, this muthafucka’s the livest. And we deep wit homeys up in here.” Junebug runs down all the action. The gambling. The drugs. The excitement.

“Well I need a drink up in here. What you gonna do for a nigga?” “I got two gallons up my cell. I’m a bring ’em out. You got dat.’:

Junebug promises to share some of his prison-made wine with Crip Tank. Then, after he has all of his belongings put away, Crip Tank pulls out his two balloons that Gangsta Pimp had given him and sets them on the cell’s metal table. Junebug holds the balloons in his hand. “Nigga, you gettin’ blessed already.”

“Dat’s rizzite muthafucka. It’s eleven-five. What dat shit go for up in dis bitch?” Crip Tank wants Junebug to move the heroin Gangsta Pimp had passed to him in the balloons; pen slang for heroin is “eleven-five.” Other names include “chiva,” “negra,” “horse,” “man,’: and simply the letter H.

They cut open the balloons with a razor blade Junebug keeps hid den inside the lining of his jacket. Despite the heat, prisoners always wear jackets in the penitentiary if they live in the action. “Dis shit here eight hun’red in each balloon.”

“Cool,” Crip Tank says. “Cut dis one up into fo’ pieces. You ta one piece. Dat’s two hun’red for you. Get me fo’ hun’red in commi sary and two hun’red in cig’rettes on this pack. And get me eig hun’red on the wire for the other.”

“You got that, nigga. Let me go get to workin’,” Junebug says as he runs out to meet with others to sell the heroin. He returns in less

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than a half hour. “Yo, cuz. Give me a name for that wire. You can call in an hour and it’ll be there. And I’m a have that commissary for you tonight too.”

Crip Tank gives Junebug a code name for one of his girlfriends in Compton. He calls her his Crip-lette. Then he calls and instructs her to use the code name so she can retrieve the money from a Western Union station. The eight hundred dollars arrives as promised. So

es the commissary that Crip Tank ordered. Within hours of walk- onto the prison compound, Crip Tank is gangstered up-“G’d

”-and making moves. Thug life. He later makes the hookup with ngsta Pimp and collects a bone-crusher shank. Crip Tank lives

ready for whatever might come his way. My own adjustment to penitentiary living lacked the color of

Crip Tank‘s. I did not know what to expect from imprisonment. I only knew my intention to survive, to find some way to conquer the fear I was masking and grow through it.

Those initial months and years, for me, brought many thoughts and anxieties about what I would face when imprisonment ended. I set my focus on the first ten years ahead. The scheme under which Judge Tanner sentenced me dictates that-with no change-I serve twenty-six years inside. I knew that upon that distant release I would

no vehicle, no clothes, no place to live, no work unless I made thing happen. The punishment for my crimes does not end confinement. I knew that the bad decisions of my early twenties going to afflict and shape the rest of my life, and I could also that the decisions I would make in the coming months and would have an equal effect on my future. ip Tank made his choice to run with the penitentiary. Realizing hallenges ahead, I knew that I had to serve my time differently.

h I had earned respect from those with whom I interacted my confinement, in the penitentiary I was nobody. I could

tend that I was a gangster, a wiseguy, or a killer. I would never

2 8 Michael G . Santos

convince the real killers around me. The structure of the pen influ- enced the behavior of others; anticipation of the future influenced mine.

Whereas Crip Tank saw nothing but penitentiary life, I decided in those early months in the pen to define and refine a clear strategy to help me overcome the obstacles I would face upon release. That strat- egy gives me a reason to stay out of trouble. I structure time in a way that minimizes my exposure to problems. With the skills I develop, I help others around me. Through that assistance I form alliances with other prisoners. I help prisoners like Crip Tank, Gangsta Pimp, Woo Woo, and others when they need to file grievances or appeal discipli- nary infractions. Those alliances keep me away from problems that tear apart so many other lives in the penitentiary.

Other prisoners with whom I live consider it a waste of time to fo- cus on release. “I ain’t tryin’ to go to no school. What the fuck good that gonna do me? I got forty motherfuckin’ years, holmes. Teach me how to use a knife or how to score some dope up in this bitch. That’s what the fuck I need to know.”

I never judge people who live by such codes. In fact, it is crucial for me to live as a neutral force. I am not affiliated with any gangs, but I am on good terms with several gang leaders of every race and geographical location, those men who “call shots” or “call dogz.” Communicating with those prisoners in a nonthreatening way is es- sential to my achieving the goals I set for myself.

The consequences that follow disciplinary sanctions do not faze other long-term prisoners in the pen. They consider problems, either with other prisoners or with staff members, as being incidental to living in prison. For some, like Crip Tank and Gangsta Pimp, living o n the edge breaks up the monotony. “I likeded the drama,” Crip Tank says.

I cannot afford it. I feel as if each day brings me an opportunity to build another

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step on the ladder that will lead me out of the pit my convictions have dropped me in. I avoid activities that threaten my progress. Whereas I successfullyavoid altercations, I live in the midst of thou- sands of men who consciously or unwittingly invite violence and conflict into their lives daily. My sharing bathrooms, dinner tables, and small spaces with them keeps me in the eye of the hurricane. Over the decades I have served, I have seen blood spilled, weapons manufactured, and schemes orchestrated. Classes I teach in prison open relationships for me with prisoners who embrace a ruthless code of life, and with the weaker prisoners whom predators prey upon. My companions in prison are the men who spill blood, man- ufacture weapons, and orchestrate schemes, and the men who are manipulated, dominated, and exploited by the prison’s ruling classes.

My experiences with these men, dangerous and heartbreaking though they have been at times, make it possible for me to provide a glimpse through this window I am opening into the world of peni- tentiary living.