Alcatraz (84 page)

How were the majority of Alcatraz inmates able to withstand the psychological challenges that were an acknowledged part of serving time on the island? The inmates themselves had a clear idea of who was “crazy” and who was not; they made an important distinction between genuine mental illness and feelings of depression, frustration, anger, and hopelessness that almost every man experienced at one time or another. The majority of Alcatraz inmates—those not in the “crazy” category—were simply better equipped to stand up to the challenging conditions; after all they were old hands at doing time, including considerable time in tough state prisons. They understood that spending some years behind bars was an inherent risk of the life of a bank robber or ransom kidnapper, and they brought to Alcatraz ways of adapting to, and coping with, harsh prison conditions.

This conclusion is consistent with the very limited amount of research
that has been done on the effects of long-term confinement. In their study of men in Illinois, Connecticut, and Minnesota state prisons, MacKenzie and Goodstein noted that different prisoners react to the experience of confinement in different ways. While those who were new to prison but faced long sentences reported a high level of “stress,” inmates “who had received long sentences and had already served a lengthy time in prison appeared to have developed a method of coping with the experience.”
¹⁰
Sociologist John Irwin makes a similar point, focusing on the importance of what he calls “pre-prison orientations.” “Many offenders,” he writes, “have considerable foreknowledge of prison and are relatively well prepared for what will happen to them during their confinement.” Irwin cites a study of prisoners in a long-term facility in England by Taylor and Cohen that concluded, “those persons who were involved in systematic crime before their sentences acted very differently than . . . ‘situational’ criminals.” Applying this idea to inmates in this country, Irwin states, “The old-style thieves, who were numerous in American prisons, learned about prison as they learned other aspects of a thief’s life and took prison in their stride.”
¹¹
Most of the inmates at Alcatraz certainly fit into this category.

The point here is that for more than 90 percent of the gangster-era prisoners, confinement at Alcatraz did not produce such serious mental health problems that they could not function effectively in other prisons after transfer or in the free world after release. That very few inmates were diagnosed as psychotic and were transferred to the Springfield Medical Center does not mean that doing time on the Rock had no emotional impact or more subtle influence on inmates’ post-Alcatraz adjustment. Every inmate we interviewed talked about the boredom, loneliness, and what George Kelly called “the absence of everything that makes life worth living.” What we have tried to make clear is that the great majority of men in this particular prison population brought to the island with them values, associations, and lots of experience in doing hard time in other prisons that made it possible for them to adjust to and endure the Alcatraz regime.

Finding an answer to the question of which factor, or combination of factors, related to the experience of imprisonment affects a prisoner’s postrelease adjustment is one of the great challenges in criminology. Speaking to this point, criminologist Donald R. Cressey has cautioned that it is inaccurate to talk about offenders “ending up” in prison since sooner or later, almost all of them—even “public enemies”—get out:

These prisoners, and thousands who preceded them to confinement, were forcibly removed from social relations in which they were participating and were locked behind walls of concrete and steel where, we are prone to say, they “served their time,” “paid their debt to society,” and, perhaps, “learned their lesson.” But they did more than pay, and serve, and learn in their prisons. They
lived
in them. Each participated in a very complex set of social relations, including a wide variety of social contacts, associations, bonds, alliances, compromises, and conflicts between hundreds of prisoners, guards, administrators, teachers, tradesmen, and professional personnel like social workers, psychologists, and physicians. These social relations are really what make up any individual convict’s prison, but the fact is that we know very little about them.

Perhaps it is for this reason that we are inclined to speak of the effects of prison life in generalities. We say prisons reform men. We say prisons are schools of crime. We say locking men in cages creates emotional problems. We say prisons make timid souls into “confirmed,” or “hardened” criminals. Some of us even say . . . that only rarely does the prison have any appreciable effect on either the subsequent criminality or the subsequent non criminality of the men it cages.

The prison, as such, does not do anything at all. It just sits there upstate, across the bay, or on the edge of town ugly, menacing. What counts in the subtle specifics of each prisoner’s participation is prison
life
.”
¹²

Below we relate some of the “subtle specifics” of Alcatraz inmates’ lives on the Rock to their lives after their release from prison.

Nearly two-thirds of the men who served time at Alcatraz during the gangster era did what no one expected them to do: they succeeded in building productive lives in the free world after years of imprisonment under the harshest conditions the federal government could devise. How did this prison achieve this result when none of the standard rehabilitation programs or personnel were ever present on the island? How could hundreds of prisoners labeled “menaces to society” emerge from Alcatraz and become law-abiding, even respectable citizens.

We cannot answer the legitimate question of whether the decisions of Alcatraz inmates to change their lives would have occurred if they had been confined in a standard penitentiary. Almost all the Alcatraz inmates had spent considerable time in other prisons but for most of them, their
years at Alcatraz constituted the longest single stretch of time served and was the defining element of their prison careers. Therefore, it is toward Alcatraz that we must look if we hope to understand the basis of what criminologists call “desistance”—the absence of criminal conduct compared to earlier stages of an offender’s life.

Clearly, something worked at Alcatraz from 1934 to 1948—and just as surely that something was not any single factor or characteristic, but a complex of factors working in concert. Some of these have been identified in preceding chapters. Here we bring together elements that were likely to contribute to the prison’s unintentional rehabilitation of so many habitual and incorrigible offenders from the gangster era.

• The
inmates simply got older
, and by the ends of their relatively long terms they had settled down and were ready to abandon their criminal careers.—Criminological studies for decades have found that getting older has always been the most powerful influence on desistance in crime. The criminal activities of most felons eventually come to an end and, as indicated by the case studies in chapter 13, this was true even for the most notorious gangsters in the country.

• The Alcatraz inmates
followed a convict code that provided a basis for inmate solidarity
, a set of principles for coping with long-term confinement, and guidelines for getting along with other inmates and for dealing with the staff.—Adhering to this code helped prisoners maintain their psychological well-being through years of very difficult imprisonment. It elevated the needs of the group above self-interest, encouraged integrity and perseverance in resisting an oppressive regime, promoted loyalty and trust among inmates, and thereby helped defuse conflict.

• Most Alcatraz inmates
had the psychological support of friends and associates
during their criminal careers.—The presence of rap partners and old friends created a prison environment with less conflict and more congenial relations among prisoners. This support in turn helped inmates cope with the prospect of long terms and to maintain a positive psychological orientation that was essential for survival both at Alcatraz and after release. These friendships also encouraged an ethic of mutual assistance that resulted in, among other things, many inmates’ receiving legal help and advice from a small number of writ writers and self-trained jailhouse lawyers knowledgeable about the law and legal procedure. Filing writs related to their convictions and sentences and constructing grievances against prison authorities was a satisfying—and legitimate—form of resistance. In the pursuit of this end, the Alcatraz convicts
had basic legal resources and plenty of time with few distractions to develop their complaints.

• The population at Alcatraz during its first fifteen years was exceptional; its members
were well equipped in terms of intellect, skills, and character to cope with imprisonment
and to succeed as law-abiding citizens after release, if they resolved to do so.—Compared to the populations of other penitentiaries then and now, the gangster-era convicts were not typical prisoners. They included prominent gangsters, thieves, bank robbers, leaders and key participants in escape plots, and men instrumental in organizing protests and strikes. They were more likely to possess intelligence, ambition, leadership ability, self-confidence, and determination. They attributed imprisonment to their own wrong decisions, not to being poor or a victim of racial discrimination (80 percent of the population was white), or to having psychological problems or parents who were negligent, abusive, or absent. They understood if you did the crime, you will probably have to do the time. These factors helped this particular population of prisoners psychologically survive their years on the Rock and succeed in the free world after release.

• The
absence of an underground economy
in money, luxury goods, drugs, and gambling virtually eliminated theft and strong arming among prisoners. Nor was there a social hierarchy headed by convict bosses that forced its will on other prisoners by intimidation and physical coercion.—Today’s convicts can only imagine what it was like to do time when prisoners were not trying to kill and exploit each other and instead presented a unified front to the staff.

• Compared to state prisoners, the federal offenders at Alcatraz
lacked certain characteristics that might have increased their chances of reoffending
. First, only a very few—5 percent of the entire population—had been convicted for sex offenses, most of them military offenders who had raped adult females and ended up at Alcatraz as a consequence of subsequent misconduct at other prisons. At state prisons, sex offenders often constitute a significant segment of the population, but Alcatraz never held a prisoner who had molested a minor child or committed incest. All sex offenders were regarded by the Alcatraz convicts as “perverts,” and the few rapists who showed up made every effort to hide their commitment offenses. Alcatraz convicts therefore did not leave prison with the extra burden of trying to live down crimes that even their fellow prisoners regarded as abhorrent and that made them subject to extra
surveillance by police and parole authorities. Second, and more important, the epidemic of drug use and abuse in free society, and especially in prisons, was yet to come. None of the gangster-era convicts returned to the free world with a record of drug addiction; and, because they had been in prison for an average of ten years, they had learned to live without alcohol. Only a few men, like Dale Stamphill, blamed excessive use of alcohol as a precipitating factor in their failure after release.

• The island’s
monastic regimen encouraged self-reflection
and provided an opportunity for reevaluating values and priorities in life.—We know from our interviews that during their years at Alcatraz many men decided that they had done enough crime—and enough time. The many distractions present at standard prisons (frequent association with large numbers of other inmates, a variety of educational and recreational programs, movies, radio, newspapers, and other privileges) were absent on the Rock. This spartan existence left many hours for inmates to contemplate their lives up to that point—to think about the mother or father—or both—who died while they were in prison, the wife or girlfriend who was sleeping with other men, the children with whom they had no contact, and their inability to celebrate holidays, family occasions, and weekends on the town. As the aging process exerted its influence, the inmates knew from the departure of other prisoners that they too would eventually be transferred and released. During long hours of quiet isolation, interviewees recalled that they began to objectively weigh the costs and benefits of their criminal careers and, in many cases, resolved to take a different path for the remainder of their lives.

• Another factor absent from today’s massive prison systems and mega penitentiaries is
the attention that Director Bennett, several wardens, and other prison and parole officers gave Alcatraz inmates
during and after their imprisonment.—As detailed in preceding chapters, these efforts provided some of our interviewees with the extra motivation or practical assistance they needed as they tried to turn their rebellious lives around. James Bennett made frequent trips to Alcatraz, set up an “office” in the old military cell block, and gave a considerable number of prisoners practical help along with the impression that he cared how the inmates would conduct their lives after release, and that they could change their ways. It should be noted, however, that Bennett’s help and that of other prison and parole officials was important for those men who were at a point in their lives when they were ready to try giving up their criminal careers.

• A final feature that made the Alcatraz convicts unusual, compared to state and other federal prisoners, is
how they felt about their prison experience:
making it to the Rock, they knew, carried high status.—By the time we were able to interview them, Alcatraz’s reputation as this country’s toughest prison had been enhanced by such Hollywood films as
Birdman of Alcatraz
and
Escape from Alcatraz
. Beginning in the mid-1970s Alcatraz became a major tourist attraction as documentaries about the prison, famous escapes, the battle of Alcatraz, and notable prisoners began to appear on cable television channels. During our interviews, almost all the ex-prisoners expressed not regret, but pride, at having served time on the Rock. Instead of hiding their criminal and prison backgrounds, they found that their relatives, friends, neighbors, Park Service rangers, documentary filmmakers (and crowds of tourists when they visited the island) wanted to hear all about “what it was like” to serve time in this famous prison.