PRISON VOICES, Essays regarding prison issues and the people in the correctional facilities

YOUTH VIOLENCE

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 23:12:17 GMT

INTRODUCTION: The Prince of Death Cometh Again

The time and place do no matter. The night outside was cold. A biting wind made a wino hunker down under a worn jacket collar trying desperately to rescue yesterday’s memories. The rigors of life had reduced him to nothing more than a restless soul trying to find a place to spend a warm night. He lay down in a rat-infested alley and froze to death in the midst of rotting garbage. He was not mourned or missed. The only hint of concern for his passing was the curse of an orderly in the coroner’s office who had to hose down his filthy body.

THE ANGOLA TWO

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 22:32:00 GMT

There are actually state punishments worse than death. The Angola Two have experienced such a punishment.
It was through the “Prisoner Grievance Committee” that I came to know an inmate named Irvin “Life” Breaux. A New Orleans native, Life was serving a life sentence for killing another inmate who made homosexual advances toward him. Life was one of the many “militants” who had been locked up in 1972 following the stabbing death of a prison guard named Brent Miller at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. I chronicled Life’s story and his tragic death in an article entitled “A Prison Tragedy” published in the prison’s newsmagazine, THE ANGOLITE (July-Aug. 1979). I won the prestigious American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award in 1980 for the article.

During the brief six-month period that I knew Life before his death in August 1973, we became close friends. We were “comrades in the struggle.” Together, we integrated the Big Yard at the state penitentiary without a single incident of violence in July of 1973 – no minor accomplishment inasmuch as Angola was then hailed as the “bloodiest prison in America.”

CHARLIE FRAZIER: THE LEGEND OF AN AMERICAN OUTLAW

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 15:02:27 GMT

Peter D. Tattersall was the former Business Manager at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in 1980. I was co-editor of the prison’s newsmagazine, THE ANGOLITE. I came to know Tattersall who had a profound interest in the criminal saga of Charlie Frazier. Tattersall sought out every piece of the Frazier legend, through every nook and cranny in the prison, in a determined effort to put a face to that legend. The result of this courageous effort was a self-published book entitled “CONVICTION” (The Pegaus Rex, Incorporated, Montclair, New Jersey), a 374-page chronicle of the famous outlaw’s life. I’m sure there are factual errors in the Tattersall chronicle as there are in every biography about a criminal legend. Fact and fiction blend to become acceptable faction. But there is enough truth – the robberies, killings, prison escapes, the Red Hats, the Leake brothers shooting incident, and his Charity Hospital death – to make “The Legend of an American Outlaw” a legitimate part of the prison folklore.

A FORGOTTEN PRISON DEATH

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 15:01:49 GMT

“This is why we love our jobs,” the tall, lanky prison Colonel shouted as he stormed up and down the cellblock tier.

“This is why we love our fucking jobs,” he repeated, staring menacingly into each cell at the sullen inmates, daring each to be foolish enough to challenge his authority.

It was a hot July 2001 morning. The Colonel was part of a “cell extraction team.” The team was comprised of the highest ranking officials at the David Wade Correctional Center. The team had just “extracted” Kevin Coleman from his maximum security disciplinary cell located in what was called the prison’s “South Compound.”

BRYAN MILLER: A REAL GANGSTA’

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 15:01:15 GMT

It was not much of a house. There were no “nice” houses in the “ghetto’ of East Los Angeles. Simply called “the hood,” it was the home of more than a half-million economically deprived residents who lived daily in the crossfire of rival gangs and under the corrupt abuses of the 77th Division of the city’s police department. One of those ghetto residents was Alice Miller – a young woman with an enormous capacity to love and protect her fatherless family.

A PALESTINIAN IN AN AMERICAN PRISON

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 15:00:17 GMT

He was short.
I was tall.
He was an Arab.
I was an American.
He was a Muslim.
I was a Christian.

We had nothing in common. Or so I thought when Mazen Hamdan became my “cellie” in the summer of 2004 at the C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center at DeQuincy, Louisiana. We were both assigned to Dorm H-2 in Unit One at the penal facility. I slept in Bed 50, a top bunk, and Hamdan moved into Bed 49, the bottom bunk. That made us “cellies” in the prison vernacular. He called himself “Ali” to keep his real name from becoming known in the prison community.
The initial impressions we have of people are quite often deceiving. We tend to approach them with biased feelings and stereotypical attitudes. We sniff around the contours of their personality and body language before we decide whether we like or dislike them. This is especially true in prison. It is about individual space, turf and territory. Inmates invisibly piss-mark their meager domains. This characteristic causes them to establish relationships cautiously.