NOT LIKE IN THE MOVIES

“WE the miserable children of Adam and of Noah, thankfully admiring and accepting the free grace of God….”- Rules for the Society of NEGROES, 1693    

    

    Auburn Prison in 1825 was the same familiar image that Hollywood would later portray in it’s own racist practices, by only hiring white “inmate actors,” for it’s James Cagney and George Raft revisionist prison pics. These old black and white films had little basis in the reality of the contemporary American prison life of the 1930’s. By this time, the racial demographic within the institution was rapidly shifting, transforming from white, to the overly represented black and latino incarcerated demographic of today. All those old prison flicks were nostalgic recreations of the all white prisons of yesteryear. With freedom from slavery, and the slippery wording of the Thirteenth Amendment, giving the state legal permission to enslave and exploit those in their custody, the modern inmate population would mutate seamlessly from white to that “of color,” and remain so…… except in those old gangster movies.  

       According to available statistics there were only five illegal lynching in the U.S. for the crime of “insulting a white person,” in the 1880’s. By the racist 1930’s there were thirty-one for the same ludicrous offense. Jim Crow elicited a heavy toll. The 1937 prison statistics for “male felons in fourteen southern states,” lists overwhelming percentages of incarceration for black males convicted of murder, rape and assault. Robbery is on par with whites at 37.3% for both races. If not honor, there was statistical parity among thieves of all races, creeds and colors.

      

   Jack Hodges, as an incarcerated black man in 1825, was the future of Auburn and all other prisons in America—the black criminal. The concept of an African American, equal in a white world, hadn’t been assimilated in society at large, let alone within the penal system of the 1820’s. Keepers (mostly rural farmers) were as illiterate and mean-spirited as the men they lorded over—many times more so. And if you gave these guys a sap, a cat-o-nine tails and a little power, unbridled sadism could be the result. Like George Jackson said, they [the guards] couldn’t be trusted to run their own bath….let alone a prison. 

    Men like Jack Hodges were the predecessors of the overly criminalized African American community—the school to prison pipeline—supplying the incarcerated institutional workforce to come. Reconstruction and Jim Crow would refine and perpetuate this model that Jack Hodges was experiencing as a pioneer on the penal frontier—ignorant, poor and locked up.

        

    One of the earliest tactics of repression used against African Americans was the withholding of literacy and education. Just like the alphabet and the written word were effectively weaponized against the Indian in treaties, so too this basic knowledge was denied the slaves as a matter of policy. Any spelling book or english primer found amongst slaves could be immediately confiscated by whites and severe punishment (if not death) followed. Literacy and critical thought were powerful, dangerous weapons in the wrong hands. If a black man or woman, like Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman or Austin Reed (against all odds) learned to read, it was nothing short of miraculous. Through his portrayal of Jack Hodges, Rev. Ansel Eddy wanted us to believe it actually was a miracle!  

    The only book allowed in an Auburn cell was the bible. Many inmates couldn’t read, so it didn’t really matter. But for the literate inmate, this restriction was especially hard to swallow. To be so confined with only one book in the library was cruel and unusual punishment to be sure. 

     Under Thomas Eddy, in the early days at Newgate a well stocked library of books was available to inmates for a time. But by William Coffey’s sentence things had changed. “The inspectors…prohibited the lending of any book or books, to any convict, in the prison,” Coffey wrote, “however studious and well disposed.” The reason given for the book prohibition was that the convicts had purposefully dog-eared, torn, and “soiled,” the books. Because of a few sloppy philistines the library was now closed. 

    At Auburn, Protestant chaplains also controlled the reading material. They were encouraged by the agents to teach the inmates to read—but only the bible in Sunday School sessions. If for no other reason, the Bible provided colorful examples of justifiable punishment, conveniently reaffirmed by scripture. “An eye for an eye…” 

     At any given time, communication within the institution could be fluid (with kites, signs or signals) overlooked by keepers, or severely curtailed, punished and forbidden. Communication to the outside would be, at times, nonexistent. In the “dark and gloomy days,” of the 1830’s, referred to by Austin Reed, even pencils and paper were prohibited and ink was unheard of. No letters came in or went out of Auburn for long stretches of time. Reed later wrote of the period,

“…when no prisoner was allowed to write a letter to his friends or make one single mark with a pencil, and though the Honorable Wm. H. Seward was chief justice of the state, yet he in all his power couldn’t grant the prisoner the privilege of writing one kind word Home to his friends, though they laid at at the point of death.”  

    

   If a prisoner died, they died alone, their bodies sold to the local medical society, the carved up pieces buried in an unmarked hole. 

    The public did, however, have the opportunity to observe the live prisoners at work. Creatively exploring the tourist possibilities of this fascinating correctional institution, a tour was offered to the general public. For twenty-five cents a curious visitor could take in the opera of misery and watch the entire pantomime play out behind thick glass. Partitioned off in safety, the visitor watched the tamed, compliant, automatons, entertain the masses with their glum faces, peering down at their assigned tasks; daring not to look up and make eye contact for fear of the cat. It was a hot ticket in Auburn when a farmer had an extra hour to kill waiting for a plow to be sharpened, or a society matron needed some diversion between having her hair done and afternoon tea.  

    The cruel simplicity of the Auburn System, echoed the earliest attempts at slavery in America, foreshadowing the uniformed efficiency of the encroaching Industrial Revolution and golden era of mass incarceration to come. In the face of Christian reform movements, partisan politics and abolitionism, the antebellum north was looking to their recently “freed” workforce, now effectively criminalized demographic, to fill the cheap labor void. The market was ablaze with possibilities. The big difference in this new application of control over the unmanageable was containment, not only physically, but psychologically. This dominance over the mind and spirit of workforce was a radical step. The new sciences were identifying areas of the mind as fertile territory for exploration and exploitation, and in doing so, the penal frontier was being pushed forward into uncharted territory. Remember, this is the 1820’s. 

     Too much torture, not enough elbow grease and the system fell apart. Not enough discipline or punishment, showing empathy (weakness) and the result was the same. Convicts rolled over an easy touch. You could be too kind. Reformers and disciplinarians alike recognized the need for balance. Again, the chaplaincy would play a crucial role. 

    With the modern inception of the “science” of psychology, and physiology, attention to the mind (and spirit) would become more and more important in prisons. Isolation was cheap and effective. It worked on the head and the spirit. When combined with corporal punishment, men crumbled under the weight of isolation and pain. Increasingly insidious treatments were devised, in order to make the prisoner’s minds direct their bodies to perform on cue. But, muscle contraction, sensory and motor nerve manipulation had its limits. Psychological torture, although at first, invisible on the surface, is tough on the fragile subconscious, turning workers, who may be unruly or inefficient in the hame and dye shop, into unpredictable dangers to themselves and others—on the way to chapel. And when the mind broke (for whatever reason) resulting in homicide or suicide, it was all blamed on excessive masturbation. This was the accepted science of the day. I have the reports.