THE WASTED YEARS

if I had it to do all over again knowing that I would never get out I would rather have been executed you remember the good things outside they're always on your mind every time you think of something yeah or here's some money areas remember well what was I doing back then out in the free world there is no words or no description that well nothing did we decide that can compensate for one's freedom I mean if a man had a million dollars that could buy it a million dollars a day I'd give a million others be free I mean many of us wouldn't mean anything to me so that still give you a fair idea what being in the penitentiary means life at Stateville the wasted years narrator Hugh Hill [Music] this is Hugh Hill at the gates of Stateville prison you are about to see an accurate account of what life is really like inside a large Penitentiary the accepted view is false in this jail there are no big shots no tough guys only pitiable human beings doing time and one of the toughest institutions in the world it is not our intent to disguise the purpose for their incarceration the men who are in these institutions were convicted of crimes ranging anywhere from burglary to murder some have spent 20 to 30 years of their lives behind the walls you will hear their story as told by the inmates themselves and if this account of life at Stateville deters one youngster from wasting his years the same way the result will be worth the effort new prisoners arrive by bus almost every day they call the new inmates at Stateville fish they're entering a maximum-security prison built for half the present population a fifty two hundred and twenty one their first look at Stateville disguises the true purpose it's a camouflage of clean buildings beautiful grounds small groups of prisoners with apparent freedom of movement as the chicago sociologist puts it this is an institution that has its nose wiped it shoes shine and its tie straight but except for the physical improvements imprisonment at Stateville is the same unrelenting shackling of the spirit that it has been since the beginning of time there are about two hundred ten thousand inmates in the United States doing time in two hundred thirty state and federal penitentiaries Statesville because of the nature of its population is one of the toughest it is the only prison in the nation that has round sell houses the rules here are strict the routine rigid the convicts become institutionalized more rapidly because the pressure is never off we begin our story of what it means to do time at Stateville prison at 7:00 a.m. in cell house ds2 9 all prisoners must stand at their cell doors for the morning contract the two officers walked by and counseling see here's prisoner 199 II describing the morning routine first thing to do when he get up in the morning he's 6 7 usually wash up cleaning up buddy 1 sit there and wait for the comp Bell College check put your coat on and cavity 8 you get ready to go to work 40 there's only having to look forward to all these days I mean what lots have begun with my kind of a sentence what else is there to look forward to I mean actually I get up and says it's the same thing it's the same routine day after day one one gallery 123 123 right 1 2 gallery 162 162 right one eight three right one six eight right laughs at Stateville is made up of a series of movements the same each day timed almost to the second a constant shuffling of prisoners from one place to another to breakfast where this group is going to school our work assignments back to lunch into the cells and during all that marching the no-talking rule is strictly enforced this prisoner knows that in the penitentiary you must live by the rule there is no escape because there are always ways of making you obey them Paul Gen cot has been in Stateville for 25 years sentenced to a hundred and ninety nine years for murder plus two life sentences under the habitual criminal act he has learned that this is a world of camp you cannot eat with whom you please you cannot see the movie you please you see one movie a week whether you like it or not you cannot go to the yard when you please you go to the yard when they tell you to go to the yard you come in when they tell you to come in you march in for cellar cell formation on the gallery you cannot skip a cell or fall back a cell you cannot go to church when you please you go to church I once specified a a week or on holy days of obligation you cannot go swimming because we have no swimming pool you cannot go fishing because we have no stream in here you cannot go to the ballgame because in the wintertime we don't have ballgames we have the movie in likewise in the summertime you cannot go to the movie because you have a ball game on a Saturday so everything is canned you can't whistle in the cell you can't shout in the sound you can't talk loud in the sound you can't eat what you want to eat because you eat what they serve if you pass something you just passed it that's all there's to it warden Frank paid came up through the ranks of guards to succeed the famous Joseph Reagan now the Illinois director of public safety warden pate carries out Reagan's philosophy of strict discipline to ensure order at a maximum-security institution Gordon paid why must Stateville prison be so secure or why does it have to be so tight as they say down here because we're equipped to receive the long timer the troublemaker and the repeater and a long time around mean a man with extensive sentence we have over 700 medals centers of life or even more to find in this area now that doesn't mean to say that every man was blankie Simmons is a troublemaker or particularly vicious well we do have some dangerous and vicious people here however I think they're in the minority but we have someone will take any means at hand to leave us to escape the place make sure what I mean over here well that's quite a sample case you have water yes this is contraband that we've picked up in searches here over a number of years and put together for the purpose of instructing student officers gives them some idea of what these men can develop up no here's a spoon just a simple spoon with the end of a sharpened my fashion all of that are they sharpen it why are pointing on the concrete which we have I'll just roughing it on the concrete that's right yes sir here's another spoon with a key fashioned obvious work one of the doors had a good key it's a good key it would work here's a other knife or dagger made from something rolling up a tobacco tin putting it the end of it on the concrete here's a very simple but a right dangerous weapon made from a bracelet bed and here again individual home this sharp edge on the concrete talk sometime of course we know that the bar can be cut with various things if given enough time Emery Dustin straying for example the warden of Stateville has an effective means of punishment to handle what he calls the nonconformist it's called isolation state Bill's version of solitary confinement it has changed very little over the years except that now the maximum time in isolation is 15 days an officer checks each cell every 20 minutes the inmate leaves everything behind when he enters the cell he has nothing to do for 24 hours a day but sit stand or lay down sleep or think all right hold it up all right right in close the door behind you [Music] okay well you find out tomorrow when the captain interviews you I'll help me get what do I need well you leave tomorrow we only feed once a day here it's nothing good about it it's very bad well you just try to imagine sleeping on three tissue paper thin blankets you got a commode in there tap water nothing else one meal a day and that one meal consists of final velocity about two ounces of beans and whatever they have on the mainline one slice and a slice of bread and on Sundays you may get a ration of meat and that goes on for fifth that can go on for 15 days no clothing yes you have clothing in the upper jacket and a pair of trousers you sleep on the floor sleep on the floor and if you decide to do something about it such as bugging up create a lot of noise after you come out if the fishes Dean fit they can put you in segregation that happened to me the inmate in segregation is completely isolated from the rest of the prison population he is alone in his cell and even when he is led to a small courtyard for recreation he is alone that half hour in the yard is the only time that he is allowed out of his cell during a 24-hour period the average stay in segregation is three to four months but one man stayed there for 14 years another for 11 in past year segregation was a trouble spot the prisoners would break up the toilets and beds and throw the pieces at guards so now the beds are bolted to the concrete floor and the toilets are made of metal they get three meals a day and books to read but they must stay in the cells all day every day but not all the prisoners get into trouble some conform to the rules immediately this man did well while I work in Chicago picked up few words Jessie Gonzales has been a model prisoner since the day he entered Stateville five years ago if he had not conformed to the rules he would not have been allowed to start grade school and go on to Stateville high school yes great school I started the first grade and it took me 18 months to graduate and then I went to high school there are 150 inmates in the high school and 200 in grammar school the name of the school does not appear on the diploma there are 46 in the TV junior college and 800 men are taking correspondence courses from Stateville high all the instructors are inmates like Gonzales some of the students couldn't speak English when they entered prisons they learn in this class so when you see that would there how would it read feet feet and how would that read need so then we go into the double O that has the you sound Tennyson 800 espanol Karla's cavern esta la lettre juntas tiene esta sonido dama UNEP Alaric on Antonio Oeste double o food book so esto lo que tienen que aqua da de estar ella no tiene ninguna revolt an universe tell it in the questions everybody understand that huh alright warden pate says he wouldn't know what to do if it weren't for the schools at Stateville it's not only a way to educate the ignorant but it is another method of keeping the inmates busy and that's a major task at Stateville prison pate says i know that when we teach a man to read and write he may go out and hang some paper and forgery would bring him back here this mathematics teacher by the way is a physician many of the inmate students get good grades in school they have plenty of time to study there are also some excellent artists in state film they work in oils pastels and watercolors the man who painted these pictures is doing 18 years for burglary and assault - rape his work has been displayed many times on the outside he can't offer for sale any of his paintings warden pate says we teach just about everything in our schools except chemistry but even in school the maximum security is never relaxed a man coming into school must be searched or frisked or shook down in the state field parlance the frisking of the inmates goes on everywhere all day long neither the inmates nor the guards like it but it must be done the inmates earned no money in school prisoner Gonzales had to quit in his second year of high school he wants to buy books in Spanish and to get the money he has to work in a factory I'm working in the furniture factory how much have you heard well right now I got 70 sixty six dollars and 25 cents just this bear on my savings and I ordered some books yes but if I had a $10 will be over the commissary that's all I have [Music] in the tin shop music is piped in over a loudspeaker there's so much noise in the place that it's hard to hear warden Peyton knows that if he teaches a man who weld he may go out and work on a safe but there has to be a way to train a man at at the same time keep him occupied prison officials call it a hotshot because a weapon can be stamped out fast says the warden let's face it they can stamp out a knife in three minutes many prisoners naturally want to work where they get paid the most money they can earn an average of twelve to fourteen dollars a month the bigger money is called long bread the smaller amount shortbread the inmates are issued tools when they enter the factory they must account for all of them and turn them in when they leave they are placed into a shadow board silhouettes painted on the back of a tool chest every shadow must be covered by a tool if a tool is missing they might shut down the factory and call for a general shakedown sometimes the tool isn't found and in those cases the tool is usually destroyed to where no one can use it because it's so hot that no one know man when in a sensible state of mind would bring it out in the open where he could use it you know he throws in the sewer or something and in a couple of instances I have known them to dig up sewers they dug Biasi art up here about five years ago looking for weapons a nice even if a tool isn't missing the men are searched again as they leave the factory they must pull out everything from their pockets take their hats off and hold them in the air arms akimbo while the guards go over them the men hate it yeah that's one of the things that sickens you Wow well it's it's because you're always going into few pockets and taking out your smoking and your handkerchief and your cup and your cigarettes and everything else that you got and you're always hanging it out there this is the busiest Penitentiary intersection in the world inmates coming from schools and factories converge on this spot make the turn and head for the dining room just like in the army hurry up and wait all meals are timed and the first man in is always the first man to leave to give the last inmate the same amount of time to eat as the first this is probably the cleanest kitchen in the United States it is constantly being scrubbed down before during and after the meals new prisoners must take their turn in the kitchen Chester Weger serving a life sentence for murdering a Riverside woman in Starved Rock State Park is still working in the kitchen each one of those portable tables is moved to a point on the outer rim of this circular dining room the inmates go by and pick up their food from that location today's menu includes a slice of cheese beans and pork and cornbread beans are the most popular dish in the prison Joseph Reagan says he has seen men pass up roast beef to get to the beans the men must move through the chow line swiftly they eat in chips 20 minutes to each shift the dining room is the most ticklish trouble spot in the entire prison it's the only place where so many men gather together in one place warden pate says if you run out of a favorite item you better have something as good or better to replace it or you'll have trouble there are three officers in the tower armed with rifles and tear gas five or six years ago there was a no-talking rule strictly enforced in the dining room now they're allowed to talk but only in low tones older convicts actually object to any talking at all during meals one of them said there are so many guys driving Cadillacs and chasing blondes you can't get a decent meal some inmates say there's a lot of tension in the dining room one day a plate was dropped on the floor the entire assemblage sat bolt upright waiting for something to happen those spoons by the way are watched carefully by the guards and once again they're counted as they leave the dining room each guard is responsible for his group of men he doesn't dare have one missing the dining room is emptied swiftly to make ready for another ship the entire population of this prison has been fed in 1 hour and 15 minutes not a scrap of food is wasted if an inmate leaves just one slice of bread he may have his privileges such as listening to the radio taken away for as much as 15 days some prisoners when confronted with this type of penalty have asked to spend 3 days in isolation instead the requests are always turned down warden pate says this may seem like tough punishment but what if 5,000 prisoners left just one slice of bread warden paid also says that if he could he would like to see many changes in maximum security type of imprisonment in this state what I would like to see in this state is more institutions not the maximum security type I think our state has enough maximum security prisons to last for a hundred years well I have reference to is minimum security institution them custody OpenType institutions we have many men here at Stateville that don't need all this custody they could be handled very easily in the minimum security institution fortunately Illinois is getting a new institution in the southern part of the state for this type individual this is the thirteenth count of the day there will be three more during the night the Catholic chaplain father gur base Brinkman says the following 14 hours that's the toughest part of doing done here's how an inmate described - sometime in the winter time there goes like they say you gotta be in the cell from sundown to sunup winters are long and rough always you just I don't know some guys might say well it's a snap all that it's not listen you will never get out I got a chance to see the board in 33 years you think about all the time they can't help to take about it 33 what year will that be that'll be in 1983 133 right welcome after the guard locks the cells with a key a second lock is turned from the guard tower by a hydraulic switch and it's crowded in there three men in each cells they have plenty of time to think almost every night you think about the relatives after you for so long that's it here and they sewn drop all stop right into you stop coming to see you and that's where it really hurts your relative doesn't come down your kids you don't know a mine today I hardly know in fact they are strangers to me just like you are my daughter if I saw today I would normally you'd be proud of everything you know all of a sudden you know everyone that you love or think anything about it all it's a way from you you can't see them on certain days and that you dream about them she wake up well it's I guess you cry a little bit and everything else you know you're miserable a young description yeah I've looked at the wall I said on my in my sit in my cell many times and look at the wall I can see trees does is growing up that extends perhaps above all the wall you know and I'm only a few feet away but yet it is hideous I mean there's no description all your social life is gone you uh little things that you wouldn't ordinarily notice on the street here is obviously absent you know like well for instance like seeing children and uh hearing the voice of women being able to step out when you want to go to bed when you want to eat what you wanted you know when you want mm-hmm there's so many things that it would take hours to describe Stateville prison is a strange almost inbred institution it's a world set apart it even has its own language and it has a separate set of morning's we have declined a temptation to include a description of that part of prison life the steers in the hay fields one former inmate actually told me that this place is a hate vector we have passed over the story of the prison underground although even the warden admits that one exists we have forgone an account of the Informer's although there are some here Joseph Reagan was once quoted as saying if three men are talking in the yard two of them are mine he probably never said it but many of the inmates here believed that he said it and meant it there are probably some ex convicts who are watching who would disagree with our portrayal of life and state building but to this reporter it seemed that the real punishment here adds up to one thing and one thing only the finality and of the regimentation the separation from the insignificant pleasures and freedoms of the outside world that punishment is what turns the days and nights and the months into the waste of years life at Stateville the wasted years [Music] now a wbbm-tv editorial expressing the views of this station's management ladies and gentlemen vice-president of the Columbia television stations division and general manager of wbbm-tv mr. Clark be George good evening I would like to have you see in here three Stateville prisoners I urge you to listen carefully two of these men are brothers one has been paroled the other is due for parole this week but the important point is that they went to prison together for armed robbery and murder and spent ten years of their lives in confinement the third man was sentenced to 99 years for murder he has already spent 12 years of his life at Stateville and is not even eligible to ask for parole for another 21 years listen my father although he was anxious for us kids to get an education and he would kick us out of the house and send us to school he didn't see that we stayed there consequently why no enters from home wow those kids would play hooky five hours six days or better than that even I say we play hooky 90% of time after you came back out of the Army in 1946 what happened then well I went out stealing again just running around watching wild get a job to make my mom feel a little better but other than that I'd be out of steel all the time and didn't work we've ever worked no not what she'd call work no no education so I didn't know what to do couldn't get any good job what are you gonna get his job he's gonna hire and the kind of work hard no nobody wants it they won't employ it uneducated the way I was I didn't know I didn't understand other people you know and really I didn't even understand myself and I looked at everybody else's my enemy of course I think that was partially cause to living through the depression you know as a kid and uh especially the law officials prison official that though they were all and even the taxpayer later come to prison I thought they were all my enemies I figured their Texas was the ones that supported this prison and the family physicals to keep me here you know we would go out at night to Douglass park and Jefferson Park and further just for fun we would roll bombs for cigarettes that was mainly what we do just for the kick of it we roll a bomb for a pack of cigarettes and we thought it's something big we never got over a pack of cigarettes seldom we got a half a pack but it was there was some thrill to it we had taken something you graduated from there we dredge away from that to lead pipes with NACA man ahead for a half pack of cigarettes well be honest with ya I've done a lot of thinking and I believe that had I listened instead of thought I knew it all I wouldn't be it was harder listen when my mom told me years ago it would have never happened I mean a future state in school stayed in school and just quit running went to get these studies just yeah changed my whole attitude towards everything I know that if I'd went to school and the way I have here on the state that I would never come to prison now you're getting out after ten years years what have you got to go to on the outside well I have nothing now as 10-year isn't the pad didn't have anything I want to come to prison actually you know now the ten years is passed in between well there's even less I had two children when I come in one of them was 18 months old one was three years old and they're practically grown now and don't even know me and of course I've got a wonderful family that's gonna try to do everything they can to try to help me make the grade I'm certainly gonna do what I can no I don't think that state will ever have anything any more trouble out of me I'm sure you will agree that the scenes you have just witnessed were dismal and depressing probably nothing in a man's experience in a free society can equal in tragedy the loss of his personal freedom his friends his home his family yet there are literally hundreds of young people in Chicago today who will face this loss of freedom if they continue to travel the paths that they are currently following and one of these paths leading to tragedy begins when a young man or woman drops out of school dr. James B Conant former president of Harvard University has said although the causes of juvenile delinquency are complex and there is no one solution employment opportunities are clearly important a youth who has dropped out of school and has never had a full-time job is not likely to become a constructive citizen of his community quite the contrary as a frustrated individual he is likely to be antisocial and rebellious and may well become a juvenile delinquent wbbm-tv has deliberately linked this editorial to a documentary on prison life to bring as forcibly as possible to parents children educators and employers alike the dreadful proven potential social dynamite which exists today because of the problem of dropouts governor Koerner in an address before the sales marketing executives Club on February 13th dated the boy who drops out of school before finishing high school has little prospect of any job he faces months and years of unrelieved idleness he is made for trouble he will become almost of necessity a costly dependent or costlier delinquent the easiest path for the young unwanted dropouts is quite clearly charted it runs from dependent to delinquent to adult criminal ladies and gentlemen there are five thousand two hundred twenty one prisoners at Stateville it is estimated by prison authorities that nine out of ten of these prisoners have never finished high school and the future looks very dark because according to the Chicago School Board 37 percent of our high school students currently drop out before graduation and if the present trend continues this percentage will rise to 50% in the years just ahead think of it one out of every two high school students a potential prospect for tragedy now there are a number of agencies and some business firms trying to do something about this mounting problem the drakes school project being conducted by the public school administration the double-e Education Employment Program carried out by carson fairy scott and company in cooperation with the public school system and the needle trades training project underwritten by the Ford Foundation and involving the cooperation of the amalgamated Clothing Workers Art Schaffner and marks bee coupon himer & Company and the Illinois State Employment Service these are examples of enlightened civic and business and labor leadership but we believe the heart of the problem lies in the family and in the young people themselves and thus we are trying to communicate to you parents and children alike what terrible potential consequences can befall those young people who cannot get jobs and thus join the more than 1 million between 16 and 25 years of age who roam the streets of the United States today as Chandler Brassard senior editor Look magazine says in an article in look February 27th which we recommend to you jobs and factories stores and even on farms that used to be open to kids with no particular training are almost disappearing the majority of employers are extremely reluctant to hire a dropout because his lack of education makes it difficult to train him government schools business and labor can aid in this problem but the real solution must lie in the realization by parents and children that nothing can be any more important in the lives of young persons today than the completion of a high school education a life of tragedy of wasted years can be the alternative thank you