Negotiating Consent for A CRIMINAL JUSTICE WORKSHOP, PART II
by Richard R. Korn, Ph.D
In 1967 we conducted the first of a series of 8 statewide workshops
in which members of all parts of the criminal justice system-judges, legislators,
private citizens, police, correctional personnel, prosecutors, members of
the media, and prisoners-met face to face for 8 days to talk about crime,
criminal justice and corrections. In 1993 the Oregon Director of Corrections
invited us to submit to his wardens a proposal to conduct a similar workshop
in his state. This is excerpted from the second of two letters in which
we argued in favor of the proposal.
Frank Hall, Director
Department of Corrections, State of Oregon
Dear Frank:
Historical experience tells us that penal reform works only when it immediately
follows an era of penal brutality. Released from their chains and their
tortures, the cons, being human, are grateful to those who rescued them-for
a while. But here is the rub-no custodial regime can compare favorably to
life on the street. After a while even the mildest, most therapeutic, most
facilitative custodial regimes become the base-line of expectation; none
of them look good compared to the Street.
This is why, in the end, any reform regime, come to full flower, will turn
into the Walla-Walla of scandalous memory: a joint dominated by Hog-riding
bikers who had succeeded in transforming the place into the streets they
knew and loved. Once the story appeared in print, the public realized that
these streets were not the streets they, the people, loved. The well-intentioned
plan to give prisoners a "positive experience" had turned into
a sink-hole of convict thuggery. The public quickly transformed this nightmare
into one they could sleep better with: a sink-hole of official thuggery.
This kind of thing has happened every time the penal reformers tried to
invent the electric light by improving the gas lamp. Once valued as privileges,
the improvements deteriorate into rights, the rights into demands for more
services, more privileges, more amenities, so that the most institutionalized
convicts could play out their charades of crime with a captive audience
of weaker inmates and demoralized correctional personnel.
"One cannot leap halfway across an abyss." The abyss in corrections
is coercion. One cannot make coercion work with coercers without half-killing
them. What is wrong with penal justice is that it does to prisoners what
many of them did to their victims: reduces them to objects. However you
gild it, relabel it, re-package it, sweeten it with conjugal visits, day-paroles,
therapy, community facilities, boot camps, etc., the abyss remains, staring
up at you like an Evil Eye. And one day some crazed thug will emerge from
a home-leave visit and repay your kindness with an outrage that will shut
the whole program down. Unless you seize the hour and jump fully across
the abyss, the new facilities and obligatory programs merely widen the net
into which judges can commit offenders.
In my letter to the wardens I disclaimed any intention to "tear down
the walls" or to do more things for prisoners-and I indicated that
prison life would, if anything, be harder under my program because, among
other things, those prisoners who had been predators in the community would
not only work harder but would also experience, perhaps for the first time,
some degree of guilt and remorse.
At this point you have every right to demand of me, "How, if we still
keep them in prison, do we get rid of the coercion which you insist is the
Achilles heel of corrections?" My answer is this: getting into my program
will not be a matter of coercion. Indeed, not only will they have to "fight"
their way in, but they will have to stretch themselves to their limits and
beyond, in order to remain.
Here is what I would say to prisoners:
The Director and his Wardens set aside a section of the Institution where
prisoners and staff can live and work together. The work will be long and
hard. It will require an authentic confrontation of the Self by all concerned.
It will require the development of a strong mutual trust and confidence.
After that trust is established, "straight" people from the outside
would be invited to come here to live and learn with us, for brief but intensive
periods as fellow prisoners. Some of those straight people will include
the cop who arrested you, the D.A. who charged you, the citizen who was
victimized, the Judge who sent you here, and the legislator who made the
law you violated.
And while the prisoners are confronting themselves, their guests will be
looking critically into their own attitudes and operations! Instead of everyone
blaming the system or other people, all parties will begin taking their
own share of responsibility and-rather than demanding that others change,
will move to change themselves.
Impossible? We did it eight times in seven states and by the end of each
workshop most of the participants had come to realize some basic truths.
If you want someone to feel sorry, feel sorry. If you want to be forgiven,
forgive. If you want someone to change himself for the better, change yourself
for the better.
POSTSCRIPT: The Oregon Director of Corrections and a majority of his wardens
ultimately rejected our proposal. Instead of repeating the adventurous experiment
we began in the 1960s,* Oregon opted for the more traditional forms of penal
reform. After the 1994 elections, the liberal Director of Corrections was
replaced, and the future of penal reform in Oregon is now moot.
*FOR A REPORT ON ONE SUCH SUCCESSFUL CONFERENCE, PLEASE TURN THE PAGE.
TO MY PARTNERS IN DIALOGUE
Some of you believe it unrealistic to expect that workshops could change
the course of American penology. I admit that one side-effect of each workshop
was to destroy the careers of some participants, including a Corrections
Commissioner who told his astonished colleagues, "We have met the enemy
and he is us. And by 'us' I mean state government and government generally."
That man got fired-and went on to become a relentless fighter for prisoners'
rights.
The workshops did "convert" many participants, including convicts.
Even so, personal conversion is not sufficient. The process must go far
beyond 8 to 10 days. I propose that it take place continuously in every
institution, that every joint become a School for the Community, with all
participants taking the roles of students and teachers.
Prisoners have much to teach about the self-destructiveness of crime and
the stupidity of imprisonment. Citizens have much to teach about what it
takes to live harmoniously within the community. Correctional workers need
to experience the pains of imprisonment. Judges need to learn how long even
one day in the hole lasts. Convicts need to hear from crime victims. Crime
victims need to understand that imprisonment decreases the possibility of
true change of heart-because it answers one wrong with another.
Many letters implied that oppression by the authorities was solely responsible
for whatever convicts do that is stupid or wrong. I agree that you have
every right to blame your oppressors for the injustices they commit. But
do you really want to give them credit for "making me do it"?
If "they" are responsible for making you bad, then "they"
must also be responsible for making you good, right? Wrong! I insist-as
I hope you do-on taking responsibility for my own actions.
The great frustration for us all is the felt inability to change circumstances
in the direction of our desires. Prisoners would like to change the attitudes
of citizens, law-makers, judges, C.O.s, etc. These, on the other hand, would
like to change the attitudes of present and potential convicts. Neither
group is currently getting a fair hearing from the other.
But imagine what convict leaders could accomplish, first with themselves,
then with their brothers and sisters on the Main Line, if they asked this
question: What can we do, entirely on our own, to change our situation?
One thing you can do, it seems to me, is end the race war, the drug war,
the killing, the hustling, the loan-sharking, the strong-arming, etc. that
make the prison much more hellish than it is all by itself. That change
can destroy the one plausible excuse that custody has for oppression-that
they have to protect you from one another. Why wait for The Man? You can
accomplish this with no help from anyone. And while you're doing this on
the inside, we and our allies will engage others on the outside to struggle
against our own unrighteousness.
Let's continue to contend with one another. And please keep challenging
me. With love and respect,
-Richard R. Korn, Ph.D
Formerly Director of Treatment
New Jersey State Prison
