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Economics and the social reality of prisons
0047.2352/82/010025-11S3.00/0 Copyright 0 1982 Pcrgamon Press Ltd.
Journalof Crimmol Jurrice, Vol. IO, pp. 25-35 (1982) Pergamon Press, Printed in U.S.A.
ECONOMICS
AND THE SOCIAL REALITY OF PRISONS
JOHN A. CONLEY Criminal Justice Faculty The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Milwaukee. Wisconsin 53201
ABSTRACT On both sides of the Atlantic penal history is the object of a resurgent and revisionist interest. American historical scholarship conceptualized the prison as a natural result of humanitarian reforms in a society characterized by social and political consensus. European scholars and the radical or new criminologists in America, however, challenged this traditional view by linking the prison to the clash between social and economic classes in a society characterized by conflict. In spite of the existence of some theoretical literature that emphasizes a general economic relationship to law creation and criminality, American penal historians have ignored the possible importance of this theoretical perspective to an explanation of the origin and development of prisons. This study is an attempt to evaluate the importance of economic forces to the creation and development of the prison in America.
history is now the object of a resurgent and revisionist interest. European scholars have focused their studies on the relationship between economic developments and changes in the philosophy and mechanisms of punishment. Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punishment (1977) argues that the prison was not a humanitarian product of the enlightenment period, but was a new, more repressive mechanism for disciplining the lower classes. The industrial society demanded a self-regulating citizenry and the state’s reorganization of the schools, military, asylums, and prisons was designed to present a living model of what society should be. Foucault’s work deals more with the concepts of discipline and punishment than it does with prisons; that is, his focus is on the shifts in the state’s power and how it used that power to control the citizenry.
In 1938 Rusche and Kirchheimer published Punishment and Social Structure, which presented an extensive historical analysis of the changing modes of punishment. The general thesis of this book is that the nature of punishment is closely interrelated with the culture that produces it. Specifically, the authors argued that the character of punishment is shaped by the economic and social history of the culture. The book and its thesis was to influence criminologists in Europe, but American criminologists ignored its message.’ This situation obtained in spite of the book’s challenging thesis and Thorsten Sellin’s observation in the foreword that scholars “will find in this book a stimulant of thought which all too few [American] publications in this field of research provide” (p. vii). On both sides of the Atlantic penal 25
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JOHN A. CONLEY
Foucault reminds us, however, that history is chaotic, full of ruptures and discontinuities that result in mutations of previous experience. Changes in the mode of punishments from physical mutilation to incarceration did not flow smoothly from one to the other because of a humanitarian movement. Rather they were the result of new economic forces that at times followed and at other times led the enlightenment movement but were also separate from that movement. Michael Ignatieff ‘s study (1978) of England’s Pentonville Prison links the origin of the prison to the industrial period in England. The economic hardships for the lower classes brought on by the impact of the industrial revolution resulted in a period of mass social protests by the lower classes. Ignatieff shows how the new prison and incarceration as punishment gave the state increased latitude in controlling the protests. European scholars have been more willing than their American counterparts to study the prison within the social context of economic forces. American scholars have conceptualized the prison as originating in the humanitarian reforms that replaced the brutal, physical forms of punishment with imprisonment for reformative objectives (Barnes, 1974; Teeters 1953, 1957; Lewis, 1922). The significant and sweeping study of asylums in nineteenth-century America by David Rothman (1971) continues this perspective by portraying the prison as a reflection of a consensual value of order during a particularly dynamic period of social change. Jacobs’s (1972) history of Stateville prison chronicles the internal changes of the prison as it responds to external changes in societal standards. Neither these nor other’ traditional studies link the history of the asylum or the prison to the economic forces of the culture. This neglect of the relationship of economic forces to the emergence of prisons occurs in the traditional or mainline criminological literature in spite of the existence of some theoretical literature that emphasizes the relationship of economics to law creation and criminality generally (Bonger, 1916; Sellin, 1937; Hall, 1952; Chambliss,
1964) and to the emergence of the prison arnes, 1921; McKelvey. 1936; Lewis, (B 1965: 178-200; see also Void, 1979: 161-180 for a review of that literature). American penal historians have ignored the possible importance of this theoretical perspective to an explanation of the origin and development of prisons. Recently there appeared on the research scene a “new” or “radical” criminology that challenged the mainline or traditional paradigm by focusing on social conflict and the importance of economic interests to the structure and processes of the criminal justice system, rather than the etiology of criminal behavior (see for example, Quinney, 1970, 1973, 1977; Platt, 1974; Chambliss, 1975, 1971; Turk, 1969, 1975; Pepinsky, 1976). Although the “new” or “radical” criminology has theoretical links to mainstream criminology (Garofalo, 1978; Mannheim, 1972; Gibbons, 1979), it has received considerable attack from the mainstream criminologists (Criminology, 1979). What is interesting is that the attacks on the theoretical propositions of the “radicals” are based on metaphysical forensics rather than the testing of propositions through scientific inquiry. This study is a modest attempt to address the question of the importance of economic forces (or interests) to the origin of the prison and to its later development. A major assumption argued here is that there may be significant differences between the nature and importance of the social forces affecting the creation of a prison and the social forces shaping the use of that prison over time. For example, Miller has argued persuasively that the nineteenth-century prison in the eastern states was designed to produce a profit through the exploitation of inmate labor (1974) and that the Auburn and selfPenitentiary was “inextricably consciously tied to the changing wage labor markets of a nascent capitalist society” (1980). Takagi (1975) argues that the experiments at the Walnut Street Jail were not designed to test humanitarian alternatives to corporal punishment but were successful attempts to centralize the state’s power over
Economics
and the Social Reality
inmates. McKelvey’s early work (1936) clearly outlines the regional economic differences that shaped the structure and character of prisons and Lewis (1965) found that the potential for prison profits dominated penal policies in upstate New York during the early nineteenth century. In his study of the Louisiana penal system Carleton (1977) found that political corruption had its foundation in the exploitation of inmate labor by private economic interests. Conley (1980) and Hougen (1977) observed that, in Oklahoma and Kansas respectively. economic issues surrounding the prison industries dominated the attention of state officials for decades. Except for Miller (1980) and Conley (1980), however, the traditional research does not acknowledge the theoretical importance of economic forces to an explanation of the origin or the development of prisons. The major thrust of previous research relegates these economic concerns to a simple question of state economy of government, that is, the concern of the state was merely to manage its prisons economically by using inmate labor and prison industries to save tax dollars. The “radical” criminologists disagree with this interpretation and urge scholars to look deeper into the economic relationship.
THE ORIGIN OF THE PRISON AND ECONOMIC FACTORS Operating with the assumption that there may indeed be substantive differences in the social forces that shape the state’s creation of a prison and its later use of that prison, and using Oklahoma’s experience as an example, the theoretical issues raised earlier will be explored in more detail. The sociopolitical conditions in Oklahoma during the period when the state created its penal system will be studied. An analysis of the shifting sociopolitical environment over a sixty-year period will be conducted to determine what social forces buffeted the penal question and how those social forces shaped penal policy. Throughout the analysis the focus will be on the relationship between
27
of Prisons
economic factors and the social reality of punishment. Oklahoma was a federal territory from 1880 to 1906 and became a state in 1907. Before statehood Oklahoma contracted with the state of Kansas and shipped Oklahoma convicts to the Kansas State Penitentiary at Lansing (McKelvey, 1933; Litton, 1957: 1, 443). This contractual arrangement satisfied both political and economic needs because the limited population, scattered over a wide geographic area, made a large penal institution unnecessary. In addition, the undeveloped territorial economy, based on subsistence farming, could not afford to support large-scale prisons, while the relatively few large landowners had no need for such an institution. Finally, the contractual arrangement with Kansas was a paragon of the economy-of-government model because the state of Kansas provided the capital intensive facility, the care and feeding of the prisoners, and the staff to administer the institution. The Oklahoma territory had to pay Kansas a mere twenty-five to thirty-five cents a day per inmate (Journal of House Proceedings, 1897:40, 100-103, 119-120; Journal
of Council
Proceedings,
1897:97).
This arrangement continued for a few years after statehood in 1907, but there was increasing interest in constructing a prison in Oklahoma. The social and political conditions in Oklahoma at this point were not atypical. The state had competing interest groups for and against the prison idea, and a vocal and politically powerful spokesperson for the humanitarian rehabilitative ideal. The arrangement with the Kansas prison involved political corruption, brutality, and scandal. All these forces converged on the penal question between 1908 and 1910. These conditions were the same ones that scholars who have studied the creation (a half-century earlier) of the prison in the eastern states have found. They concluded that the prison resulted from shifts in social values regarding the punishment response to antisocial behavior. The details surrounding the creation of Oklahoma’s prison system raise serious doubt about the validity of that thesis.
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A. CONLEY
Competing political and economic interest groups caused delays in appropriating the money to construct the Oklahoma prison. The eastern and western factions of the legislature blocked each other’s attempt to have the prison constructed in their opponent’s region. At stake were the large number of jobs associated with the construction and the administration of the prison. In addition, the potential economic windfall for local merchants and suppliers in the region surrounding the prison was not lost on these factions. Finally, the level of government that was to control the prison was also an important issue because it addressed the potential for the centralization of state power. The various interest groups had not yet worked out satisfactory compromises on these issues. All these competing interests required resolution, but the state had not developed a rational model of penal reform that would address the social reality of the prison and at the same time provide a philosophical foundation for the creation of a prison. The state had not defined a role for the prison beyond that of incarcerating convicts, and Kansas served that function well. The spokesperson for the humanitarian philosophy of imprisonment was the state’s first Commissioner of Charities and Corrections, Kate Barnard. Barnard was an indomitable and persistent reformer of the progressive mold. ,Guided by her humanitarian philosophy and her shrewd ability for political compromise, she campaigned vigorously for the laboring poor, convicts, and the destitute. She believed strongly in political activism for social reform; politics and social justice went hand in hand. Barnard had organized a coalition of labor and charitable reform groups and perfected the technique of canvassing politicians for their votes during the constitutional convention of 1907-1908. Barnard’s political power emanated from her leadership of that coalition. After successfully campaigning for the newly created state office of Commissioner of Charities and Corrections, an office created by and for her, she- turned her attention to the prison situation (Bryant,
1969; Short. 1972). The commissioner had constitutional authority to investigate complaints made against any of the public and private charitable and correctional institutions that handled state-supported patients and inmates (Oklahoma Constitution. Art. 6, sets. 27-30). The powers of the office and the reform interests of Kate Barnard quickly focused on the problems of Oklahoma’s convicts. Barnard had received numerous complaints about the treatment of inmates and the general conditions at the Kansas penitentiary. In August of 1908 Barnard.visited the prison incognito as a tourist and conducted a preliminary inspection. After completing the tour she identified herself and demanded full access to the institution. Barnard returned to Oklahoma and wrote a report on her findings (Charities and Correcrions Report, 1908:5), but did not release it although the press had given much attention to her inspection and to rumors of brutality, corruption, and a pending scandal. Barnard was a shrewd politician working in a conservative, pragmatic political environment. She knew from experience that a scandal revolving around brutality and corruption issues related to Oklahoma’s convicts would not be enough to generate widespread support for the construction of a prison on Oklahoma soil. Although she wanted the state to create its own penal system in order to implement the progressive ideal of rehabilitation that she had preached for so long, she bided her time and held the report for four months. In the meantime proponents of the prison began to realize that the prison could serve a broader function than merely incarcerating convicts. Governor Charles Haskell (Governor’s Message, 1907-08) said that the state needed a prison because of its symbolic representation of order and because inmate labor could be used to ease the labor shortage in selected trades by having inmates work on public roads and other needed public improvements. These ideas represented recognition that the state could exploit inmate labor to serve larger economic interests. The building of state roads
Economics
and the Social Reality
would facilitate the economic growth of the state by improving travel for intrastate commerce. With pressure building from the press and with encouragement from proponents of an Oklahoma prison, Barnard released her preliminary report (Charities and Corrections Report, 1908:9-20) in December, four months after her visit. Her report was a skillful, classic example of a progressive’s outrage. It defined the conditions at the Lansing prison as below acceptable humanitarian and social justice standards and as the antithesis of rehabilitation. In the report she charged the Kansas officials with graft, corruption, and brutality in the operation of the prison. The exploitation of inmate labor and the systematic methods of torture used by the prison staff made up a large part of the report. Barnard demanded and received a full-scale investigation by a joint, biueribbon committee appointed by both states. The final report of the commission, headed by Barnard, detailed the extensive use of torture at the prison, corruption, and the exploitation of inmate labor by private entrepreneurs for large profits. Oklahoma officials did not miss the economic message contained in the report. While Barnard did not write the final report as a means to show the close relationship between economics and the accumulation of capital, the exploitation of inmate labor, and the administration of the prison, the examples used in the ninety-page report to show brutality, corruption, and graft clearly portrayed the Lansing prison as a profitable economic enterprise. The contracting of inmates to private contractors in laborintensive industries such as coal mining, the production of goods, such as furniture, that were not competitive with industries in the private sector, and the production of goods, such as binder twine for farmers, that were in high demand by powerful interest groups and then sold cheaply to those groups, paid large profits to private entrepreneurs and to public officials directly involved in prison administration. In all respects this report was not different from hundreds of earlier reports about
of Prisons
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prison conditions in the eastern states. Scholars (Barnes, 1974; Teeters. 1953,1957; Lewis, 1922; Lewis, 1965; McKelvey. 1936, 1977; Jacobs. 1972) who studied prison development in those states focused on the humanitarian issues to buttress their theory that prisons were designed to rehabilitate inmates and that incompetent or corrupt prison officials deviated from that goal. These scholars ignored the pervasiveness of the economic issues and by doing so they missed the relationship of a capitalistic value system to the creation and operation of the prisons. In 1909, when the final prison report was released, Oklahoma was in the “nascent stages of capitalism.” The state wanted industrial growth. Governor Haskell outlined that objective in his Inaugural Address (1907) when he encouraged the development of manufacturing and mining. He argued that the farmer, industrialist, laborer, and even government would be partners in a new economic order. Governor Haskell extolled the economic potential of capitalism. It was in this climate of concern for economic growth that Oklahoma’s prison system emerged in 1909. State officials, supported by economic interest groups, began to reevaluate the prison question in terms of its economic potential. Mining, grocery, brick, clothing, and farming interests saw the direct economic benefit each could receive from the use of inmate labor to grow or manufacture goods cheaply which they could then market at huge profits. Economic considerations were overriding in their influence in the shift in the state’s commitment to construct a prison. As soon as the state made the practical link between the prison and prison labor, stressing the benefit for specific economic interest groups, it moved rapidly and purposefully into prison construction. The state designed its prison on the industrial model of the Auburn, New York prison. The huge wall surrounded ten acres of land that housed two cell blocks with the remaining space reserved for factory buildings (Governor’s Message, 1910; Park, 1914). An additional 2,000 acres surround-
30
JOHN
A. CONLEY
ing the prison also were reserved for further industrial and agricultural development. The industrial prison in Oklahoma was to provide direct economic benefits to private interest groups and it was to serve as a model for industrial growth in the state (Harlow’s Weekly, 1912:14; Fowler, 1933: 168; Parnell, 1976:406; Charities and Corrections Report, 1919:23). Although there was no single factor that caused Oklahoma to build a prison, it is clear that the state’s commitment to an industrial prison was shaped by social and economic forces external to the juristic or intellectual issues surrounding the question of penal reform. The crystallization of the prison idea and its role in society paralleled major social changes that occurred in Oklahoma, and the character of the prison reflected the cultural values of capitalism. A major scandal over abuses at the Kansas prison was not sufficient to move the state to action regarding its penal policy. Economic considerations played a far more significant role in shaping the state’s response to the prison question than did penological theory, legal and moral issues, or public scandals over penal corruption and brutality. These economic considerations were not just questions of per capita costs, construction outlays, and annual budgets. Oklahoma viewed its prison and the subsequent policy surrounding it as an integral part of the larger social and economic destiny in the new state. Indeed, it was not until state leaders integrated the prison idea with the practical goal of economic development that any significant action was taken to construct the prison.
INTEREST GROUPS, PROFIT, AND OPPOSITION TO PRISON-MADE GOODS Traditional theories about the history of the penitentiary, and American penal systems in general conclude that the state had “good intentions” (McKelvey, 1977) when it built the penitentiary and that throughout its history the state had the best interest of
society and the inmate clearly in view. This consensus model of prison history does not appear to be the social reality, given Oklahoma’s early experience as a representative example. The penitentiary was created in a pragmatic environment influenced by capitalistic cultural values and dominated by specific economic interest groups. Given that beginning, it does not appear appropriate to evaluate the prison’s development solely from a rehabilitative perspective. Oklahoma’s prison was not designed to achieve the humanitarian goals of training. moral reform, or social integration. These goals were never given serious discussion by state leaders during the early period of the prison’s history. The primary objective for the prison was to serve the economic interest groups who supported the prison idea and these groups directly influenced penal policy for the next fifty years. Economic considerations, not rehabilitative goals, dominated the operation of the penitentiary. The type of staff hired to administer the institution, the laws passed by the legislature, policies developed by the Prison Board, and the continued political corruption that constantly raised its head all served, or were a product of, an elite class of business and government officials who were, in the best sense of the concept, capitalists. These individuals were guided by the profit motive; they made decisions regarding the institution on the basis of the impact those decisions would have on the accumulation of capital. The state appointed wardens because of their business acumen, not their penal experience. Wardens had to be businessmen who could +‘supervise the large manufacturing operation and who would extend and enlarge the industries by reinvesting profits for the benefit of the state” (Governor’s Message, 1923). This elite class was not a rigid. closed group of individuals. The membership shifted among a variety of interest groups depending on conditions in the economy and the impact it had on the interest group in question. When the records of the Oklahoma prison are analyzed, it is almost impossible to
Economics
and the Social Reality
conclude that the prison was a public institution operated for the benefit of the larger society; private businesses controlled the daily operations. Every decision made about legislative appropriations for the prison, staff appointments, and inmate assignments had as their end result the enhancement of the productive capacity of the prison and in turn the increase in the profits of the private businesses linked to the prison. The farmers pressured the legislature for a factory where inmates would produce binding twine and it became one of the largest industries of the prison (Governor’s Message, 1923; Annual Report, 1921). Clothing retailers contracted with the prison for inmate labor to manufacture shirts, overalls, and pants on the machines purchased by the state (Annual Report, 1921). Brick and tile interests used inmate labor in a financially crippled brick company near the prison not only to manufacture bricks for the expanding building trade throughout the state, but also to build new factories on the prison grounds. In the process, the state completely rebuilt the brick company’s factory with convict labor and allocated 25 percent of all the brick produced for the state back to the company for resale (Governor’s Message, 1923; Harlow’s Weekly, 1914). These are only a few examples of the close relationship between private economic interests and the prison’s manufacturing operations. The interdependence of prison and private industry was the overriding characteristic of the successful industrial prison. Factory construction, marketing strategies, and production methods in one way or another used convict labor to generate profits for private entrepreneurs, private companies, and the prison. The support of prison industries by private interest groups was not consistent or monolithic, however, because the shifting character of the economy directly affected these interest groups, and in turn the prison industries, in different ways at different times. This variability of economic impact has not been recognized by penal historians who have studied the opposition that developed to prison-made goods. In the 1920s to
of Prisons
31
1930s federal and state laws placed severe limitations on the production and sale of prison-made goods, but that opposition came from larger, national associations of labor and commercial interests while many of the state and local economic interests wished prison production to continue. In Oklahoma, the brick and tile interests by 1930 had switched positions and opposed the production of prison-made brick because they had developed their own manufacturing capacity.’ The mining (Harlow’s Weekly, 1918) and printing industries’ also opposed inmate production in their areas. On the other hand, clothing retailers and the Grocer’s Association supported prisonproduced goods ‘because the retail mark-up was profitable for them.4 From these examples of competing positions on the production of prison-made goods, which carried well into the 194Os, it appears that there was no consensus about or monolithic opposition to the production of goods by inmates in prison industries. There appear to be two related but distinct social conditions that shaped this situation. First, the state experienced a substantial growth in its private manufacturing capacity which made the efficient use of prison labor and prison industries marginal. This growth in private production capacity, however, increased the demand for retail goods and the commercial merchants still saw economic benefits to be gained if prisoners continued to produce goods that the merchants could retail without the added expense of a wholesaler. Second, the social and economic system operated not on a consensus basis but through competing interests. Industries that supported prison production quickly withdrew that support when their interest no longer required the exploitation of inmate labor. They opposed the prison industries at this point but lost the fight because they were not powerful enough to overcome resistance to their demands for curtailing the prison industries. This was true at the national and the state level. When labor joined with certain industrial and commercial interests in the fight, the federal and state governments quickly
32
JOHN A. CONLEY
passed legislation limiting the manufacture and sale of prison-made goods. There still was no national consensus; many states and smaller interest groups opposed the legislation, but they lost to their more powerful opponents. An inverse relationship existed between the state’s ability to maintain specific prison industries and the ability of the private sector to produce these same goods. As soon as private industries developed their own capacity to meet market demands they used their economic and political power to curtail or stop production by the prison. External economic factors continued to buffet the state’s prison industries well into the mid-twentieth century. Because the state had made such a large investment in factory production in its prison, it too suffered economic setbacks as a result of the 1929 depression. Sales dropped, production decreased, and inmate idleness increased dramatically during the late 1920s and early 1930s. As the national economy began to rebound from the depression, federal consultants encouraged Oklahoma to shift from large-scale factory production to smaller, craft-oriented industries and to increase its use of inmates on public works projects (U.S. Prison Industries, 1937; Flynn, 1950). The private sector did not want, and the federal government did not encourage, competition from prison industries. Even the onset of World War II did not immediately change the economic conditions of the prison industries. The War Production Board quickly placed severe limits on prison industries by controlling their purchase of raw materials and the sale of prison-made goods. By that action, the War Production Board protected the private sector from competition from prison industries; the economic benefits of war production would accrue only to private businesses. The capacity of the private sector to meet the rapidly increasing needs of the war effort, however, was limited and the government was forced to look to state prisons for help. The War Production Board eased restrictions on prison production and federal contracts began to flow to state prisons
that had an industrial capacity. Oklahoma quickly contracted for the production of such goods as clothing, rope, bricks, and furniture and earned more than a half million dollars a year during the war years.’ As soon as the war ended, however, the prewar restrictions were reinstituted and prison production continued its rapid downward slide once again, never to recover fully its productive capacity.
CONCLUSION In spite of Jackson Toby’s (1979) assessment of the “new criminology” as the same “old sentimentality” or the mainline criminologists’ concern with the “polemical,” “ideological,” and “socialist” aspects of the “new criminology,” there appears to be some merit in the growing research emphasis on the economic factors related to the social reality of prisons. American prisons may have represented the best intentions of social reformers and the construction of prisons may have been perceived by these reformers as a commitment by society to the rehabilitation of the deviant. But there is a wide gap between a blueprint for reform and the actual implementation of that reform. One does not have to succumb to a rigid, classical Marxist ideology to acknowledge that economic factors would, indeed, must, play an important role in influencing the administration of justice in general and the prison movement in particular. To deny this social fact is to reconstruct penal history in a social vacuum. The social and political values of American society developed alongside the economic value system of capitalism. These economic values of necessity influenced the intellectual and political perspectives of social reformers and state officials. While this economic perspective was evident in Oklahoma’s decision to build its prison, economic factors generated much influence in the construction of prisons in other states as well. Why criminologists and penal historians have chosen not to analyze the impact of these economic factors on the
33
Economics and the Social Reality of Prisons
prison idea is unclear. To acknowledge that these scholars focused too narrowly on the eastern states of Pennsylvania and New York, relied primarily on historical sources relating to the leaders of penal reform, and analyzed only the philosophical differences of penal reformers does not of itself explain why these same scholars ignored or downplayed economic issues when their research led them in that direction. One tentative explanation may be that too much effort has been spent studying the origin of the prison and the accompanying ideological rhetoric without following its development through time. In addition, it has been assumed that the rehabilitative idea was in fact the fundamental philosophy of the early proponents of the prison, and scholars have attempted to locate support for that assumption in their concentration on the origin of the prison while ignoring other relevant factors that can be better understood only if research includes the development as well as the origin of the prison. When that approach was applied to the Oklahoma experience it was found that indeed larger economic forces affected the prison, its policies, and its administration over the sixty years after its creation. The rigid economic determinism of Marxism and the Rusche/Kirchheimer model are not in evidence, but the general thesis of Rusche and Kirchheimer that economic factors affect penal issues is supported. In addition, there is much historical evidence to support the conflict theorists. Vested economic interest groups used the prison and its captive labor force to generate large profits from the sale of prison-made goods. Economic interests competed with one another and with the penal reformers as their economic needs demanded. These economic interest groups were neither for nor against penal reform or prison production; they supported or fought these issues on the basis of the impact those issues would have on the economic welfare of their own industries. There were winners and losers in this competition and the winners were usually the more powerful groups. but membership in these groups was fluid, not static.
To understand better the role of prisons in society and to evaluate better their successes and failures in American history, it appears that scholars need to revise their assumptions about the origin of prisons and critically assess prison development. If the primary goal of prisons was the reformation of the individual, then one might conclude that the prison experiment was a failure. If, however, prisons had other less idealistic and more pragmatic goals such as serving vested economic interests, then historical research must address a new set of criteria in order to evaluate the contribution prisons made to society. It is not enough to link the prison to larger social forces in society or to the tenets of capitalism in order to understand its origin or evaluate its development. What is needed is the identification of specific influences, tracing their impact over time, and ranking them according to their importance to penal developments.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author wishes to thank Carl E. Pope for his suggestion to write this article and for his critical comments on an earlier draft. NOTES.
’ For an informative treatment of the history of the difficulties surrounding the book’s publication Dario Melossi (1978; 1980).
see
2 This conclusion
is based on my reading of the following records located in the Oklahoma State archives: Letter, Board of Public Affairs to Warden C.P. Burford. January 1. 1948; State Archives Governor Turner Records, Penitentiary File: Letters, Brick and Tile Association to E.W. Smart, Chairman Board of Public Affairs, July 2, August 1. and September 5. 1940, State Archives Board of Public Affairs Records; Correspondence State Institution. 10. 1940, State Archives Board of Public Affairs Records. Correspondence Penitentiary; Letters. H.C. Rice to Harry V. Kahle, May 5, 1925 and J.G. Puterbaugh to Governor M.E. Trapp, May 1, 1925, State Archives Governor Trapp Records, Subject File.
’ The printers in the state were a powerful and vocal group because most of the printing business was conducted by small-town newspaper companies. See Letter. State Board of Affairs to Governor J.B. Robertson. n.d.. State Archives Governor Robertson Records, Correspondence; Letters. Clyde E. Muchmore to Carl Rice, Board of Affairs, Septem-
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JOHN
A. CONLEY
ber 10, 1925 and Vice Versa, September 12, 1925. State Archives Governor Trapp Records, Subject File.
’ This conflict
between economic interest groups is clearly shown in the fight between the Grocers and their parent lobby group, the Employer’s Association. See Letters, John M. Hammong to H.V. Kahle, May 23, 1925, to J.T. Griffith, May 25, 1925, to Governor M.E. Trapp May 25, 1925, State Archives Governor Trapp Records, Subject File; Governor’s Messaae. 1927. 45: Platform. Henrv S. Johnston Democratic Candidate for Governor, h.d. (1926), State Archives, Governor Johnston Records.
’ For the state’s attempt to win war contracts. see Letter, Warden Fred Hunt to Board of Public Affairs, October 23, 1942, Monthly Report of Contracts Accepted for War Production, December, 1942 and January and February, 1943, State Archives Board of Public Affairs, Correspondence Penitentiary. For Oklahoma’s attempt to develop a market with other states and for a list of the type and amount of military contracts, see generally Letters, Board of Public Affairs to various state penal institutions for 1942 to 1944 and Memo, Virgil Brown, Chairman, Board of Public Affairs to Governor’s Office, November 15, 1943, State Archives, Board of Public Affairs, Correspondence Prison Industries; Letter, Warden Fred-Hunt to Board of Public Affairs. March 3, 1943. State Archives. Board of Public Affairs, Correspondence Penitentiary.
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Flynn, F. T. (1950). The federal government and the prison labor problem in the states. Sot. Serv. Rev. 24~21-22. Foner, P. S. (1977). American socialism and black Americans from the age of Jackson IO World War II. Westport. CT: Greenwood Press. Foucault, M. (1977). Disciphne New York: Pantheon Books.
Fowler. 0. P. (1933). The Huskell regime: The intimate life of Charles Nathaniel HaskeN. Oklahoma City: Boles. Garofalo. J. (1978). Radical criminology and criminal justice: Points of divergence and contact. Crime and Sot. Just. 10 (Fall-Winter): 17-27. Gibbons, D. C. (1979). The criminological enterprise: Theories and perspectives. Englewood Cliffs. NJ: Prentice-Hall. Governor’s Message to the State Legislature (190708). State of Oklahoma. -(1910).
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1923). State of Oklahoma.
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1927). State of Oklahoma.
Hall. J. (1952). Bobbs-Merrill.
Theft. law and society. Indianapolis:
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Harlow’s Weekly
(1912).
-(1914).
July
-(1918).
January
October
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Park, R. (1914). History of the Oklahoma Penirenriary. localed (II McAlrsrcr. McAlester. n.p.
19.
12. 16.
Hougen, H. R. (1977). The impact of politics and prison industry on the general management of the Kansas State Penitentiary. Kansus Hisf. Q. 43 (October):3. 297-318.
Parncll. Naylor.
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( 1976).
Pepinsky. H. E. (1976). York: Academic Press.
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Ignatieff. M. (1978). A jusr measurr of pain: The penitentiary system in the industrial revolution. I7501850. New York: Pantheon Books.
Platt. T. (1974). Prospects for a radical criminology in the United States. Crimeand Sot. Jus/. 1 (SpringSummer):?-IO.
Inaugural Address of Governor C.N. Haskell State of Oklahoma.
Guinney. R. (1973). Little, Brown.
Jacobs. J. B. (1972). mass society. Chicago:
( 1907).
Stateville: The penitentiary in University of Chicago Press.
Journal of the Council Proceedings of the Terriiorial Legislative Assembly (1897). State of Oklahoma. -(1899).
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-(1901).
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Journal of the House Proceedings of rhe Territorial Legislative Assembly (1897). State of Oklahoma. Lewis. D. (1965). From Newgatero Dannemora: The rise of the penirentiary in New York, 1795-1848. Ithaca: Cornell. Lewis, 0. F. (1922). The development prisons and prison customs, I776-1845.
McKelvey, movement. 438.
H. (1972). Pioneers NJ: Patterson-Smith.
1970). Brown.
The social reality of crime. Boston:
-( 1977). Class. sune and crime: On rhe theory and practice of criminal justice. New York: David Mckay. Reynolds. J. N. ( 1890). The rwin hells: A thrilling narrative of life in rhe Kansas and Missouri penirentiaries. Chicago: BEE Publishing. Rothman. D. (1971). The discovery of the asylum: Social order and disorder in the new republic. New York: Little. Brown. Rusche. G.. and Kirchheimer 0. (1939). Punishment and social structure. New York: Columbia University Press.
of American A1bany:n.p.
Litton, G. (1957). History of Oklahoma at the golden anniversary of statehood. 4 ~01s. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company. Mannheim, Montclair,
-( Little.
Critique of legal order. Boston:
Sellin. J. T. (1937). York: Social Science
Crime in rhe depression. Research Council.
Short. J. (1972). Kate Barnard: Liberated Master’s thesis. University of Oklahoma.
in criminology.
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Takagi. P. (1975). The Walnut Street jail: A penal reform to centralize the power of the state. Fed. Prob. (December).
B. (1933). Penology in the westward Pacific Hisf. Rev. 2 (November):418-
-(1936). American prisons: A srudy in American social history prior to 1915. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Teeters. N. K. (1953). The cradle of fhepenitentiarsc The Walnuf Street Jail. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Prison Society.
-(1977). American prisons: A history of good intenfions. Montclair, NJ: Patterson-Smith.
-( 1957). The prison at Philadelphia Cherryhill: The separate system of penal discipline, 1829-1913. New York: Columbia University Press.
Melossi. D. (1978). Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer: Punishmem and Social Structure. Crime and Sot. Just. 9 (Spring-.Summer):73-85. -(1980). Georg Rusche: A biographical Crime and Sot. Just. 14 (Winter):Sl-63.
essay.
Miller, M. B. (1974). At hard labor: Rediscovering the 19th century prison. Issues in Criminol. (April):91-114.
Toby. J. (1979). The new criminology is the old sentimentality. Criminof. 16 (February):516-526. Turk. A. (1969). Criminality and legal order. Chicago: Rand McNally.
9
-(1980). Sinking gradually into the proletariat: The emergence of the penitentiary in the United States. Crime and Sot. Jusl. 14 (Winter): 41. Morgan. H. W.. and Morgan. A. H. (1977). Oklahoma: A bicentennial history. New York: Norton.
-(1975). Prospects and pitfalls for a radical criminology: A critical response to Platt. Crime and Sot. Jusf. 4 (Fall-Winter) 41-43. U.S. Prison Industries Reorganization Administration (1937). The prison labor problem in Oklahoma: A survey. Washington, DC. Vold. G. B. (1979). Theorerical criminology. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Journalof Crimmol Jurrice, Vol. IO, pp. 25-35 (1982) Pergamon Press, Printed in U.S.A.
ECONOMICS
AND THE SOCIAL REALITY OF PRISONS
JOHN A. CONLEY Criminal Justice Faculty The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Milwaukee. Wisconsin 53201
ABSTRACT On both sides of the Atlantic penal history is the object of a resurgent and revisionist interest. American historical scholarship conceptualized the prison as a natural result of humanitarian reforms in a society characterized by social and political consensus. European scholars and the radical or new criminologists in America, however, challenged this traditional view by linking the prison to the clash between social and economic classes in a society characterized by conflict. In spite of the existence of some theoretical literature that emphasizes a general economic relationship to law creation and criminality, American penal historians have ignored the possible importance of this theoretical perspective to an explanation of the origin and development of prisons. This study is an attempt to evaluate the importance of economic forces to the creation and development of the prison in America.
history is now the object of a resurgent and revisionist interest. European scholars have focused their studies on the relationship between economic developments and changes in the philosophy and mechanisms of punishment. Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punishment (1977) argues that the prison was not a humanitarian product of the enlightenment period, but was a new, more repressive mechanism for disciplining the lower classes. The industrial society demanded a self-regulating citizenry and the state’s reorganization of the schools, military, asylums, and prisons was designed to present a living model of what society should be. Foucault’s work deals more with the concepts of discipline and punishment than it does with prisons; that is, his focus is on the shifts in the state’s power and how it used that power to control the citizenry.
In 1938 Rusche and Kirchheimer published Punishment and Social Structure, which presented an extensive historical analysis of the changing modes of punishment. The general thesis of this book is that the nature of punishment is closely interrelated with the culture that produces it. Specifically, the authors argued that the character of punishment is shaped by the economic and social history of the culture. The book and its thesis was to influence criminologists in Europe, but American criminologists ignored its message.’ This situation obtained in spite of the book’s challenging thesis and Thorsten Sellin’s observation in the foreword that scholars “will find in this book a stimulant of thought which all too few [American] publications in this field of research provide” (p. vii). On both sides of the Atlantic penal 25
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JOHN A. CONLEY
Foucault reminds us, however, that history is chaotic, full of ruptures and discontinuities that result in mutations of previous experience. Changes in the mode of punishments from physical mutilation to incarceration did not flow smoothly from one to the other because of a humanitarian movement. Rather they were the result of new economic forces that at times followed and at other times led the enlightenment movement but were also separate from that movement. Michael Ignatieff ‘s study (1978) of England’s Pentonville Prison links the origin of the prison to the industrial period in England. The economic hardships for the lower classes brought on by the impact of the industrial revolution resulted in a period of mass social protests by the lower classes. Ignatieff shows how the new prison and incarceration as punishment gave the state increased latitude in controlling the protests. European scholars have been more willing than their American counterparts to study the prison within the social context of economic forces. American scholars have conceptualized the prison as originating in the humanitarian reforms that replaced the brutal, physical forms of punishment with imprisonment for reformative objectives (Barnes, 1974; Teeters 1953, 1957; Lewis, 1922). The significant and sweeping study of asylums in nineteenth-century America by David Rothman (1971) continues this perspective by portraying the prison as a reflection of a consensual value of order during a particularly dynamic period of social change. Jacobs’s (1972) history of Stateville prison chronicles the internal changes of the prison as it responds to external changes in societal standards. Neither these nor other’ traditional studies link the history of the asylum or the prison to the economic forces of the culture. This neglect of the relationship of economic forces to the emergence of prisons occurs in the traditional or mainline criminological literature in spite of the existence of some theoretical literature that emphasizes the relationship of economics to law creation and criminality generally (Bonger, 1916; Sellin, 1937; Hall, 1952; Chambliss,
1964) and to the emergence of the prison arnes, 1921; McKelvey. 1936; Lewis, (B 1965: 178-200; see also Void, 1979: 161-180 for a review of that literature). American penal historians have ignored the possible importance of this theoretical perspective to an explanation of the origin and development of prisons. Recently there appeared on the research scene a “new” or “radical” criminology that challenged the mainline or traditional paradigm by focusing on social conflict and the importance of economic interests to the structure and processes of the criminal justice system, rather than the etiology of criminal behavior (see for example, Quinney, 1970, 1973, 1977; Platt, 1974; Chambliss, 1975, 1971; Turk, 1969, 1975; Pepinsky, 1976). Although the “new” or “radical” criminology has theoretical links to mainstream criminology (Garofalo, 1978; Mannheim, 1972; Gibbons, 1979), it has received considerable attack from the mainstream criminologists (Criminology, 1979). What is interesting is that the attacks on the theoretical propositions of the “radicals” are based on metaphysical forensics rather than the testing of propositions through scientific inquiry. This study is a modest attempt to address the question of the importance of economic forces (or interests) to the origin of the prison and to its later development. A major assumption argued here is that there may be significant differences between the nature and importance of the social forces affecting the creation of a prison and the social forces shaping the use of that prison over time. For example, Miller has argued persuasively that the nineteenth-century prison in the eastern states was designed to produce a profit through the exploitation of inmate labor (1974) and that the Auburn and selfPenitentiary was “inextricably consciously tied to the changing wage labor markets of a nascent capitalist society” (1980). Takagi (1975) argues that the experiments at the Walnut Street Jail were not designed to test humanitarian alternatives to corporal punishment but were successful attempts to centralize the state’s power over
Economics
and the Social Reality
inmates. McKelvey’s early work (1936) clearly outlines the regional economic differences that shaped the structure and character of prisons and Lewis (1965) found that the potential for prison profits dominated penal policies in upstate New York during the early nineteenth century. In his study of the Louisiana penal system Carleton (1977) found that political corruption had its foundation in the exploitation of inmate labor by private economic interests. Conley (1980) and Hougen (1977) observed that, in Oklahoma and Kansas respectively. economic issues surrounding the prison industries dominated the attention of state officials for decades. Except for Miller (1980) and Conley (1980), however, the traditional research does not acknowledge the theoretical importance of economic forces to an explanation of the origin or the development of prisons. The major thrust of previous research relegates these economic concerns to a simple question of state economy of government, that is, the concern of the state was merely to manage its prisons economically by using inmate labor and prison industries to save tax dollars. The “radical” criminologists disagree with this interpretation and urge scholars to look deeper into the economic relationship.
THE ORIGIN OF THE PRISON AND ECONOMIC FACTORS Operating with the assumption that there may indeed be substantive differences in the social forces that shape the state’s creation of a prison and its later use of that prison, and using Oklahoma’s experience as an example, the theoretical issues raised earlier will be explored in more detail. The sociopolitical conditions in Oklahoma during the period when the state created its penal system will be studied. An analysis of the shifting sociopolitical environment over a sixty-year period will be conducted to determine what social forces buffeted the penal question and how those social forces shaped penal policy. Throughout the analysis the focus will be on the relationship between
27
of Prisons
economic factors and the social reality of punishment. Oklahoma was a federal territory from 1880 to 1906 and became a state in 1907. Before statehood Oklahoma contracted with the state of Kansas and shipped Oklahoma convicts to the Kansas State Penitentiary at Lansing (McKelvey, 1933; Litton, 1957: 1, 443). This contractual arrangement satisfied both political and economic needs because the limited population, scattered over a wide geographic area, made a large penal institution unnecessary. In addition, the undeveloped territorial economy, based on subsistence farming, could not afford to support large-scale prisons, while the relatively few large landowners had no need for such an institution. Finally, the contractual arrangement with Kansas was a paragon of the economy-of-government model because the state of Kansas provided the capital intensive facility, the care and feeding of the prisoners, and the staff to administer the institution. The Oklahoma territory had to pay Kansas a mere twenty-five to thirty-five cents a day per inmate (Journal of House Proceedings, 1897:40, 100-103, 119-120; Journal
of Council
Proceedings,
1897:97).
This arrangement continued for a few years after statehood in 1907, but there was increasing interest in constructing a prison in Oklahoma. The social and political conditions in Oklahoma at this point were not atypical. The state had competing interest groups for and against the prison idea, and a vocal and politically powerful spokesperson for the humanitarian rehabilitative ideal. The arrangement with the Kansas prison involved political corruption, brutality, and scandal. All these forces converged on the penal question between 1908 and 1910. These conditions were the same ones that scholars who have studied the creation (a half-century earlier) of the prison in the eastern states have found. They concluded that the prison resulted from shifts in social values regarding the punishment response to antisocial behavior. The details surrounding the creation of Oklahoma’s prison system raise serious doubt about the validity of that thesis.
28
JOHN
A. CONLEY
Competing political and economic interest groups caused delays in appropriating the money to construct the Oklahoma prison. The eastern and western factions of the legislature blocked each other’s attempt to have the prison constructed in their opponent’s region. At stake were the large number of jobs associated with the construction and the administration of the prison. In addition, the potential economic windfall for local merchants and suppliers in the region surrounding the prison was not lost on these factions. Finally, the level of government that was to control the prison was also an important issue because it addressed the potential for the centralization of state power. The various interest groups had not yet worked out satisfactory compromises on these issues. All these competing interests required resolution, but the state had not developed a rational model of penal reform that would address the social reality of the prison and at the same time provide a philosophical foundation for the creation of a prison. The state had not defined a role for the prison beyond that of incarcerating convicts, and Kansas served that function well. The spokesperson for the humanitarian philosophy of imprisonment was the state’s first Commissioner of Charities and Corrections, Kate Barnard. Barnard was an indomitable and persistent reformer of the progressive mold. ,Guided by her humanitarian philosophy and her shrewd ability for political compromise, she campaigned vigorously for the laboring poor, convicts, and the destitute. She believed strongly in political activism for social reform; politics and social justice went hand in hand. Barnard had organized a coalition of labor and charitable reform groups and perfected the technique of canvassing politicians for their votes during the constitutional convention of 1907-1908. Barnard’s political power emanated from her leadership of that coalition. After successfully campaigning for the newly created state office of Commissioner of Charities and Corrections, an office created by and for her, she- turned her attention to the prison situation (Bryant,
1969; Short. 1972). The commissioner had constitutional authority to investigate complaints made against any of the public and private charitable and correctional institutions that handled state-supported patients and inmates (Oklahoma Constitution. Art. 6, sets. 27-30). The powers of the office and the reform interests of Kate Barnard quickly focused on the problems of Oklahoma’s convicts. Barnard had received numerous complaints about the treatment of inmates and the general conditions at the Kansas penitentiary. In August of 1908 Barnard.visited the prison incognito as a tourist and conducted a preliminary inspection. After completing the tour she identified herself and demanded full access to the institution. Barnard returned to Oklahoma and wrote a report on her findings (Charities and Correcrions Report, 1908:5), but did not release it although the press had given much attention to her inspection and to rumors of brutality, corruption, and a pending scandal. Barnard was a shrewd politician working in a conservative, pragmatic political environment. She knew from experience that a scandal revolving around brutality and corruption issues related to Oklahoma’s convicts would not be enough to generate widespread support for the construction of a prison on Oklahoma soil. Although she wanted the state to create its own penal system in order to implement the progressive ideal of rehabilitation that she had preached for so long, she bided her time and held the report for four months. In the meantime proponents of the prison began to realize that the prison could serve a broader function than merely incarcerating convicts. Governor Charles Haskell (Governor’s Message, 1907-08) said that the state needed a prison because of its symbolic representation of order and because inmate labor could be used to ease the labor shortage in selected trades by having inmates work on public roads and other needed public improvements. These ideas represented recognition that the state could exploit inmate labor to serve larger economic interests. The building of state roads
Economics
and the Social Reality
would facilitate the economic growth of the state by improving travel for intrastate commerce. With pressure building from the press and with encouragement from proponents of an Oklahoma prison, Barnard released her preliminary report (Charities and Corrections Report, 1908:9-20) in December, four months after her visit. Her report was a skillful, classic example of a progressive’s outrage. It defined the conditions at the Lansing prison as below acceptable humanitarian and social justice standards and as the antithesis of rehabilitation. In the report she charged the Kansas officials with graft, corruption, and brutality in the operation of the prison. The exploitation of inmate labor and the systematic methods of torture used by the prison staff made up a large part of the report. Barnard demanded and received a full-scale investigation by a joint, biueribbon committee appointed by both states. The final report of the commission, headed by Barnard, detailed the extensive use of torture at the prison, corruption, and the exploitation of inmate labor by private entrepreneurs for large profits. Oklahoma officials did not miss the economic message contained in the report. While Barnard did not write the final report as a means to show the close relationship between economics and the accumulation of capital, the exploitation of inmate labor, and the administration of the prison, the examples used in the ninety-page report to show brutality, corruption, and graft clearly portrayed the Lansing prison as a profitable economic enterprise. The contracting of inmates to private contractors in laborintensive industries such as coal mining, the production of goods, such as furniture, that were not competitive with industries in the private sector, and the production of goods, such as binder twine for farmers, that were in high demand by powerful interest groups and then sold cheaply to those groups, paid large profits to private entrepreneurs and to public officials directly involved in prison administration. In all respects this report was not different from hundreds of earlier reports about
of Prisons
29
prison conditions in the eastern states. Scholars (Barnes, 1974; Teeters. 1953,1957; Lewis, 1922; Lewis, 1965; McKelvey. 1936, 1977; Jacobs. 1972) who studied prison development in those states focused on the humanitarian issues to buttress their theory that prisons were designed to rehabilitate inmates and that incompetent or corrupt prison officials deviated from that goal. These scholars ignored the pervasiveness of the economic issues and by doing so they missed the relationship of a capitalistic value system to the creation and operation of the prisons. In 1909, when the final prison report was released, Oklahoma was in the “nascent stages of capitalism.” The state wanted industrial growth. Governor Haskell outlined that objective in his Inaugural Address (1907) when he encouraged the development of manufacturing and mining. He argued that the farmer, industrialist, laborer, and even government would be partners in a new economic order. Governor Haskell extolled the economic potential of capitalism. It was in this climate of concern for economic growth that Oklahoma’s prison system emerged in 1909. State officials, supported by economic interest groups, began to reevaluate the prison question in terms of its economic potential. Mining, grocery, brick, clothing, and farming interests saw the direct economic benefit each could receive from the use of inmate labor to grow or manufacture goods cheaply which they could then market at huge profits. Economic considerations were overriding in their influence in the shift in the state’s commitment to construct a prison. As soon as the state made the practical link between the prison and prison labor, stressing the benefit for specific economic interest groups, it moved rapidly and purposefully into prison construction. The state designed its prison on the industrial model of the Auburn, New York prison. The huge wall surrounded ten acres of land that housed two cell blocks with the remaining space reserved for factory buildings (Governor’s Message, 1910; Park, 1914). An additional 2,000 acres surround-
30
JOHN
A. CONLEY
ing the prison also were reserved for further industrial and agricultural development. The industrial prison in Oklahoma was to provide direct economic benefits to private interest groups and it was to serve as a model for industrial growth in the state (Harlow’s Weekly, 1912:14; Fowler, 1933: 168; Parnell, 1976:406; Charities and Corrections Report, 1919:23). Although there was no single factor that caused Oklahoma to build a prison, it is clear that the state’s commitment to an industrial prison was shaped by social and economic forces external to the juristic or intellectual issues surrounding the question of penal reform. The crystallization of the prison idea and its role in society paralleled major social changes that occurred in Oklahoma, and the character of the prison reflected the cultural values of capitalism. A major scandal over abuses at the Kansas prison was not sufficient to move the state to action regarding its penal policy. Economic considerations played a far more significant role in shaping the state’s response to the prison question than did penological theory, legal and moral issues, or public scandals over penal corruption and brutality. These economic considerations were not just questions of per capita costs, construction outlays, and annual budgets. Oklahoma viewed its prison and the subsequent policy surrounding it as an integral part of the larger social and economic destiny in the new state. Indeed, it was not until state leaders integrated the prison idea with the practical goal of economic development that any significant action was taken to construct the prison.
INTEREST GROUPS, PROFIT, AND OPPOSITION TO PRISON-MADE GOODS Traditional theories about the history of the penitentiary, and American penal systems in general conclude that the state had “good intentions” (McKelvey, 1977) when it built the penitentiary and that throughout its history the state had the best interest of
society and the inmate clearly in view. This consensus model of prison history does not appear to be the social reality, given Oklahoma’s early experience as a representative example. The penitentiary was created in a pragmatic environment influenced by capitalistic cultural values and dominated by specific economic interest groups. Given that beginning, it does not appear appropriate to evaluate the prison’s development solely from a rehabilitative perspective. Oklahoma’s prison was not designed to achieve the humanitarian goals of training. moral reform, or social integration. These goals were never given serious discussion by state leaders during the early period of the prison’s history. The primary objective for the prison was to serve the economic interest groups who supported the prison idea and these groups directly influenced penal policy for the next fifty years. Economic considerations, not rehabilitative goals, dominated the operation of the penitentiary. The type of staff hired to administer the institution, the laws passed by the legislature, policies developed by the Prison Board, and the continued political corruption that constantly raised its head all served, or were a product of, an elite class of business and government officials who were, in the best sense of the concept, capitalists. These individuals were guided by the profit motive; they made decisions regarding the institution on the basis of the impact those decisions would have on the accumulation of capital. The state appointed wardens because of their business acumen, not their penal experience. Wardens had to be businessmen who could +‘supervise the large manufacturing operation and who would extend and enlarge the industries by reinvesting profits for the benefit of the state” (Governor’s Message, 1923). This elite class was not a rigid. closed group of individuals. The membership shifted among a variety of interest groups depending on conditions in the economy and the impact it had on the interest group in question. When the records of the Oklahoma prison are analyzed, it is almost impossible to
Economics
and the Social Reality
conclude that the prison was a public institution operated for the benefit of the larger society; private businesses controlled the daily operations. Every decision made about legislative appropriations for the prison, staff appointments, and inmate assignments had as their end result the enhancement of the productive capacity of the prison and in turn the increase in the profits of the private businesses linked to the prison. The farmers pressured the legislature for a factory where inmates would produce binding twine and it became one of the largest industries of the prison (Governor’s Message, 1923; Annual Report, 1921). Clothing retailers contracted with the prison for inmate labor to manufacture shirts, overalls, and pants on the machines purchased by the state (Annual Report, 1921). Brick and tile interests used inmate labor in a financially crippled brick company near the prison not only to manufacture bricks for the expanding building trade throughout the state, but also to build new factories on the prison grounds. In the process, the state completely rebuilt the brick company’s factory with convict labor and allocated 25 percent of all the brick produced for the state back to the company for resale (Governor’s Message, 1923; Harlow’s Weekly, 1914). These are only a few examples of the close relationship between private economic interests and the prison’s manufacturing operations. The interdependence of prison and private industry was the overriding characteristic of the successful industrial prison. Factory construction, marketing strategies, and production methods in one way or another used convict labor to generate profits for private entrepreneurs, private companies, and the prison. The support of prison industries by private interest groups was not consistent or monolithic, however, because the shifting character of the economy directly affected these interest groups, and in turn the prison industries, in different ways at different times. This variability of economic impact has not been recognized by penal historians who have studied the opposition that developed to prison-made goods. In the 1920s to
of Prisons
31
1930s federal and state laws placed severe limitations on the production and sale of prison-made goods, but that opposition came from larger, national associations of labor and commercial interests while many of the state and local economic interests wished prison production to continue. In Oklahoma, the brick and tile interests by 1930 had switched positions and opposed the production of prison-made brick because they had developed their own manufacturing capacity.’ The mining (Harlow’s Weekly, 1918) and printing industries’ also opposed inmate production in their areas. On the other hand, clothing retailers and the Grocer’s Association supported prisonproduced goods ‘because the retail mark-up was profitable for them.4 From these examples of competing positions on the production of prison-made goods, which carried well into the 194Os, it appears that there was no consensus about or monolithic opposition to the production of goods by inmates in prison industries. There appear to be two related but distinct social conditions that shaped this situation. First, the state experienced a substantial growth in its private manufacturing capacity which made the efficient use of prison labor and prison industries marginal. This growth in private production capacity, however, increased the demand for retail goods and the commercial merchants still saw economic benefits to be gained if prisoners continued to produce goods that the merchants could retail without the added expense of a wholesaler. Second, the social and economic system operated not on a consensus basis but through competing interests. Industries that supported prison production quickly withdrew that support when their interest no longer required the exploitation of inmate labor. They opposed the prison industries at this point but lost the fight because they were not powerful enough to overcome resistance to their demands for curtailing the prison industries. This was true at the national and the state level. When labor joined with certain industrial and commercial interests in the fight, the federal and state governments quickly
32
JOHN A. CONLEY
passed legislation limiting the manufacture and sale of prison-made goods. There still was no national consensus; many states and smaller interest groups opposed the legislation, but they lost to their more powerful opponents. An inverse relationship existed between the state’s ability to maintain specific prison industries and the ability of the private sector to produce these same goods. As soon as private industries developed their own capacity to meet market demands they used their economic and political power to curtail or stop production by the prison. External economic factors continued to buffet the state’s prison industries well into the mid-twentieth century. Because the state had made such a large investment in factory production in its prison, it too suffered economic setbacks as a result of the 1929 depression. Sales dropped, production decreased, and inmate idleness increased dramatically during the late 1920s and early 1930s. As the national economy began to rebound from the depression, federal consultants encouraged Oklahoma to shift from large-scale factory production to smaller, craft-oriented industries and to increase its use of inmates on public works projects (U.S. Prison Industries, 1937; Flynn, 1950). The private sector did not want, and the federal government did not encourage, competition from prison industries. Even the onset of World War II did not immediately change the economic conditions of the prison industries. The War Production Board quickly placed severe limits on prison industries by controlling their purchase of raw materials and the sale of prison-made goods. By that action, the War Production Board protected the private sector from competition from prison industries; the economic benefits of war production would accrue only to private businesses. The capacity of the private sector to meet the rapidly increasing needs of the war effort, however, was limited and the government was forced to look to state prisons for help. The War Production Board eased restrictions on prison production and federal contracts began to flow to state prisons
that had an industrial capacity. Oklahoma quickly contracted for the production of such goods as clothing, rope, bricks, and furniture and earned more than a half million dollars a year during the war years.’ As soon as the war ended, however, the prewar restrictions were reinstituted and prison production continued its rapid downward slide once again, never to recover fully its productive capacity.
CONCLUSION In spite of Jackson Toby’s (1979) assessment of the “new criminology” as the same “old sentimentality” or the mainline criminologists’ concern with the “polemical,” “ideological,” and “socialist” aspects of the “new criminology,” there appears to be some merit in the growing research emphasis on the economic factors related to the social reality of prisons. American prisons may have represented the best intentions of social reformers and the construction of prisons may have been perceived by these reformers as a commitment by society to the rehabilitation of the deviant. But there is a wide gap between a blueprint for reform and the actual implementation of that reform. One does not have to succumb to a rigid, classical Marxist ideology to acknowledge that economic factors would, indeed, must, play an important role in influencing the administration of justice in general and the prison movement in particular. To deny this social fact is to reconstruct penal history in a social vacuum. The social and political values of American society developed alongside the economic value system of capitalism. These economic values of necessity influenced the intellectual and political perspectives of social reformers and state officials. While this economic perspective was evident in Oklahoma’s decision to build its prison, economic factors generated much influence in the construction of prisons in other states as well. Why criminologists and penal historians have chosen not to analyze the impact of these economic factors on the
33
Economics and the Social Reality of Prisons
prison idea is unclear. To acknowledge that these scholars focused too narrowly on the eastern states of Pennsylvania and New York, relied primarily on historical sources relating to the leaders of penal reform, and analyzed only the philosophical differences of penal reformers does not of itself explain why these same scholars ignored or downplayed economic issues when their research led them in that direction. One tentative explanation may be that too much effort has been spent studying the origin of the prison and the accompanying ideological rhetoric without following its development through time. In addition, it has been assumed that the rehabilitative idea was in fact the fundamental philosophy of the early proponents of the prison, and scholars have attempted to locate support for that assumption in their concentration on the origin of the prison while ignoring other relevant factors that can be better understood only if research includes the development as well as the origin of the prison. When that approach was applied to the Oklahoma experience it was found that indeed larger economic forces affected the prison, its policies, and its administration over the sixty years after its creation. The rigid economic determinism of Marxism and the Rusche/Kirchheimer model are not in evidence, but the general thesis of Rusche and Kirchheimer that economic factors affect penal issues is supported. In addition, there is much historical evidence to support the conflict theorists. Vested economic interest groups used the prison and its captive labor force to generate large profits from the sale of prison-made goods. Economic interests competed with one another and with the penal reformers as their economic needs demanded. These economic interest groups were neither for nor against penal reform or prison production; they supported or fought these issues on the basis of the impact those issues would have on the economic welfare of their own industries. There were winners and losers in this competition and the winners were usually the more powerful groups. but membership in these groups was fluid, not static.
To understand better the role of prisons in society and to evaluate better their successes and failures in American history, it appears that scholars need to revise their assumptions about the origin of prisons and critically assess prison development. If the primary goal of prisons was the reformation of the individual, then one might conclude that the prison experiment was a failure. If, however, prisons had other less idealistic and more pragmatic goals such as serving vested economic interests, then historical research must address a new set of criteria in order to evaluate the contribution prisons made to society. It is not enough to link the prison to larger social forces in society or to the tenets of capitalism in order to understand its origin or evaluate its development. What is needed is the identification of specific influences, tracing their impact over time, and ranking them according to their importance to penal developments.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author wishes to thank Carl E. Pope for his suggestion to write this article and for his critical comments on an earlier draft. NOTES.
’ For an informative treatment of the history of the difficulties surrounding the book’s publication Dario Melossi (1978; 1980).
see
2 This conclusion
is based on my reading of the following records located in the Oklahoma State archives: Letter, Board of Public Affairs to Warden C.P. Burford. January 1. 1948; State Archives Governor Turner Records, Penitentiary File: Letters, Brick and Tile Association to E.W. Smart, Chairman Board of Public Affairs, July 2, August 1. and September 5. 1940, State Archives Board of Public Affairs Records; Correspondence State Institution. 10. 1940, State Archives Board of Public Affairs Records. Correspondence Penitentiary; Letters. H.C. Rice to Harry V. Kahle, May 5, 1925 and J.G. Puterbaugh to Governor M.E. Trapp, May 1, 1925, State Archives Governor Trapp Records, Subject File.
’ The printers in the state were a powerful and vocal group because most of the printing business was conducted by small-town newspaper companies. See Letter. State Board of Affairs to Governor J.B. Robertson. n.d.. State Archives Governor Robertson Records, Correspondence; Letters. Clyde E. Muchmore to Carl Rice, Board of Affairs, Septem-
34
JOHN
A. CONLEY
ber 10, 1925 and Vice Versa, September 12, 1925. State Archives Governor Trapp Records, Subject File.
’ This conflict
between economic interest groups is clearly shown in the fight between the Grocers and their parent lobby group, the Employer’s Association. See Letters, John M. Hammong to H.V. Kahle, May 23, 1925, to J.T. Griffith, May 25, 1925, to Governor M.E. Trapp May 25, 1925, State Archives Governor Trapp Records, Subject File; Governor’s Messaae. 1927. 45: Platform. Henrv S. Johnston Democratic Candidate for Governor, h.d. (1926), State Archives, Governor Johnston Records.
’ For the state’s attempt to win war contracts. see Letter, Warden Fred Hunt to Board of Public Affairs, October 23, 1942, Monthly Report of Contracts Accepted for War Production, December, 1942 and January and February, 1943, State Archives Board of Public Affairs, Correspondence Penitentiary. For Oklahoma’s attempt to develop a market with other states and for a list of the type and amount of military contracts, see generally Letters, Board of Public Affairs to various state penal institutions for 1942 to 1944 and Memo, Virgil Brown, Chairman, Board of Public Affairs to Governor’s Office, November 15, 1943, State Archives, Board of Public Affairs, Correspondence Prison Industries; Letter, Warden Fred-Hunt to Board of Public Affairs. March 3, 1943. State Archives. Board of Public Affairs, Correspondence Penitentiary.
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