Book Review: The Devil's Butcher Shop: The New Mexico Prison Uprising by Roger Morris

The Devil's Butcher Shop:

The New Mexico Prison Uprising

by Roger Morris

      Prisons have to be the worst places on Earth. Living conditions can get so bad that the inmates explode and outright mayhem is the result. That’s what happened in February of 1980 in the Penitentiary of New Mexico. Roger Morris’s The Devil’s Butcher Shop: The New Mexico Prison Uprising provides all the details of what happened when the riot exploded.

Morris starts his account with a history of New Mexico with the focus in the small city of Santa Fe. New Mexico is somewhat anomalous in American history, being a predominantly Latino and Native American population that clashed with white invaders. Over the years, the three cultures have learned to co-exist, but, according to Morris, an uneasy tension lies below the surface. Over the years, a culture of graft and institutional corruption has also flourished. This has manifested in the management of the Penitentiary of New Mexico (PNM).

Located off the stretch of highway linking Santa Fe to Albuquerque, the prison occupies a dusty area surrounded by desert scrub and hills visible in the distance. As charming as the New Mexico landscape can be, the weather can be harsh with little rain, intense heat and sunshine for three quarters of the year during the day time and night temperatures that sometimes plummet into the 50’s. Winters are light compared to what Northerners are used to, but for people who are accustomed to the heat, the cold gets uncomfortable. The PNM is especially susceptible to the weather because in 1980 it had neither air conditioning nor heat. For inmates the climate was unbearable most of the time.

Incompatibility between the prison’s architecture and the weather was not the biggest problem. Overcrowding of the bunker style cells guaranteed outbreaks of violence. Food had little nutritional value and was barely fit for human consumption. Living spaces were unsanitary and rarely, if ever, cleaned. Recreational, educational, and rehabilitation programs were insufficient, giving prisoners nothing to do all day but scheme up ways to cause trouble. Worst of all was the corrupt prison staff that abused, exploited, and blackmailed prisoners for their own gain. The penitentiary was a truckload of TNT speeding downhill with no brakes into a forest fire.

When violence broke out late on a February night, the prison guards were caught off guard despite having been warned ahead of time by other inmates. Some guards escaped. Others were taken hostage. and tortured, or killed. When the rioters seized the main guard room, the situation became hopeless. Inmates ransacked every corner of the prison complex. But the real massacre started when they broke into the isolated ward where the most vulnerable prisoners were kept for their own protection; the roster included the elderly, the mentally ill, snitches, and child molesters. It became a frenzy of mutilation, bloodshed, rape, and murder. Reading about the riot is comparable to the most anarchic passages in William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. The biggest strength of this book is Roger Morris’s finely detailed descriptions of everything that happened during the uprising based on interviews he did with inmates.

Many of the prisoners didn’t want to riot. It wasn’t long before they started surrendering. Some needed medical attention. Some were having trouble finding food. Some, like the small African American inmate population, needed protection from the majority of Latino and white inmates who were targeting them for racially motivated violence. One prisoner acted as negotiator between the police, military, and rioters who were holding some guards as hostages. The uprising lasted for about three days. This is believed to be the most violent and destructive prison riot in the history of America.

As detailed as the descriptions of the riot are, they only take up about one third of the pages. The final stretch of the book is about the years following the uprising and an analysis of the corruption endemic to the penal system of New Mexico. To be brief, the authorities did not uphold their end of the bargaining that brought the uprising to an end. The reforms demanded by the inmates never happened until long after it had receded in the minds of the American public. The riot resulted in nothing but a return to the normal, miserable conditions that caused the frustrations in the first place. Otherwise PNM remained a hotbed of criminal activities, not committed by the prisoners, but the kind committed by the warden and the guards. They extorted protection money from inmates, stole supplies like medicines and food to be sold on the black market, laundered money, trafficked drugs, and cooked the prison books in any way they could. Some reforms eventually happened when scandals leaked out to the press. This is the weakest part of the book; the content is relevant, well-documented, and plausible, but the writing suffers in quality since the author writes as if he is trying to jam pack as much information into his paragraphs as he can while trying to beat a journalistic deadline. It just doesn’t flow with ease. Even though it is just as interesting as the chapters about the violence, it isn’t as engaging. It actually reads as though it were written by a different author altogether.

Crime and criminal justice are perpetual problems that likely have no solution. One thing is certain though, you can’t simply warehouse violent criminals like cattle in pens, leave them there, and try to forget that they have human needs. Doing so is a recipe for disaster. Unfortunately in the long run, more prison uprisings will happen just so long as the authorities refuse to acknowledge their role in causing them. Life without comfort for the most poorly adjusted members of society is nothing but volatile and if the people running prisons don’t accept responsibility for their role maintaining a healthy environment, don’t be surprised when the stinking outhouse blows up in their faces. The inmates may be criminals deserving of punishment, but failing to take human nature into account can lead to nothing good. The Devil’s Butcher Shop shows just how bad it can get. It’s an adequate book for those interested in prison life and is of some interest to those of us who love New Mexico. It may be the Land of Enchantment as the state motto goes, but the brighter the sunshine is, the darker the shadows that get cast.

 

Book Review: Michael Manley: The Making Of a Leader by Darrell E. Levi

Michael Manley:

The Making Of a Leader

by Darrell E. Levi

      Jamaica is a nation that got off to a rough start. As a post-colonial Caribbean country granted sovereignty from Great Britain in 1962, they have been plagued by political and economic turbulence ever since. In the 1970s, Jamaicans elected a Prime Minister who was seen as a savior by some and a menace by his opponents. Darrell E. Levi’s Michael Manley: The Making Of a Leader tells his story.

Michael Manley was born into a middle class family of importance to Jamaica’s development. His father founded and ran the left wing People’s National Party (PNP) in opposition to the right wing Jamaican Labor Party (JLP). His mother was a prominent artist and political activist. Manley’s cousin, the conservative and authoritarian Alexander Bustamante, was elected Jamaica’s first post-colonial prime minister in 1962.

During World War II, Michael Manley enlisted in the Canadian air force and then went to university in London. There he worked as a journalist before returning to Jamaica to work as a labor union leader in association with the PNP. He wasn’t just an ordinary union leader though; he rose to prominence because he went on the job and worked side by side with the laborers who were given the most back breaking work in Kingston. He didn’t just show up for photo ops with teams of ditch diggers; he picked up a shovel and helped them dig for as long as their work shifts lasted. He continued in his willingness to get his hands dirty with the most impoverished of workers long after he became a politician. His sincerity took him a long way in Jamaican politics.

Levi doesn’t just tell the story of Michael Manley’s life. He provides a fair amount of context to help people outside the country understand its political climate. He explains the 1960s under Bustamante as a time of uprisings, police brutality, and the West Kingston Wars. Bustamante stayed aloof to Jamaica’s problems as the country struggled to get on its feet. Levi also demonstrates how Jamaican politics differ from those in the developed nations to some degree. It is a system of bicameral parliamentary governance, but with high levels of graft the prime minister makes most decisions unilaterally. Politics are more tribal and territorial, something which has led to gang warfare over the years. Class and ethnicity are closely related; dark skinned, lower class Jamaicans mostly align with the PNP and the light skinned middle and upper classes align with the JLP. In political discourse, passionate speaking is valued more than nuanced debate. Political favors granted to neighborhoods or territories that vote in blocks are common. When one party gets into office, they repay the favor to voters who supported them with things like free food distribution or the upgrading of houses, something denied to neighborhoods that didn’t support the party in power. This sometimes leads to gangs forcing people in their territories to vote at gunpoint for their party of affiliation. Politics are mostly localized with the national government almost exclusively managing affairs in Kingston while paying little attention to the rest of the country. The Rastafarian movement has been most closely affiliated with the PNP and are big supporters of Michael Manley.

Despite Jamaica’s grim political practices, Michael Manley got elected Prime Minister in 1972 on a platform of social justice. Racial equality, worker’s rights, education, and the raising of living standards for the poor were the issues that won him a significant majority. He ruled by committee, setting up community organizations subordinate to the PNP to address all aspects of governing. Manley became massively popular throughout the 1970s despite a long list of political setbacks. His political philosophy was that of democratic socialism. Even though the emphasis was on “democratic”, his practice of soft socialism led him into conflict with the United States who were backing his conservative rival Edward Seaga through affiliations with the CIA. His personal style made him look messianic in the eyes of the lower classes and he earned the nickname Joshua, possibly an influence from the Hebrew-inspired Rastafarians.

Aside from placing social justice at the forefront of Jamaican politics, Manley also played the role of statesman. Levi writes about how Manley brought Jamaica into the post-colonial Non-Aligned Movement of nations that began in Indonesia after World War II. He spoke at the United Nations as an advocate for international cooperation and put Jamaica on the map as a viable participant in world affairs. Some of his alliances proved to be contentious though. Manley kept close ties with Cuba and had a lifelonh friendship with Fidel Castro who never pressured him to turn communist. Manley also maintained diplomatic and trade ties to the Soviet Union. As a result, the USA kept him at an arm’s length despite his desire to make Jamaica a neutral force in the Cold War.

While Jamaica remained a small, impoverished island nation, America could not so easily dismiss Manley. The aluminum industry depended on mining the raw material bauxite there, something they were doing at a very low cost because of Bustamante’s policies in the 1960s. Jamaica owed America money anyhow. Manley borrowed from the World Bank to kick start the Jamaican economy, but when they failed to meet the growth demands set by the IMF, they came close to defaulting on their loan. As Jamaica sank deeper into economic crisis, Manley raised taxes on bauxite exports so the American mining companies withdrew from the island. Even worse, the US placed tariffs on the products Jamaica imported from America, and this led to further economic hardship. Manley picked up some extra money for the nation by building tourist resorts and putting on music festivals, but this was never enough to stabilize the economy, let alone promote its growth.

The CIA were by then backing Manley’s rival Edward Seaga and a fierce propaganda battle ensued that harmed Manley’s stature in the eyes of the middle and upper classes. The CIA imported guns to Jamaica as a plan to destabilize the country with escalating violent crime rates and gang warfare to turn the population against Michael Manley. Assassination attempts against Manley happened three times, all of which he survived.

Manley remained popular though until he lost the election to Seaga in 1982. Seaga remained Prime Minister until the late 1980s. He failed to deliver on his promises to control the crime rate and bring economic prosperity to Jamaica, although he did succeed in building up Jamaica’s infrastructure. Michael Manley returned to power in the election of 1988, but by then the two rival Prime Ministers agreed to stop fighting and worked together to further Jamaica’s development. Manley resigned from the office of prime minster soon after getting re-elected because of health problems. That is something not covered in Levi’s book because this biography ends with Manley’s return to office as prime minster.

Levi’s political biography of Michael Manley is a slow read. That isn’t because it lacks excitement. It actually is an exciting book considering it is about the politics of a nation that is not often discussed in the wider world. It is only slow moving because it is so densely packed with information that it takes a good deal of time to absorb it all. It really is a book worth reading if you want to learn anything about West Indian politics or the economic struggles of the Third World. Otherwise, Darrell Levi is heavily biased in favor of Michael Manley and some people might find fault in that as he doesn’t go deeply into the problems Manley’s shortcomings as a politician. He doesn’t ignore those problems, but he just doesn’t say enough to make this a balanced biography. It would be interesting to learn more about Edward Seaga too since many Jamaicans consider him to be equally important, and controversial, as Michael Manley in the political history of Jamaica.

Michael Manley is presented here as a sincere prime minister with a heart of gold and as an intellectual with a taste for the finer things in life. His biggest crimes were naivete and lacking the pragmatic skills necessary for advancing Jamaica towards being a Caribbean nation of peace and prosperity. He wasn’t entirely to blame for that because Jamaica did not have a history of independent rule to fall back on or to learn from. He did the best he could with what he knew. He was more of a visionary than a politician, but he got others to believe in his vision and sometimes those visions are necessary to instigate action. Jamaica has been through more hard times since Michael Manley died, but his dream isn’t dead.

Recent years have seen an incremental drop in crime and a strengthening middle class due in part to Jamaican immigrants in the US and UK remitting money back home and buying property. Sites associated with Bob Marley are becoming places of pilgrimage and tourist dollars are trickling in. Jamaica has a long way to go still, but with enough economic momentum and the desire to pursue dreams, they just might make it some day. Go visit this interesting country and see for yourself.