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: In the Belly Of the Beast by Jack Henry Abbott

In the Belly Of the Beast:

Letters from Prison

by Jack Henry Abbott

      The story of Jack Henry Abbott is tragic. First incarcerated at the age of twelve, he spent most of his life in government institutions. After reaching the age of 18, he was briefly released as an adult and committed a crime soon after that sent him straight back to prison. He began keeping journals and later struck up a correspondence with Norman Mailer who was impressed with Abbott’s writing skills. Mailer went on a campaign to have him released on parole. It became a cause celebre and Abbott got out. Mailer collected some of his writings and published them as a book, In the Belly Of the Beast: Letters from Prison. But Jack Henry Abbott got into a fight with a man in the alley behind a restaurant. He stabbed the man and got sent straight back to the penitentiary. Mailer felt humiliated by this incident and kept his distance from Abbott until the end of his life.

In the Belly Of the Beast is a collection of excerpts from the letters Abbott sent to Mailer over several years before being released on parole despite misgivings from forensic psychiatrists. The excerpts vary widely in quality, dealing with issues like prison society, the purpose of prisons, the effectiveness of prisons, and the way prison culture mirrors the culture of outside society. Abbott considered himself a Marxist and often makes attempts at writing from that theoretical perspective.

The good news is some of Abbott’s descriptive writing about prison life is excellent. He describes the cells, the cafeteria, the relations between prisoners, the behavior of guards, and other relevant things. He doesn’t just describe the appearance of the prison interior though; he describes the subjective miseries, frustrations, distress, and overwhelming sensations of hopeless he experiences in this environment. The highest points of his writing explain how it feels to spend long stretches of time in solitary confinement. This isn’t easy reading and it isn’t light. It’s downright depressing and you can see how it can drive prisoners insane. Abbott is at his absolute best when describing his emotions and states of mind.

Something else Abbott is good at is examining more abstract ideas of justice and the treatment of prisoners. Many people debate whether prisons are for rehabilitation or punishment. From reading this, you get the sense that that debate is addressing the wrong question. Abbott’s point is that, while prisons function more as punishment than rehabilitation, neither the punishment nor the rehabilitation prepare inmates for life outside the prison. The rehabilitation, educational and vocational programs are half-assed and don’t go far enough to do anything more than make it look like something is being done. It’s little more than window dressing. The punishment is harsh, unpredictable, and oriented towards maximizing control over inmates. It’s dished out in equal doses of brutality to all whether the prisoner was arrested for a non-violent drug offense, shoplifting, or mass murder. The result is that inmates adapt to this environment in such a way that when they are released into society without any help in the transition, most of them break down psychologically and either commit more crimes or kill themselves. His accusation is that prisons operate as crime factories, training inmates to be violent, paranoid, unstable and incapable of living with the freedom to make choices for themselves. Therefore, when crime rates escalate, the government uses this as an excuse to militarize the police force and strip people of their civil liberties. It also creates a social climate outside prisons where people can never feel safe. Life in the straight world is just a softer version of penitentiary life. This again plays into the hands of the government who uses the rhetoric and practice of more law and order to strengthen oppressive authoritarian structures and limit citizens’ options for the pursuit of freedom. This may be a conspiracy theory, but at least it is one that prods you to think about the criminal justice system, its effect on the wider society, and why America has such high rates of crime and incarceration compared to other developed nations. We are obviously doing something wrong and, being Americans, we are too pigheaded to solve the problem. Nor can we even effectively address it.

Now for the bad news. Abbott considered himself a Marxist and a communist. That doesn’t necessarily mean that his ideas are illegitimate. Even if you don’t agree with those theoretical frameworks, that doesn’t mean that people who use them can’t have legitimate ideas about the nature of social structures. The problem is that Abbott’s understanding of Marxism and communism are so flawed that his philosophizing often degenerates into nonsense. You shouldn’t even bother trying to relate his ideas to communist or Marxist critiques.

At his best he tries to connect prison inmates with the proletariat and the prison guards with the bourgeoisie, but that is too much of a stretch to be plausible. All he really says is that prisoners need solidarity and guards are oppressors who will be overthrown in some future revolution. Without understanding his own framework, he simply uses it to justify a black and white, us vs. them mindset. It’s more about hating the authorities and fantasizing about a violent uprising rather than solving the world’s problems. It’s a juvenile’s daydream of vengeance mislabeled as political philosophy. And that’s when the writing is at its clearest.

Most of his thoughts on these matters are little more than babbling and should have been edited out. It comes across as even more psychopathic because never once in all these essays does he mention his own role in his situation. He never takes responsibility for his crimes, writes about himself as being a victim of social injustice, and blames everybody else for his life behind bars. There is an ounce of truth to this. As mentioned before, he was raised as a ward of the state and spent most of his life being socialized in institutions for warehousing criminals, but he never looks at prisons from any other point of view. A true Marxist critique would take into account why prisons exist in the first place and then deconstruct the institution from inside the framework of the institution. Abbott is more concerned with burning everything to the ground without a plan for what to do afterwards. It’s an immature approach to politics, an empty howl of rage.

Jack Henry Abbott is an American tragedy. It’s hard to say, or even believe, that he could have become a well-adjusted member of society. But with effective mentoring, he could have pursued a career as a writer, maybe even becoming a spokesman and advocate for prisoner’s rights and prison reform. His important insight is that prisons rob inmates of the possibility of reform before parole, turning them into dysfunctionalcrime-committing machines. This results in high rates of recidivism and destabilizes society overall. But Abbott didn’t live up to his potential as a human being and In the Belly Of the Beast doesn’t live up to its potential as a book. Still, it’s worth reading as a work of outsider literature.

If you want to pursue Jack Henry Abbott’s insight a little further, the Australian film Ghosts...Of the Civil Dead, co-written by Nick Cave, is based on In the Belly Of the Beast and brings some of Abbott’s best passages to cinematic life in a highly disturbing way. It’s offensive and violent, and it will give you nightmares, but it’s also unforgettable and worth hunting down if obscure hidden gem movies are your kind of thing.