Setting:

In Northeast Arkansas, the dragonflies swarm in springtime. Rice grows, roads flood, and people pass through when they are able. There is no curtain to open, but the conversation continues. This time the masks are painted, and you imagine they all have names.

EXAMINER

(The voice of EXAMINER is still cold and passionless. If time has passed, you cannot hear it here.)

What is McPherson’s Unit?

MR. PROVE-IT

(Mr. PROVE-IT’s tone is gruff and sarcastic, like a man protecting himself from injuries he doesn’t know he carries.)

Thank you, Examiner.

This does seem like a more relevant question than why at this point. Before we turn this question over to Mr. Whiney to complicate into fifty questions and a mess of ambiguity, let’s get what we know on record:

McPherson’s Unit is a correctional facility located four miles northeast of Newport off Highway 384 in Jackson County Arkansas.

MR. WHINEY

Correctional facility?

I thought you were the voice that was supposed to spare the euphemistic language.

(MR. WHINEY knows he is being antagonized, and while he may believe his response is unjaded, the audience is not fooled. Even optimists protect themselves sometimes.)

MR. PROVE-IT

It ain’t me resorting to euphemisms here. My job is to stick to the facts, and the fact is that McPherson’s Unit, according to the state, is a correctional facility.

Now, what in hell is a “correctional facility” except a prison in softer language? That is a conversation worth considering. But whatever the answer, Arkansas has “facilities,” “centers,” and in the case of long-term incarceration, it has “units.” McPherson’s is a unit. Actually, it is THE, capital T-H-E, unit for women’s long-term incarceration in the State of Arkansas. According to the Arkansas Department of Corrections online inmate population search, as of January 4th, there are 922 women residing in McPherson’s general population, and 40 women residing in the McPherson SPU (Special Programs Unit) built to house inmates “who have serious mental illness.” The facility itself is listed as containing a “Unit Capacity: 971” and having 931 employees.

Those are the facts, right?

MR. WHINEY

You know that we are going to have to talk in detail about almost every sentence in that paragraph, right?

MR. PROVE-IT

I reckon I do.

(MR. PROVE-IT realizes that it takes a special kind of patience for MR. WHINEY not to immediately jump all over the rhetorical assault of a “Special Programs Unit” but hopes that by delaying that conversation, both of them can give the consideration that mental health in women’s incarceration deserves. Instead, it will silence that conversation, and leave the audience with questions that will have to be answered elsewhere.)

But, pretty please, can we get some general facts out in the open first so we can look at the individual issues later, one by one?

Mr. WHINEY

(With a sigh, MR. WHINEY capitulates to MR. PROVE-IT’s demand to keep things focused on the physical structure of the prison.)

The original structure of McPherson’s Unit (since modified and expanded) was built as a 600-bed facility in 1998. The building mirrors a 600-bed men’s facility, the Grimes Unit, built across Corrections Drive. The two facilities together form a carceral super-complex that includes a farm and an industrial production facility so prison labor can be optimally exploited.

The McPherson’s/Grimes’ super complex was built according to the specifications the Wackenhut Corporation, but the physical building itself was paid for, and owned by the State of Arkansas.

MR. PROVE-IT

That is weird, right?

That the State of Arkansas paid for and owned a building it would lease to a private prison company?

I mean, it spent 38 million in tax-payers’ dollars to build a prison according to a private company’s specifications. That is like the definition of corporate well-fare, isn’t it?

MR. WHINEY

I won’t argue that is not, but an argument could be made that this was the only model that would allow for the state to maintain oversight over its first foray into privatization.

After all, if Wackenhut owned the infrastructure and then failed to live up to federal regulations for the operation of a carceral facility, then the state would be on the hook to either spend tax dollars helping them get their facility up to code or else start over with an entirely new infrastructural project. Since Wackenhut did fail spectacularly to provide services that would pass federal accreditation, it seems like the state was right to be cautious.

MR. PROVE-IT

You could be right, but it also sounds like the folks responsible for implementing the project went into it assuming the who thing was a bust to begin with.

I am no fan of privatization and think that anyone attempting to make money by keeping a human being in bondage is a fucking slaver, plain and simple. Therefore, it is no skin off my back…

(MR. WHINEY cringes audibly at the sound of word skin. The AUDIENCE can almost smell his stomach turning.)

…that Wackenhut might have been set up to fail, but a libertarian might argue that privatization in Arkansas was never given a real shot, don’t you think?

MR. WHINEY

While the etymology of the term “no skin off my back” has no links to slavery and didn’t come into existence until the 20th century, your forced proximity of the two concepts is nauseating.

(Pauses a beat to pull it together.)

It is important to recognize that our personal biases do limit the extent that we desire to attribute either the State or Wackenhut responsibility for the failure of the public-private partnership of corrections in Arkansas but ultimately it was the inmate litigation that put enough pressure on Wackenhut for improved services that led to the company pulling out of its contract and leaving a prison in state hands.

But I think we are getting ahead of ourselves in this creation myth.

MR. PROVE-IT

Let’s not mislead anyone by mythologizing a provable history.

To keep with knowable and reviewable facts, the McPherson-Grimes complex cost the State of Arkansas 38 million dollars to build, a contract awarded to the Nabholz Construction company, and designed, according the vision of Wackenhut’s private prison model, by the firm Cromwell Architects Engineers.

MR. WHINEY

(Interjecting before MR. PROVE-IT can continue.)

As an “idea” person myself, I find it easy to get lost in the names of politicians and companies that I never intentionally interact with in my own life. But it is important, especially when trying to situate a real public infrastructure in its actual historical context.

Names are important, because too often when we think about things like prisons, we lose sight of the connection between what a constructed environment is, and why it was constructed to be that way. There are reasons that McPherson’s Unit exists in the physical form and location that it does and understanding those reasons requires looking at, listening to, and questioning the people responsible for making it that way.

MR. PROVE-IT

Thanks for that pep rally there Mr. Whiny, but do you mind if I continue?

(MR. WHINEY remains silent until MR. PROVE-IT continues.)

So, McPherson’s Unit was built as part of a privately managed prison complex by Wackenhut, but the deal they made with the state was that they had to run the facility up to the same standards mandated to state-run facilities. However, the Wackenhut contract was set at a cost of $13,000 dollars a year per inmate, which worked out at the time to be about ten bucks a day less than what it was costing the state to incarcerate people.

MR. WHINEY

That seems like a recipe for cut corners and inadequate services.

MR. PROVE-IT

Of course, it was!

Which is why Wackenhut pulled out after their very first lease expired.

MR. WHINEY

So, to Summarize, Nabholz broke dirt in Jackson County on August 1st, 1997 and completed the McPherson-Grimes complex in less than six months, ahead of schedule and almost two million dollars under the originally proposed budget. Wackenhut had their facility operational and started putting prisoners in its bunks by January of 1998.

By the middle of 2000, reports of rampant sexual misconduct have begun to surface.

By August 2nd of that year a former guard has pleaded guilty in court to sexual assault on a prisoner.

By December there is an FBI investigation into allegations of brutality and abuse in both facilities under Wackenhut’s management.

By February of 2001, Wackenhut has decided not to renew its lease with the state, citing the extraordinarily high cost of women’s medical expenses and increased wage demands from guards. This decision just happens to coincide with the Arkansas Department of Corrections issuing citations of both of Wackenhut’s facilities for dangerous staff shortages, unsanitary living conditions, and lack of work and educational program development.

On July 1st, 2001, the entire complex was returned to state management.

MR. PROVE-IT

The Wackenhut privatization project was a shitshow.

MR. WHINEY

Indeed, but the management problems created under Wackenhut were not slow to go away under state management.

MR. PROVE-IT

No, they weren’t, but no matter how you spin it, McPherson’s Unit’s time as a private prison was short lived and fraught with administrative problems that brought on reprimands and federal oversight that would last for almost a decade.

MR. WHINEY

A sword forged with bad steel…

(MR. WHINEY trails off and then continues with renewed fervor.)

…And we haven’t even begun to discuss how this facility, as part of the larger complex, was the enlightened reformation of Arkansas’ re-forged Department of Corrections, built in response to an institutional history of constantly resurfacing penal corruption, racist terror and slavery that goes back longer than Arkansas was a state.

MR. PROVE-IT

(growing increasingly flustered)

No, we haven’t.

And while all that heavy shit is a vital part of the story to tell, I am beginning to fear that just trying to state facts in answer to “What is McPherson’s Unit?” leads to a mess of circular logic that’s got the voices in my head muddled and sounding dangerously like yrs, Mr. Whiny.

In the interest of fairness, and to give my mind a fucking break, how would you like a crack at this?

MR. WHINEY

(MR. WHINEY’s ego has grown inflated with MR. PROVE-IT’s consternation. He wears his pride like arrogance in his response.)

My dear Mr. Prove-it…You must already know my answer to your question about the question that we are trying to answer.

The only simple solutions to complex problems are politically charged efforts at manipulation. They are the snake oil of con-artists trying to convince others to surrender their critical-thinking skills to the assumption that the explainer’s expertise is sufficient to make the best decisions for everyone. They want us to believe that there is nothing to be gained from struggling through the murky, conflicting, and sluggish streams of information that shape and inform a complex rhetorical situation.

In the case of McPherson’s Unit, and what it is, I could put forward any number of true answers: a building; a complex; a prison; an institution of justice; an institution of injustice; a physical manifestation of patriarchy’s failed effort to enforce its expectations of feminine identity; a security blanket that lets the good folks of Arkansas sleep at night, while serving as an ominous warning to the bad ones; a continuation of the legacy of slavery and white America’s dependence upon racial and class stratification; a final barrier between social order and chaos; a representative system of violence and neglect that demonstrates humanity’s inability to consensually address its fears and anxieties; a goddam waste of government’s time and tax payer’s money. McPherson’s unit could be all of these things in part and none of them in full.

(MR. WHINEY is really talking like a white man now. He is standing on a soapbox with other people’s problems to fix.)

This is not to disparage all the facts we have presented about the events, the people, and material resources used to construct what exists today as McPherson’s Unit women’s correctional facility. Instead, I just wish to point out that trying to string isolated facts together into a shared existence will always be an act of interpretation. Like a series of ones and zeros, they can remain meaningless, or be combined to form systems with the power to carry men to the moon (although only men and only white ones). But facts, like numbers, only have the power to do so when there is a common language that allows viewers of those symbols, or facts, to organize them into a shared understanding.

For example, you could walk into a grocer and ask for T-U-N-A in English or Spanish and still walk out with something edible, but depending upon whether you like fish or the fruit of a cactus, you might be more or less satisfied. Similarly, 000011 could be the number eleven or the number three, or it could be a shade of blue that is 93% black. We cannot talk about the significance of facts without talking about ways we come to understand them.

MR. PROVE-IT

(Incredulously)

You are right Mr. Whiny, I absolutely should have known better than to ask you for a brief and direct answer to anything. However, by combining both of our arguments together, I think we can say that it is going to take more than a short introduction of facts to introduce what McPherson’s Unit is, but hopefully we have introduced enough ideas and possible answers here to show why it is important.

MR. WHINEY

Witty repetition of words into different meanings is my aesthetic style Mr. Prove-it.

It seems rather out of character for you to be the one to ignore the thinly delineated conventions of identity that we have rather artificially constructed here, that allow us to continue this discussion as a dialog.

MR. PROVE-IT

(Stated dryly in response to MR. WHINEY’s haughty self-importance)

Go fuck yrself.

Is that more in character for you?

If this was a research driven academic investigation, you would rightfully be expecting all facts, numbers and claims to be backed up by with clearly marked citations from sources that are held accountable for their truth and accuracy.  You should expect nothing less. And yet here I am listing number after number, creating an information driven narrative without a citation in sight. 

You might be wondering if I am lazy, or just incompetent.

Instead of trying to defend myself, I will respond with more questions:

• What power does an artist have to shape reality? 
• What does it take for an argument to move you to action?
• What happens when you invest 30 seconds investigating a fact on the Internet?
• What happens if you invest an hour instead?
• What if you spent a whole year researching a topic?
• What do you expect from the ideas you hold onto as facts, and what are you willing to do to make sure that knowledge is worth it?

Setting:

You are a stage and all the world acts upon it.

EXAMINER

Who are you that thinks this investigation is your place to instigate?

MR. PROVE-IT

Wasn’t this the first question we answered?

MR. WHINEY

The first question was why this investigation was important, not who thinks it is important, but I think you already knew that.

We may have hinted at the importance of engaging in some self-reflection, but Examiner is right to call attention again to who we are that has undertaken this project now, before we push too much further into an external world that doesn’t seem meaningfully connected to our own.

As we have clearly established, we as investigators exist as fragments of a collected identity, Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett. While individual elements of our voices as “Mr. Whiny” and “Mr. Prove-it” allow this investigation to take place as a conversation, there are necessary lived experiences of the collective identity, Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett, that also need to be exposed and discussed in order to establish the ideological superposition that informs this project in the first place.

MR. PROVE-IT

(Scoffing loudly.)

Seriously, what the fuck? You gotta stop using phrases like “ideological superpositions” or you gotta shut yr theoretical trap every couple of sentences and let me make sure I understand where this train is headed.

If I have successfully translated your nonsense, you are claiming that “Who are you?” is a necessary question, because neither you nor I are real narrators.

(MR. PROVE-IT’s voice is frazzled. He continues with a cautious trepidation.)

BUT, Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett, as a collection of both of our voices—

MR. WHINEY

(Interrupting to make sure MR. PROVE-IT captures the full spectrum of identities established.)

—AND the Examiner, AND possibly future voices we haven’t met yet—

MR. PROVE-IT

(Continuing as if uninterrupted)

—has ideas and experiences that can’t be fractured between us but have to be shown to expose the weird sunken bullshit that could stay hidden if we didn’t talk about them directly.

MR. WHINEY

Precisely.

(Said with a vehemence.)

MR. PROVE-IT

(Laughs before continuing with the occasional interruption of giggles.)

This might be too far out there for me to get that ball rolling. How would you have us start to answer the Examiner’s question, then?

MR. WHINEY

I propose that we allow Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett to speak for himself.

(MR. WHINEY says this as if it was both obvious, and a possibility that has not already begun to break down the artificial barriers of narrative identity.)

We can accomplish this by showing an essay previously composed by Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett that investigates incarceration in America. Then we can discuss both that essay’s relationship to this specific investigation, and the elements of identity exposed by the act of investigating, that will impact how we, as a fractured “us,” investigate.

MR. PROVE-IT

You can keep that repetitive word crap for yrself.

I get why so many writing instructors discourage it. But as to yr path for moving forward, I’m in, and I know exactly which essay you are talking about:

The second time I entered a prison was in July of 2001.  America was a nation at peace. The economy was swollen with the wealth of the dot com boom. A Republican had been declared the winner of the 2000 Presidential election after running a campaign that promised to teach every child in America how to read. Americans were concerned with stemming the global threat of climate change and not yet the threat of terrorism half a world away. People spoke of the “new millennium” like it was a glittery celestial promise—and yet it was more than America’s dreams that were inflating around this milestone. 

In addition to ballooning loan markets, dependency on foreign resources and international discontent with American interventionism, another reality skyrocketing into the year 2000 was the size of the American prison system. Decades of both political parties waging war for popular support over issues of crime, poverty and drugs, had resulted in mandatory minimum sentencing laws and “get tough” criminal justice policies that saw incarceration rates rise from under 100 people per 100,000 to over 700 through the last half of the 20^th century. I entered the Missouri State Penitentiary on that Missouribly hot day in Jefferson City, right in the midst of the American mass-incarceration boom.  

The outer walls of the MSP were built twenty-three feet tall and three feet thick in 1832. They are made from solid limestone and reflected back upon everyone who walks beneath them the hundred-plus years of brutality that they have witnessed.  Older than the Civil War, and thus once used to incarerate escaped slaves, those rock walls are oppressive and weighty well beyond their physical mass, making it clear to all who enter that they are crossing a militarized border between two worlds: one on the outside—Jefferson City, Missouri, America, Planet Earth; the other—prison. Prison, an environment where you are the element the world outside builds walls to protect itself from. 

By the time of my arrival, MSP was calling itself the Jefferson City Correctional Center, but history will remember the world behind that limestone wall as “the bloodiest 47 acres in America;” a name bequeathed by Time magazine in 1967 after a series of bloody riots and incidents of prisoner-on-prisoner violence. I walked into that dark and storied institution one of the lucky ones to do so. While my crimes have been many, some even legally so, I was marching past the gates of the Missouri State Penitentiary through the visitor’s entrance. 

‘Visitor’ is a neutral word in the English language. It expresses, conceptually, the identity of a person that is not of a place, without the friendliness of ‘guest,’ nor the hostility of ‘invader’ or ‘captive.’  Often, a person is labeled a visitor when the purpose of their visit is meant to be vague or distant. Even when used euphemistically, such as in the statement, “She is entertaining a visitor this evening,” the language of “visitor” implies an identity of a subject that will not linger—whether that visitor be romantic or monthly. Usually when we travel, we strive not to position ourselves as visitors in the place we are visiting. We decry tourists as an “inauthentic identity” rooted in economic privilege. We try to pass, if not as native residents, as people with a purpose and familiarity with place that prevents us from sticking out like a sore thumb, at worst admitting ourselves to be “vacationing” if we have no other purpose in a place than passing through. When we  tell some one we are “just visiting” a place, we are telling them and ourselves that we have no intention of forming an emotional connection to that place. I cannot imagine passing beneath the walls of the Missouri State Penitentiary and escaping without a lasting emotional connection to the place “visited.” 

The man I had come to visit at the MSP was not there that day as a visitor.  He and I had first started corresponding via the U.S. Postal Service. He was an important figure in a prisoners’ rights advocacy group that I had become involved with after volunteering to take on an editorial for the groups’ triannual newsletter. From the beginning of our professional correspondence, it was understood that any meeting between us was going to be under the auspices of me, as visitor, and he, as a visited incarcerated human being. 

Is the fact that I was there that day as a visitor—and he was not—a result of class and race privileges that existed to keep people like me (white and  middle-class) away from people like him (black and poor)? This is the question I was distracting myself with as I entered the first security checkpoint on the way into the visitation room. It is good to have a distraction from the process of being processed through security at a maximum-security prison. Because if you start to think about the experience you are experiencing you might start to worry about how certain both you and these prison guards are that you are, in fact, a visitor, and not an inmate to be visited.

***

In 2001, processing for visitation at the Missouri State Penitentiary worked like this:

You borrow a friend’s car to drive the 120 miles to Jefferson City. You park along Lafayette Street, which runs along the outside of the massive stone walls of the prison—like you are parking anywhere in small town America—like you might be running into a specialty store that they don’t have in your even-smaller-town America or the house of a friend across the street. You get out of your borrowed car and proceed to the large castle-like-keep that serves as the main entrance to the facility and push a large black button attached to a metal speaker box next to the deceptively solid bulletproof Plexiglas and steel door. The door is covered in a reflective coating, like a mirror, that allows the security guards to see you, but inside you can see nothing. While the door remains shut, it is like the world behind that mirror might not even exist. After a few nervous seconds pass like hours, a loud buzz emanates from the speaker box, followed by a click from the lock on the door, and a crackly voice commands: 

“Enter.” 

A small lobby lies beyond the entry door. Later in the day, you will not be able to remember if the lobby was painted and tiled in a sickly shade of yellow, or if it was a ghostly shade of green. Or maybe the whole room had been white, and it was the lighting that was somehow corrupted to make everything appear yellow, or green, or sick, or ghostly. A smell wafts up from the floor, mostly like bleach, but like something else possibly, buried beneath the bleach, something metallic. Maybe that is the smell of the rusty blue lockers along the left wall, but maybe it is something more like the smell of blood that has just been mopped off the linoleum beneath you.

The wall across from the building’s entrance is just another large bulletproof Plexiglas window over a steel counter. There is another loud buzz before another speaker box—this one just below this window—rings out curtly: 

“Why are you here?” 

There is no microphone into which to direct your response, so you speak out awkwardly into the space of the room, like you are speaking to a spirit or a divine entity: 

“To visit an inmate.” 

Silence follows, and so you continue to speak with the Plexiglas window in front of you, fairly certain that you are addressing the guard behind it, but the window is yellowed from age and scarred from vandalism, or poor cleaning practices. It seems possible that the guard’s lips are moving in synchronicity with the sounds coming out of the speaker box, but only possibly. Whether it is really the guard behind the Plexiglas or not, the speaker box asks with a cold detachment: 

“Identify the prisoner you are here to visit and then use the lockers to your left to stow all your personal items, including your wallet, your keys, your belt, and anything else that could be used as a weapon to harm you.”

In the back of your mind, you will question the intelligence of leaving every means of identifying your body in that lobby. This question will nag at you as you step back up to the window and tell the guard you are ready, but it will blossom—nearly into a panic—when the first reinforced door opens and you step into the narrow vestibule of a double-locked security checkpoint and you watch that door close behind you. The feeling of being disconnected from proof of who you are leaves you naked and vulnerable in the face of complete authoritarian control. You will think about how they could decide to keep you here in this vestibule forever, or encage you in a cell beyond it, and it could take days for anyone to know you are missing. You will think about how they could decide that you are actually someone else, some criminal that had escaped, and that you belong in their facility forever, because you now have no means of proving them otherwise. When they tell you that your name is Sam the Murderer, you will become Sam the Murderer and no one inside this facility will believe you when you plead otherwise, because nobody listens to a deviant prisoner like Sam the Murderer, against the good word of Bill the Prison Guard—protector of the law.

These are all irrational fears, but even in your rational brain, you will know that you are afraid because you have absolutely no control and no rights in this situation except those being conditionally granted to you by the guards on the other side of that Plexiglas, and in that moment, no one except those guards will be responsible for protecting your rights—you have entered their world—where they are gods and kings. Your ability to leave, to be a citizen of the United States of America, and not a prisoner, citizen of MSP, is determined by beings who know that their control and authority in this situation is absolute. You are sure there are rules and regulations about guards overstepping their responsibilities, but you are also fairly certain there are rules and regulations against speeding and drunk driving and that does not prevent either of those activities from being responsible for thousands of deaths a year.

These thoughts of death and imprisonment are interrupted as the door on the other side of the vestibule opens, and an actual physical guard—not a disembodied voice says: 

“Step forward, lift your arms.” 

He does not call you Sam the Murderer and so you obey his request in hopes that it will prevent him from realizing that he could. He pats down your arms, chest and legs, and finds the dirty Kleenex in your right front pocket. He is wearing gloves and has no qualms about handling your dirty snot as he tosses the Kleenex into a waste basket by his station. You are certain he would have no problem using those gloved hands to explore your entire body far more thoroughly if he suspected he had any reason to do so. But he does not.  Bill, the Prison Guard, protector of the law, likes the color of your skin, the fact you found a dress shirt to wear for your visit. He lets you go on through to the visitation room.

There is not a lot of difference between this visitation room and a food court at a mall (if those still exist when you are reading this) except that the stainless-steel tables and chairs are bolted in place and half of the occupants are wearing bright orange jumpsuits. Prisoners—other prisoners—less political prisoners—will be sitting at tables with their visitors, interacting more like human beings ought to. They will be sitting down, face to face with only a table between them. Some will be sharing a snack from the vending machine with their families, if their families brought enough loose change. You have left your lose change back with your ID and proof of personhood and not a prisoner’s hood because you know that the person you have come to visit won’t be allowed to be in the same room as you, much less share your snacks. 

You will be shown into the maximum-security visitation room. The one just like in the movies. He will be shown into a small metal broom closet on the other side of another Plexiglas window. You will be sitting at a desk, in a chair, facing a window much like a bank teller. He will remain cuffed, manacled and chained to his seat on the other side. You will have to speak to him through a phone, just like you always have to  talk to him—through speakers and wires—only this time you will be able to see the tears in his eyes when he hears your voice.

***

Well not quite.

 At least, not this time. 

This time, the human being I had come to Jefferson City to visit at the Missouri State Penitentiary, was not there. He was not at the Missouri State Penitentiary, nor anywhere close to Jefferson City. Without notice or warning, he had been transferred three days earlier to the facility in Patosi, Missouri—130 miles as the crow flies, in the opposite direction of your travels. In addition to being transferred without notice, he had been denied phone privileges and placed in solitary confinement at the Patosi Correctional Center for “engaging in disruptive behavior” over being transferred. 

It would be a week after my visit before I would know any of this though.  Instead, I would spend five minutes sitting in a chair, staring at that empty metal broom closet of a visitation room, before the guard that escorted me in would show back up and tell me, with no sympathy or explanation:

“The inmate you have come to see is no longer at this facility. Please come with me.”

***

The man I was going to visit that day—by his own admission—was not a good man.  Depending upon who was telling the story, he was in prison as a murderer, an accessory to murder, or at the very least, a black man who had put himself in a very wrong place at a very wrong time. As far as I have ever been able to discern, it is possible that all the above could be true.  Originally arrested in the late 70’s at the age of 17, he was a member of a group that was in the process of robbing a small business when a gun was discharged, and a person was shot dead. The only witnesses to the murder were the members of the group that were performing the robbery. Witnesses to the break-in identified the group and the direction from which they fled the scene. All of them were eventually apprehended, but the identity of the murderer was never proven in court. The three men were tried as adults and received 20-year sentences. 

I was told that two of the men involved served about 7 years of their sentences before getting released on parole. They kept low profiles and avoided the politics of the prison yard. The man I was there to see had not kept a low profile or avoided the politics of the prison yard. As he described it, the world behind bars had captured him, mind, body and spirit.

Just a teenager at the time of his arrest, it had already been a couple of years since he had dropped out of high school. At the juvenile facility he started his sentence in, there was an educational program, but nothing the prison schools had to offer were of any interest. In the yard, however, this man felt his first real call for learning. 

It is not easy for a class-privileged white boy like me to understand the appeal of the nation of Islam. As a Jew, it is even more difficult for me to understand the appeal of a minister like Louis Farrakhan. I don’t necessarily understand the potential impact of his message, because his message was never delivered for me to understand. Yes, Jews also have a history of persecution, but there is a generation between me and a world that was ready to throw my life away, and write me off as another lazy, no-good, typical representative of my entire race. 

By the early 80’s, the Nation of Islam was about the only large scale organization in the United States reaching out to black men in prison. There was no one else at the time speaking out publicly and saying that the reason black men were getting put behind bars at a socially disproportionate rate was because white society was afraid of them. With the help of Black Nationalists both in and out of the prison around him—and the repressive conditions he experienced daily—an ignorant child turned into a politicized man that was regularly taking it upon himself to improve the conditions of those around him. This man would write letters voraciously. He would write them to administrators within the prison and supporters outside, attempting to bring attention to every injustice faced by prisoners in the state of Missouri. No issue was too big or small to tackle, and every abuse, rotten sandwich, and unsanitary bathroom that was brought to his attention was going to be echoed out into the world.

Voracious advocacy didn’t win him the respect or admiration of his captors, but it did start to make some waves with his peers on the inside. Eventually, the idea of formally organizing came into discussion and a first-of-its-kind prisoner’s labor union, run by-and-for prisoners, was born.

This is his story. It is a good one, and to this day, I still mostly believe it. 

His version of the story is romantic and grabs the attention of outsiders sympathetic to the notion that the mass incarceration of people of color in this country is a continuation of slavery and injustice. His story is compelling and true enough, on a national and social scale, to inspire a nerdy white boy on the outside to action. It was enough to get me writing letters—first to the man himself, then as an outside collaborator of the man’s organization—and eventual got me traveling half-way across the state to see him. But it is not the only story.

***

In America, prisons serve many functions in the minds of those who advocate for them. From retribution to rehabilitation, people that have never been inside one like to believe that prisons serve as bastions of social law and order. Like landfills, they are always better imagined than experienced, but that is the point, right?

Prisons should be unpleasant places so that they can serve most effectively as deterrents to future crime. If they devolve into places where terrible things happen, well, they are happening to terrible people for the good of good people who will never have to worry too intently about conditions on the other side, right? There is a mystique to the violence that occurs in prison, a mystique that benefits the world outside, and thus, people on the outside of prison love to cultivate it. 

In movies, in television, in literature, we almost never see prison portrayed without focusing on stories of inmate violence, riots and rape. The behavior that most terrifies us into accepting the necessity of prisons, is the behavior that we secretly let occupy both our dreams and nightmares about prisons, because prison is where bad people get what they deserve. 

But prison is not a dream. It is not a theoretical construct. Every prison exists in metal bars and concrete, filled with real people, guards and inmates. The stories that we hear and the myths that we retell about shanks and dropped soap are repeated for a reason—are grounded in truths that feel far more sickening when we think about them happening to real people and not the monsters of our imagination.    

Prisoners who try to expose the violence of their environment or abuses of administrative authority do not often make friends with wardens or guards. The first prisoner to report an abuse or offense is often ignored or accused of making things up to get a disliked guard fired or rival prisoner in trouble. Prison administrators are not often rewarded for the careful and ethical handling of their incident reports. They are rewarded for not having incidents to report. Complicating this problem further is the fact that publicly reporting on guards and administrative abuse is one of the only ways incarcerated people have of getting sympathetic attention from folks on the outside, and everyone knows this. The prisoners, the guards, and the state authorities responsible for investigating and responding to abuse all know that public sympathy is the only way that the spotlight of criminal justice ever gets turned to the inside of the jail cell. These facts collude to incentivize prison administrators into making reporting a hefty burden for the prisoner who has experienced abuse.

Prisoners who earn a reputation for whistleblowing can suffer severe consequences, especially in an effort to keep their accusations from being investigated. For someone outside of prison, “severe consequences” probably invokes images of guards assailing prisoners with batons. However, when your entire world is defined by the privileges extended to you by your captors, your captors can be ingenious and excruciating subtle in their punishments. Little things, like access to books and recreation time, aspects of prisoner’s lives already under guards’ supervision, can easily be manipulated without drawing any administrative attention or recourse. Like so many other exercises in establishing dominance and control, rarely is the severity of the restriction the issue—it is the fact that there is nothing the prisoner can do about it. The line between “necessary demonstration of authority” and an “abuse of power” is very difficult to define, and prisoners, by nature of their circumstances, are always presumed guilty until proven otherwise. 

***

Over the years of writing and working with this man whom I had gone to visit, I had received numerous letters and reports of abuses that he had suffered at the hands of administrators. I received apologies for delays in writing because he had been getting moved into and out of solitary confinement and he didn’t have access to his writing materials. I read about how his block was being served rotten and maggot-infested food, and everyone was being told it was his fault. Almost monthly I’d read about how he was being denied access to medical, educational or recreational facilities. As the prisoner’s rights organization began to spread and our newsletter mailing list began to grow into the hundreds, I eventually started getting letters from prison officials attempting to discredit him as a violent dissident and gang organizer. 

We were working to abolish a justice system that favors mass incarceration over efforts to establish restorative justice. We called ourselves an organization of prison abolition. It is easy to see why representatives of the institutions we were naming as abusive and out of control were trying to disrupt our organization, and it was easier still just to ignore them when prison officials worked to discredit our leadership…But letters kept coming and, eventually, not just from prison administrators.  We, the outside editorial staff, began to receive letters from folks who had been locked up with him, and the letters did not paint a pretty picture of what was going on with our organization’s leadership.

At first the letters named vague offenses with phrases like “disruptive behavior” that sounded to us more like a badge of honor than a condemnation. Even accusations of activities like gang organizing were dismissible because he was in fact trying to organize a prisoner’s rights group, and it made sense that guards would be quick to attach the most damning label they could to such an organization.  

But the letters kept coming in and getting more specific about the accusations. 

Finally, I received a letter from another prisoner that I could no longer brush off with a clean conscience. This letter named the man I had been working with as the organizer of a “rape ring,” in which the opportunity to rape other prisoners was being traded for prestige and political support from the outside. It would be horrific if it proved true, but again, prison administrators would know this as well as we would and getting an inmate to write a letter in exchange for privileges is a commonly employed tactic. The accusatory letter came from a prisoner whom our organization had been warned about as a possible administrative collaborator by other members of the organization that had encountered him at other facilities around the state. 

What to do? No one putting their heart and labor into a prison abolition movement wants to be responsible for enabling sexual violence, but outside of prison, it was too difficult to tell who was trying to manipulate me and why. I was not involved in sending anyone money or other resources that directly benefited this man and had no connection to him outside of our work together on the organization’s news letter. The politics of the organization I was involved with, and its strong opposition to rape and rape culture, were publicly documented and repeated in all of our publications. Anyone looking to cause division within our group would recognize this as an obvious and effective point of contention. No other prisoners came forward to substantiate the accusations and even the person reaching out to us was not doing so as a victim, but as a person who had heard rumors. 

My guts were churning at the prospect that I could be working to maintain or even spread the power and reach of a serial rapist, but letting the organization be torn apart on hearsay was just as nauseating a prospect. I needed to meet with the man in person, so I could look him in the eyes—even if it were through a sheet of Plexiglas—and see his response when I asked him about these allegations.

***

It has been many years since I sat there, alone in the visitors’ room at the Missouri State Penitentiary, waiting for a man who wasn’t there. The visitors’ room, just like the prison it inhabited, was abandoned finally in 2004, putting to rest nearly 175 years of violent, repressive history. The facility and its premises have been turned into a tourist attraction, where former guards and wardens now walk tourists through cellblocks and death-penalty gas chambers.  Visitors are told about the prison’s more famous residents. Prisoners like:  

• Sonny Liston, who learned to box while incarcerated in the MSP and went on to become heavy-weight champion in 1962—a title he lost two years later to a 7-1 underdog then fighting under the name Cassius Clay. 
• James Earl Ray, who, in 1959, had been sentenced to 20 years in the MSP for robbing a grocery store in St. Louis. Ray escaped in 1964 and resurfaced publicly on April 4^th, 1969 to assassinate a black preacher in Alabama named Martin Luther King Jr. 

Visitors to the Missouri State Penitentiary today spend three hours walking through dark crumbling concrete halls, watching paint peel off into flakes in Missouri River valley humidity, imagining a hell larger than life—full of figures of legendary importance and horrific notoriety. They leave supportive comments about the quality of their experiences and the genuine hospitality they received from the tour guides and historians. They reflect upon the importance of preserving the history captured in sites like these, as if prisons like the MSP are inventions of the past—relics of a bygone era—that no longer exist in the consciousness of the real people who inhabit them—as if our ‘prisons’ are not rooted in the national identity of the most incarcerated population in the developed world. 

There are terrible people in this world and there are people accused of doing terrible things. Often, the difference between those two categories will never be knowable as more than speculation. That is why one man’s effort to ascertain the innocence or guilt of another, by staring him in the eye was, from the very beginning, a work of naïve and delusional fantasy. Some facts about the past will never be knowable—they will just exist as a gut-check or bad feeling. But the realities of prison, and the environments we have built into them, are physical constructions that are experienced daily by everyone that enters them, whether as visitors, as guards, or as prisoners.

It is important that we have means of dealing with the real and terrible things that happen in this world and the people responsible for doing them. It is just as important that we make sure we have looked carefully at the ways we think we are dealing with the monsters of our imaginations and remember that monsters are make-believe. Prisoners are people and do not sacrifice their humanity just because they have been convicted of a crime, no matter how horrific. 

The walls of prisons exist primarily for the benefit of people so far removed from the world of incarceration that they will never even enter them through the visitor’s entrance. Therefore, it is the responsibility of all of us living outside those walls to pay attention to what happens inside them, because we are the reason they exist.

Setting:

If you are imagining this as tape recorded conversation, you might hear the mechanical click of a PLAY button, and the ambient noise of a turbulent mental landscape, signaling a return to a polyvocal scrum.

MR. WHINEY

(gives a chuckling sigh before continuing in a less whimsical tone.)

Yes, that is certainly the one.

I can hear quite a bit of each of our aesthetic voices in that writing sample, but I think getting lost in a formalist analysis of prose would be an unnecessary and distracting addition burden for this already heavy task. Although… (pauses a beat, as if MR. WHINEY was stopping to scratch a chin that does not exist.)

…attempting to separate form and content is also likely another mistake, don’t you think—

MR. PROVE-IT

—Yes, I do, Mr. Whiney, think, all the time.

And right now, I think you are missing the point. We ain’t real. It doesn’t make any sense to ask our audience to look for evidence of us in the words of Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett. We exist to expose him, in relationship to McPherson’s Unit and mass incarceration in America.

MR. WHINEY

Well then, why don’t you get us started.

What does this essay reveal about who this Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett thinks he is, that believes investigating McPherson’s Unit is his investigation to investigate?

MR. PROVE-IT

(takes a deep breath before continuing)

1. Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett is a white boy, born and raised.

2. He has years of experience working with prisoner’s rights organizations.

3. He flirts with confusion about whether he has actually served time in a correctional facility, probably because he has come close and is afraid to reveal how or why.

4. His reasons for doing this work have been tested by questionable experiences that had no satisfying answers.

5. He emerged from this experience still doubting that prisons do the things society expects of them.

6. He cares about preventing sexual violence, knows it is a problem in prisons, but thinks it is an issue that prison administrators can easily use to silence other conversations.

7. He’s tries to be funny, even when it ain’t time to be funny.

(Takes a beat to consider if he’s missed anything.)

…Did I miss anything?

MR. WHINEY

Well, probably, but that seems like enough to start with, and it gives us a lot of important aspects of identity to discuss. Maybe we should begin wi—

EXAMINER

(Interjecting boldly, before a rant ensues.)

8. What is your relationship with Arkansas?

MR. PROVE-IT

(Surprised, MR. PROVE-IT laughs and follows EXAMINER’s lead with a snicker.)

Oh, Snap! The Examiner has spoken. But that’s an important point that I totally missed.

Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett is not from Arkansas.

In fact, his relationship with the Arkansas is pretty damn confusing. Since this investigation’s supposed to talk about people and place, I think it makes sense if we start there.

MR. WHINEY

I see what you did with “we” and “there,” Mr. Prove-it.

(MR. WHINEY pauses a beat in hopes the AUDIENCE hears the quotation marks around the words, “we” and “there,” and yet his silence only proves that nothing kills the cleverness of word play like drawing attention to it.)

And it probably is best to follow the guidance of Examiner, even though his presence is growing in both authority and mystery.

The relevance of place in America is equal parts grossly exaggerated and wildly underrated in our national literature and identity. Critiques of American culture range from its monolithic brute force to its fractured incoherence. McAmerica has taken over everywhere, yet exists nowhere specifically, because the abstraction of universality always falls short of reality. We want to believe that cookie cutter homes and assembly-line models of fabrication mean that we will know exactly what to expect when we walk through certain predictable doors or golden arches.

Terrifyingly often, our experiences with places that we think of as similar run together into one collective memory—if we hold on to those memories at all. It is very difficult to know what differences are worth appreciating and which ones are not while an experience is happening. Because of that, Americans, and people all over the globe really, have a very strong vision of what it means to be born in America, but very little consensus about what the vison looks like. The most relevant and particularly egregious example of this dissonance can be seen in America’s continuing obsession with the North/South divide.

MR. PROVE-IT

Yeah, it’s pretty tough to talk about a single American culture as a walk into McDonalds when you compare that experience in Chicago, Illinois and Newport, Arkansas.

There is a reason that “you ain’t from around here” is more often a warning than it is a warm welcome.

MR. WHINEY

Wait, has Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett ever been to a Mc Donald’s in either of those cities?

MR. PROVE-IT

Randomly enough, yes. But it wasn’t to test this comparison or to be a part of this investigation.

Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett hasn’t put a foot down in either of these places since this project began. But let’s stay on topic: McDonalds, Chicago, Newport and “Y’all ain’t from around here.”

MR. WHINEY

Yes, thank you, Mr. Prove-it.

(MR. WHINEY stops to clear his throat.)

Those examples are not even geographically very far apart, are they? Only five-hundred-and-fifty-five miles by road. They are not even at the extreme ends of what Americans envision either Northern or Southern culture to encompass. Perhaps my reference point is a little dated, but if you ask the question about whether someone prefers Neil Young or Lynyrd Skynyrd, you are as often asking a complicated question of politics as you are one of Rock and Roll aesthetics. But it is a coded debate that oversimplifies a complex historical premise. It is problematically reductive to pretend like only a bigot could appreciate the song “Sweet Home Alabama,” or to try to make the argument that liking the song “Southern Man” proves one’s anti-racist politics—

MR. PROVE-IT

(interjected with scorn and elitist distain.)

—Well, “Sweet Home Alabama” is trash—

MR. WHINEY

—But it is that exact attitude that demonstrates the significance of the question we are trying to address.

Knowing where Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett considers home would go a long way towards establishing the credibility, he has to speak about cultural issues that have steep regional boundaries.

MR. PROVE-IT

(MR. PROVE IT raises his voice, nearly to a shout.)

I am calling bullshit.

Even though I get where you are going with this line of thinking, and I see how I might’ve helped start us down that road, this isn’t going anywhere good. White folks in the South have a long history of believing that they are the experts on facing the ugly reality of what racism has accomplished for America. They have made a fucking joke of themselves, that has wormed its way into that national story you are going on about. You might be able to find a redneck anywhere, but it was white southern democrats that argued the loudest for bullshit like “separate but equal,” while committing unspeakable acts of violence to ensure that “equal” would never actually mean equal. I am unaware of any period of American history in which there were not white southern men championing themselves as the “pragmatic authorities” on every political issue under the sun.

Saying that we, as Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett, have nothing to contribute to a discussion about a southern prison because we weren’t born here, seems like an attempt to evade the larger issues by excusing ourselves from responsibility from keeping an eye on an obvious institution of state authority.

(If it is possible for disembodied voice to do so, the AUDIENCE imagines they hear MR. PROVE—IT make a noise quite like spitting on the floor before continuing.)

Fuck that.

MR. WHINEY

Your concerns are heartfelt, and it is important not to shirk responsibility in those situations where we have the power to investigate the investment of authority in an institution of the state…

(MR. WHINEY takes a beat to consider what he is about to say.)

…But, assuming that we actually have that power and are not just taking it from someone better suited to the job, would lead this investigation to disastrously predictable conclusions. If we want to believe that we have some legitimate agency in investigating the existence of McPherson’s Unit in Newport, Arkansas, we damn well better be willing to engage in the work necessary to make sure that we are not misdirecting our energy into a project that could be harmful to the people on the front lines of this struggle—

MR. PROVE-IT

(the dawning rays of understanding illuminate MR. PROVE-IT’s response.)

—We’ve got to make sure we don’t become the problem by insisting that we’ve got all, or even maybe just any, of the answers we set out to question—

MR. WHINEY

Exactly!

Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett is not a southern man any more than he is a man of the North, East or West. His sense of rootlessness is a mystery in and of itself. A mystery that we won’t take up the time and space to adequately address within the scope of this investigation.

However, he is a man—and a white one at that. The intellectual arrogance of white men has far too many flavors to pretend like regionality alone is the only relevant factor to consider in how the identity of the investigator might impact this investigation. As you have stated, the fact that “He…ain’t…

(MR. WHINEY struggles awkwardly around the contraction he is unaccustomed to vocalizing.)

…from around here,” must be observed as much for the “he” as for the “not here.” After all, the entire purpose of discussing identity in this section of our investigation is to make note of factors that might effect the investigation’s outcomes. Otherwise, we are misleading our read into assuming that we are speaking with some kind of authority, or we are asking them to do the work of vetting us as investigators for themselves.

MR. PROVE-IT

Alright!

Identity is important. We’re gonna keep things honest and out in the open. But let’s also agree to keep this as focused as possible, so we don’t lose our audience.

MR. WHINEY

If intersectional feminism has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that any effort to simplify the relationship of socially constructed identities within a complex web of power hierarchies is doomed to reinforce the ones that are left unacknowledged…But…

(MR. WHINEY pauses a beat as if responding to some unseen non-verbal que from MR. PROVE-IT.)

…I consent to letting you to frame this discussion over the roles that Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett’s identity signifiers might play on this investigation, if—

(MR. WHINEY’s voice intensifies in volume as he interrupts himself.)

—IF, we are both willing to admit that our limited perspectives, as voices within that constructed identity, might lead us to miss significant patterns of causality that could render some potential impacts unobserved.

MR. PROVE-IT

(MR. PROVE-IT laughs.)

Yr words are bordering on academic nonsense, but I think I like what yr getting at. I will do my best to break these identity issues into categorical groups that seem important to me; BUT, I will do so in the full knowledge that I only see what I see and if other folks, you included, see more, than they should feel free to jump in.

MR. WHINEY

Superb!

(MR. WHINEY shouts, and sounds suspiciously like he has slipped into a fake British accent.)

MR. PROVE-IT

Alrighty then.

(MR. PROVE-IT ignores MR. WHINEY’s nerdy enthusiasm and tries to set a more serious mood as he moves into more serious subjects.)

Things that matter:

Setting:

Where does your mind go at the mentioning of “Man parts.” Is it your sexy place? Is it clinical? like a doctor’s office? Is it somewhere between some legs? or a place all in your head?

MR. PROVE-IT

(continuing from the exact breath exhaled at the end of Part 3b, with emotional audio air quotes.)

“…Masculinity!” Women in pop culture can’t win. They’ve had to fight hard to be more than objects for straight-male ogling, and even when they succeed in taking on roles of authority beyond their sexual availability to the most powerful male in the room, they have their lives and actions scrutinized in ways that men would never allow. Fuck, this 2016 presidential campaign pretty much proves the point in a conversation I am sure we will have later about the Clintons.

Men, consciously or not, often fail to see the value of the work women do.

As men investigating a women’s prison, we’ve got to be real about our biases and keep an eye on ourselves and each other not to slip into shitty behaviors. That might sound easy, but think about it for a moment.

An investigation is an examination of a subject. Historically, this means believing that we were looking at subject from a distance that allows for an “objective view” of whatever we are looking at. When the investigator is a man, and the subject of the investigation is a women’s prison, the tradition is for us to treat the women we talk to, or even just research, during this investigation like the objects of our study. That many of these women will be incarcerated only gives us more power to fuck up and cause someone harm without respecting her or recognizing her power to speak for herself and set the record straight.

Look at the media out there about “women behind bars:”

The first thing that came up for me in a Google search of those tag words shows that Women Behind Bars is the English title for a 1975 French sexploitation film, Des diamants pour l’enfer. The movie poster for the films shows images of naked women chained to walls and tortured. People who liked this film also liked movies like, SADOMANIA, Barbed Wire Dolls and Sexy Sisters, all of which have equally suggestive promotional posters.

In 2008, Women Behind Bars became a true crime TV show that lasted for three seasons, dramatizing and reenacting the cases of famous women criminals. Maybe this “docu-tainment” show was less sexually exploitative of the women it was showing, but the focus was on still on sensualizing the woman as criminal, and not investigating the conditions of her captivity. And even within the context of being presented as non-fiction, the relationship between femininity, sexuality and violence was a theme often explored by the show, with the first episode of the first season looking at the case of Stacey Lanart, a Missouri woman, who was raped by her father for years, ignored by her family when she tried to report him, and eventually resorted to shooting him twice while he slept.

The most recent show to portray women’s incarceration, Orange Is the New Black, tries harder than most previous efforts to highlight the real problems faced by women in prison. However, the show is still a work of fiction that still hams up women’s sexual relationships as one of its major selling points.

For many men, thinking about women in manacles is a sexual fantasy about having power and control over an object of desire. While the possibility of sexual violence in women’s prison is a source of erotic imagination for many men, Sexual violence in men’s prison is a terrifying cautionary tale often reinforced as a joke. In neither case do men outside of prison like to think about the horrific realities of sexual exploitation in prisons, or the daily lives of people living under the threat of being sexually assaulted while incarcerated.

Being a man investigating a women’s prison means needing to be aware of this history and how easily the real issues of women in prison can be overshadowed by assumptions about sexuality and violence in institutions. It also means needing to push ourselves to look beyond sex and violence in our investigation, so that we do not reduce women in prison to nothing more than sexual victims, or ignore the host of other issues women in prison face: like being moved hundreds of miles from their families, having limited access to physical and mental health care and being stigmatized for life as a criminal.

MR. WHINEY

(MR. WHINEY responds quickly in a tone of self-righteous self-reproach.)

The fact that our first concerns as investigators were issues of sexuality and violence exemplifies the limitations of our male investigative perspective, and the terror women must face being incarcerated in a patriarchal society.

Nothing about the theoretical purpose of women’s incarceration should lead to thoughts of sexual violence, except for the fact that sexual violence against women is culturally rampant in America, and that the risk of sexual violence for men as well as women in prison, is one of the most commonly portrayed and accepted consequences of incarceration.

Books have been written about the hierarchical implications of sexual identity and authority as established in society through institutions of incarceration, and anyone interested in thinking more deeply about these relationships might want to consult the philosophical writings of Michael Foucault. But you are pointing out that we have a responsibility not to let those issues become the only ones we are concerned with, correct?

MR. PROVE-IT

Uh, yeah, that’s what I said wasn’t it?

(waits a beat to see if MR. WHINEY responds before continuing.)

We gotta be aware of the roles we can fall into as researchers, and make sure we don’t reduce the stories of any of the women we investigate into tales of their sexual objectification that we then go on to exploit for our own benefit.

We also gotta be real about the fact that our project is not a one-sided look at women’s prisons that is going to focus only on the lives of women behind bars. For one, women are already telling their own stories about these experiences and we should be seeking those out rather than trying to speak over them. For another, the scope of our project is more about the role of McPherson’s Unit in the world than just the prisoners’ roles within McPherson. We will have to look at some stories of women who have been locked up there because their stories are THE story of McPherson’s Unit. But, when we do so, it will be in relationship to a specific issue of justice and incarceration we are trying to highlight. And all the stories we tell are ones synthesized from secondary sources, not the women themselves.

MR. WHINEY

Some members of our audience will probably feel cheated by that acknowledgement, that this project was undertaken without directly soliciting the voices of incarcerated women, and those feelings are probably justified.

If you made yourself an audience to this investigation under the assumptions that you were going to get an in-depth exposé about the lives of women in prison, you have come to the wrong place. The good news is, there are phenomenal books, written by women, that contain the stories of real women who have lived through, or are living through, years of incarceration.

Read them.

Read Inside This Place, Not of It, compiled and edited by Robin Levi and Ayelet Waldman. Read Assata, by Assata Shakur. Read Doing Time: 25 years of Prison Writing, and seek out the many voices of the women you can find in there.

I give you my most passionate blessing to put this investigation down right now to go read those books. Only one rather quiet, tiny, voice of the many collected here is going to feel bad if you never come back to our investigation. If you abandon us in pursuit of a more powerful or direct look at women’s carceral experiences, we will not consider our mission a complete failure.

MR. PROVE-IT

You are annoying, as always, but you are also correct.

Projects that focus on the voices of women talking about their own experiences in prison are important. Some already exist and should be read. More need to be written, and that project very well could be more important in the grand scheme of things than anything this investigation will accomplish. But the scope of this project is to think about a specific women’s prison and its role in the world, and we cannot pretend like any prison exists exclusively for the people held inside of it.

MR. WHINEY

The voices of prisoners are too often deliberately silenced.

We do not want our investigation to lead any audience into thinking that listening to us excuses them from seeking out additional voices on the issue of women’s incarceration in the United States. But we can use our position as investigators to invite you, as audience members, into the project of critically examining the voices calling for and maintaining prisons, and why we as a society continue to let our current practices of incarceration to perpetuate themselves.

We hope, that by making our limitations painfully transparent, we can share our hours of research and listening to as many different voices on the subject of McPherson’s Unit as we can, to help create a richer and more complete picture of what that building is doing there at 302 Corrections Drive.

Setting:

Upon our skins dance multitudes of beings we will never see nor understand. We are a landscape defined by stories, most frequently those told to make us comfortable.

MR. PROVE-IT

“Whitenessss…”

(MR. PROVE-IT trails off in thought holding on the hiss of his ‘s’ for a full beat.)

…This is going to be a tricky.

MR. WHINEY

Forgive my brackishness, but BULLSHIT.

You absolutely do not get to dismiss the rhetorical impact of whiteness as an investigator, in examining the role of incarceration in America.

This is not a “gray area” conversation.

The only reason that the very concept of the prison does not qualify as a racist institution from before the founding of the United States of America to present is because most non-western European peoples were denied the status of citizenship for the majority of that history. Slavery, genocide, internment—all involved forms of inhuman incarceration, but they were happening outside of the limits of a criminal justice system and inside systems of an economic and military domination.

Even most working and under-class Western Europeans colonists were first codified into a class of humanity outside of colonial citizen: indentured servants who were forcibly relocated to the Americas under threat of execution in their European homeland. It is estimated that half to two-thirds of all Europeans who came to the Americas before US independence came as indentured servants. Less than half of indentured servants out-lived the terms of their bondage. Now, different laws existed to protect some of these groups in more ways than others (indentured servants eventually gained legal protections and recognitions denied African and indigenous slaves). However most of these laws came into existence to pit these groups against each other and make the ruling colonial elite look like the most reasonable and enlightened group to emulate or appeal for support.

Before the establishment of the United States (and for more than a century after it) outside of industrializing urban centers—incarceration was rarely employed as a means of establishing justice. Frontier law made heavy use of capital punishment, forced labor, and banishment (benignly called transportation) to lands outside of defended colonial borders.

MR. PROVE-IT

—Ok, ok, ok.

I think yr history lesson about the role of prisons in our country is gonna be a great section somewhere in this investigation. But maybe not right now, while you are going ape shit on me for saying that it is gonna be complicated to make clear the ways in which our whiteness impacts our findings.

MR. WHINEY

(Responds with caution.)

Conceding that we should save for later a conversation the history of the myth of “incarceration as justice” vs “a system of social control,” I still find your postmodern push to label “race” as complicated to be extremely problematic.

Yes, it is complex, but you are not allowed to dismiss complexity just because it makes you uncomfortable. Or are you scared that critically examining our whiteness will lead some readers to stop here in our investigation, and not consider any other issues we address in regards to McPherson’s Unit, because we are insisting that it is impossible to consider any institution of criminal justice without centering that analysis in the construction of race?

MR. PROVE-IT

Come on Mr. Whiny, this self-righteous bullshit is a farce, even if you are right.

Who are you trying to impress here by beating yrself up in some kind of PC pissing contest? What is at stake here? I want you to really consider that question before you answer and not give me some canned defensive response about being on the right side of history.

Because the whole point of doing this exercise in self-exposure is to admit up front that we have an agenda here, and if yrs is just to convince witty leftist intellectuals that you are smart enough to earn that big university tenure-track paycheck, then I want to reconsider what exactly is “problematic” here.

MR. WHINEY

What do I think I will win by making it clear that I recognize that whiteness and the social necessity of prisons walk hand in hand?

(His voice reeking of scorn.)

Nothing but the opportunity to take some accountability for that reality: that incarceration exists in America today to protect people like us from the consequences of the violent histories that have bought us our privilege to have this experience with incarceration as a conversation instead of having to live through it.

There is a strong possibility that our investigation will be nothing more than an attempt to justify those white privileges, and to reinforce the relationships between them and the existence of this prison, if we don’t address these issues up front.

(Calming down.)

I insist on recognizing this link of race and rates of incarceration because there is no way to look at the question “why does this prison exist?” and not have part of the answer be “to make people like me feel safe.”

MR. PROVE-IT

That is a pretty answer, but it is not simple, easy, or without legitimate critique.

The existence of prisons don’t make any people of color feel safer?

Aren’t there white people making up most the folks that are in prison in America, in Arkansas, and incarcerated in McPherson’s Unit? Even where the percentages of incarcerated people of color are horrifically skewed in comparison to those states general populations, it doesn’t mean there aren’t a shit load of white people in prison too, and we can’t ignore the role that class plays in incarceration rates, just because race also plays a role in them.

If we really want to “center” race, as you describe it, instead of just saying that we are doing so as a rhetorical move to appeal to some liberal academic audience, we gotta own up to the possibility that we might alienate other audiences that have more at stake in this investigation of McPherson’s Unit. Now maybe that possibility is worth it, if we succeed in digging into the roots of race and incarceration in America or Arkansas.

But we also gotta face the possibility that “centering” race, as a white investigator, might not even be possible beyond us going through some motions that we are not capable of contextualizing beyond our own privileges. There is also the very real possibility that by asserting so confidently that we are authoritatively putting race at the center of our investigation, we might be ignoring, and stepping on the toes of other writers of color that have been doing the kind of investigative research for decades-long careers instead of just for years. We are not exactly anthropological race experts any more than we are sociologists of criminal justice. We are just a writer with some pressing need to keep looking where state authorities have told us that we can’t. Pretty words and boldly stated intentions cannot disguise these facts or limits.

Recognizing complexity is not dismissing it.

MR. WHINEY

Fair enough Mr. Prove-it.

It feels like you have successfully used my own words and ideas against me, although I am still cautious that this was all just an elaborate ploy to pat ourselves on our “pasty white ass” as you would say.

We are here to explore complexities instead of dismissing them. The impacts of whiteness on America’s models for criminal justice, and the ways in which those impacts are critically examined are complex relationships. But let’s make certain that we agree that nobody here is going to take a “post-truth” position claiming that the complexities of race and incarceration include the possibility that the two are not connected.

Whether it is possible or not, whether it proves that my analysis is more racially ignorant than yours or not, I will be striving to centering race within my investigation of McPherson’s Unit, and where that comes into conflict with your desires to situate race as one of many intersecting social factors of its construction, we will have those debates as they arise.

MR. PROVE-IT

That seems like a deal I can live with, but if you forget or slip out of yr “ideological framework,” that is on you.

Before we move on, it is my job to point out that this turned into a theoretical exercise rather than a real look at how the whiteness of Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett impacts this investigation.

In addition to keeping it real about how our whiteness might make us more sympathetic to arguments in favor of prisons, another important consideration of race in prison is how the white inmates are going to have an easier time getting attention about abusive prison conditions than prisoners of color.

MR. WHINEY

(returning to his calm but eccentric enthusiasm for the project at hand.)

That is an interesting consideration in light of the legacy of when and how prison reformation movements have gained steam.

The only times that masses of citizens have sincerely questioned the harshness of penal justice methodology are in times of political turmoil and revolution. A majority of people will defend the state’s obligation to adopt severe consequences to perceived criminal behavior up unto to the point that they start to see prisoners as political resistors of an unjust system. Then it has often been the lash back that has highlighted the horrors of the justice system and lead to the most significant changes. In many European revolutionary movements, for example, this softening of the criminal justice system coincided with attacks on class systems that saw previously “untouchable” members of society’s elite, being treated equally to it is poor and destitute.

MR. PROVE-IT

(Softens his tone.)

People always think that criminals get off too easily, no matter how harsh the punishments.

“Law and Order” was as effective a concept for kings as it has been for politicians, right up until a critical mass started to fear that it could be their necks up next at the gallows.

MR. WHINEY

Exactly!

And this is relevant to race because race has been used historically to divide people with the most to gain from working together to accomplish reform.

The more people can be convinced that the criminal is some terrifying “other,” some dangerous “super-predator,” in the words of former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, the easier it is for people to utilize “Justice” as a tool to centralize and control political power instead of distributing it throughout society.

MR. PROVE-IT

We will need to remember to explore the relationship between race and the reporting of abuses in prison later, when we look at the cases of some specific prisoners.

It is a fucked-up reality, but white Americans don’t even tend to give a shit about the legacy of genocides and oppressions carried out in their name. It’s about impossible to convince them to pay attention to abuses directed at individuals that have already been demonized with the label “criminal.”

MR. WHINEY

These racial issues we are discussing are true on a global and national scale, but they are especially prevalent in local communities that might harbor stronger attitudes about criminal justice enforcement than their national average.

This has been a critical reason that prison abuses in the South have such an ugly history, and often spiked in those times where the prison system received its largest influxes of populations that enfranchised society considered most deplorable: immigrants, indigenous people, post-emancipation African Americans. Finding evidence of these abuses often proves difficult and it is easy, as a white researcher, to overlook absences of examples, rather than attempt to contextualize them.

MR. PROVE-IT

So basically, you are saying that we may not even be aware of what we are overlooking when we look at questions of who has been impacted by the construction of McPherson’s Unit and the institution that it has grown into—

MR. WHINEY

—But we will do our best to discuss the places where we found absences in information and the larger social circumstances that may be contributing to that lack of information—

(Enjoying the flow of this conversation, both Mr. PROVE-IT and MR. WHINEY do not so much as interrupt each other, as complete each other’s thoughts. As if the space between them was disappearing.)

MR. PROVE-IT

—and as we do so, our audience knows that even our best efforts to talk about these situations are going to be limited by all the ways our whiteness has trained us not to see racial injustice, no matter how hard we think we are looking for it.

(The period at the end of Mr. PROVE-IT’s sentence has a finality that results in a beat of silence as the two investigators consider the impact of their own statements. Eventually MR. WHINEY gather’s his thoughts enough to continue.)

MR. WHINEY

(with a tone of approving humility.)

OK, Mr. Prove-it, I will admit that it is not wrong to suggest that the intersection of race and incarceration—and how our whiteness is going to impact this investigation—is likely more complicated than we will manage to recognize or discuss.

I hope, by having this conversation in the manner that we have done so, our audience will be aware of those complexities and be willing to think critically about race as they investigate issues of incarceration on their own.

I also want to put this on the official record: Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett is always open to listen to and respect anyone who wants to question and challenge the role that race plays on the projects he undertakes.

MR. PROVE-IT

Alright, Mr. Whiny, I doubt this will be the last time we talk about race in this investigation, but we do have a few more factors of social identity to discuss and I can’t wait to see you squirm around how you are not ignoring them in yr “centering” of race in our investigation of incarceration.

Setting:

A classroom.

MR. PROVE-IT

Next up, “Class…” …It seems to me like we covered the “why we have to pay attention to class” in the background and experiences of Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett, as they related so closely to issues of race. Do you think we can just move on to pointing them out?

MR. WHINEY

You mean that…

(Pauses a beat for dramatic effect.)

…like race…

(Pauses for a second beat.)

…class has been a central contributing factor to how and why prisons exist in America—a history that will be discussed in greater length when we discuss the changing role of incarceration in democratic societies—and that the class status of any investigators is relevant information for a reader and should be made as authentically accessible as possible?

MR. PROVE-IT

Uh, yeah, that.

So, class.

Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett is obviously one well-educated and class-privileged dude, right? Who else has the time and energy to spend on an investigation like this: thinking about something that does not contribute to his own survival? Much less do it in such a pretentious and fucked up format that has us talking more about him than the subject we are supposed to be focusing on?

MR. WHINEY

(Says dryly in a flat tone.)

Zing— Certainly, he has benefited from class-privileges that, considered globally, very few human beings could match.

However, like race and gender, this might be a more challenging social identity to deconstruct than pushing squarely into round categorical holes like working-class, middle-class, or upper-class.

MR. PROVE-IT

(Giggles uncharacteristically)

Well, I want to give you shit over yr need to over complicate everything to the point of meaningless…but, since I started off the discussion of race saying identity was going to get tricky, I’ll be gracious—

(raises his voice to keep MR. WHINEY from interrupting.)

—This once…and let you continue before calling bullshit.

(MR. WHINEY, feeling playful, “Oooooo’s” like a first grader.)

MR. WHINEY

Getting fancy there Mr. Prove-it, you might want to watch it and stay in your lane there…

MR. PROVE-IT

Are we going back to this again?

MR. WHINEY

No.

(returns to his calm and scholarly persona before continuing.)

Understanding class in America is always a complicated endeavor. There is such an unfathomable and disparaging gap between wealthiest and poorest citizens of the United States, that it makes almost everyone believe that they exist somewhere in the middle of a spectrum that includes malnourished children and unimaginable decadence, even as that wealth is cause celebrity in the United States. When you have a country where a Billionaire presidential candidate can get elected by convincing enough people that he has best understanding of the issues faced by a blue collar American, because he is wealthy enough not to be impacted by the political machinations of his millionaire opponent, class-analysis is a confusing and convoluted beast.

MR. PROVE-IT

—That’s an awfully sympathetic way to describe how a sexist, racist, asshole, with the assistance of foreign spies, could bully an out-of-touch political system into giving him the presidency.

MR. WHINEY

Maybe so, but the point is that Americans fail to acknowledge the impact of class hierarchies as badly as Europeans fail to acknowledge racism when it is not codified into law.

Wealth moves so quickly in America that it is incredibly difficult not to get caught up in the fantasy of the American dream: that riches beyond imagining are just a spin of the roulette wheel away. When given the choice between the security of “good-enough,” and the lottery of “Big Money/Big Whammy,” Americans consistently prove themselves gamblers in ways that the entire world has grown to dread. Manufacturing the logic required to revel in the suffering of others is one of this nation’s biggest growth industries.

MR. PROVE-IT

Your claims are getting pretty bold there, but if I agree to the point that Americans have a weaker grasp of class than folks in many other countries, what does any of this have to do with our investigation?

MR. WHINEY

Isn’t stating facts your job? Why don’t you tell us what factors of Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett’s class upbringing are relevant to an investigation of McPherson’s Unit, and then we can talk about it?

MR. PROVE-IT

Fine then.

(responds with a snarky bluntness.)

The child of a single working mother, making peanuts as a hippy-dippy school teacher, it would be easy to suggest that Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett came up in a struggling working-class household.

For example, he has many memories of years spent moving from one cockroach-infested apartment to the next while his mother tried to stay ahead of bill collectors and eviction notices. But this telling of the story gets complicated by other realities of his childhood. Realities, like: his grandfather was a prominent civil-defense lawyer and his extended Jewish family placed such a traditional emphasis on education that he had aunts, uncles, cousins and -in-laws who ran a gambit of embarrassingly stereotypical upper-class Jewish occupations. When Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett dropped out of college at the age of twenty-one, it was a letdown that spoke to a lack of respect for the opportunities he had been afforded, rather than a decision made out of economic necessity, as he tried to spin the story at the time.

In the six years that followed his “dropping out,” he spent jobless and hitch-hiking across America, crashing alternately between friends’ couches and abandoned buildings. This time period again exists problematically in defining his class experiences.

Sure, he learned how to survive eating food out of trash cans, but he was also testing the limits of the incredible strength of the safety net that existed to keep him from hitting concrete when he fell off the high wire of his political fantasies.

Class is complicated in America, not just by the extreme disparity of economic wealth, but by how successfully the benefits of class are buried deeper than can be dug out of a bank statement. Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett is a product of privileges, class-included, that can’t be taken or given back just because they have been observed.

MR. WHINEY

Wow, that kind of describes some of the heaviest issues we are having with a lot of these constructed social positions that Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett occupies, doesn’t it?

MR. PROVE-IT

Maybe so, but class—more so than race or gender—is a site of potential concern because Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett has conflicting enough experiences with its privileges to get ugly defensive about things that he has no right to take so personally—

MR. WHINEY

—and thus, is far more traditionally American than he would like to admit.

MR. PROVE-IT

Probably…

(MR. PROVE-IT trails off for a beat in thought before returning with a sigh.)

Well, that feels to me like about everything that could be said of Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett and how his identity signifiers might impact this investigation. You think we can finally move this thing along?

MR. WHINEY

Well we never explicitly discussed the relationship of sexuality to issues of incarceration and identity, which will problematically lead most of our readers to make heteronormative assumptions about Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett and desire, but it seems rather invasive to make a case that who Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett has or has not copulated with is relevant to this investigation.

MR. PROVE-IT

You mean fucked. Right?

Well, we did discuss sexuality and incarceration, when discussing masculinity, we pointed our audience to Michael Foucault. I think it’s alright if we leave the discussion about the relationships between sex, power, identity and incarceration, for our audience to explore on their own time, now that we have pointed them in the right direction.

MR. WHINEY

Perhaps so, perhaps so.

Perhaps, it is enough to admit that sexuality is confusing enough of an aspect of social identity that we must be observant of the ways in which heteronormative constructions of masculinity attempt to frame this investigation, even if only resorting to default assumptions, both on a public and private scale?

MR. PROVE-IT

That is an awful and indirect way to admit that we are just not sure how queerness factors into this investigation beyond assumptions about gender and sexuality. So, we did our best to cover them both together, and if we left something out, we’d sure like to hear about it. Is there anything else?

MR. WHINEY

Well, national identity seems pretty clearly established as American. And we are woefully under-qualified to discuss the relationship of Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett’s identity as being abled-ish, Neurotypical, and with no known diagnosed physical or mental health concerns to really take that conversation anywhere more useful than stating everything I just did…

(Takes a beat to catch his breath and ask himself if he misstated any of that in a way that would be hurtful to someone he didn’t mean to offend or harm. He does not give himself a reassuring answer.)

We stated that he was Jewish when discussing his class privileges, and to discuss the philosophical impacts of being a Jew and asking questions about respected institutions in the South—any deeper than its class impacts—might have to be an investigation of its own for another time. This is especially the case since Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett’s loose linkage to formal Judaism rarely manifests in one-on-one interactions while he researched this investigation. It does feel pertinent to state that he is religious and culturally Jewish enough to have had a Bar Mitzvah and deliver the HaMotzi in Hebrew when asked to do so.

It is possible that the recent and growing wave of anti-Semitism in America will catch up with Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett at some point in the future, since he is an outspoken Jew with radical political affiliations, but it hasn’t yet—

MR. PROVE-IT

—Speaking of politics, Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garret certainly has a history of radical shit-disturbing that can be found without too much searching on the Internet.

MR. WHINEY

Well, that is true, and we have left that subject suspiciously vague.

In reality, his politics might prove to be the most salient identity factors of this investigation, as will become painfully obvious when we have to address why the State of Arkansas decided to be so uncooperative with this investigation. But I think we might just have to leave that dramatic tension alone for now and see what happens.

MR. PROVE-IT

(laughs heartily.)

Well, Mr. Whiney, Examiner, have we finally talked around these issues of identity politics enough that we can move along into…you know…REAL TALK about McPherson’s Unit and the place it occupies here on planet earth?

Setting:

The scope of this investigation has left inner space and returns to a world bigger than the ego of one author. The camera has zoomed out so far that individuals have disappeared completely, and artificial lines make nations out of landforms without asking anyone’s permission. Whether you envision them as a unified man, sitting at a lonely desk in a lonely office on a lonely Sunday, or as a collection of masks dancing around an Oak Tree in an Ozark or Ouachita forest, the voices do not stay silent.

EXAMINER

What is McPherson’s role in the history of criminal justice in Arkansas?

MR. PROVE-IT

This is a good question, but I think it is jumping ahead. It seems like it might be more useful to ask about the role of McPherson’s Unit in the history of criminal justice in America first and then talk about how the local issues of Arkansas impact it?

MR. WHINEY

Isn’t that interesting Mr. Prove-it, I had you figured as someone who’d suggest starting from the most immediate sense of location and then expand from there, moving from tangible to abstract construction of place.

MR. PROVE-IT

Well, in a world where theory was worth a damn, I could see myself making that argument.

I ain’t here to argue that the concrete facts about McPherson don’t start right here in Arkansas, but a lot of the bullshit ideas about what prisons are in the United States start with the assumption that a prison here is a prison anywhere in America, and that if you have seen one you have seen ’em all. I WAS…

(MR. PROVE-IT stresses the ‘was,’ dragging it out to draw attention to the fact that it lives in the past and not the present.)

…thinking, it might be better to address these larger-scale notions about what prisons are in America before we start discussing the specifics of McPherson’s Unit women’s correctional facility at 302 Corrections Way, Newport, Arkansas.

But now I think I’m gonna pull a page from your playbook and challenge the idea that either the national or local scale could be considered independently from each other in the first place.

Let’s see what happens if we try to look at both at the same time, Examiner?

EXAMINER

What is McPherson’s role in the history of criminal justice, in Arkansas/in America?

(Mr. PROVE-IT and MR. WHINEY, bot adopt more jubilant tones after EXAMINER’s response.)

MR. PROVE-IT

Well, that sounds a little funny, but let’s run with it.

MR. WHINEY

When it comes to thinking about carceral facilities as physical places existing on Planet Earth, on American soil, in communities inhabited by other Americans just like us…

(MR. WHINEY realizes that not even he is sure about which “us” he is talking about at this point and attempts to clarify.)

…just like the other people who are living in America…

(MR. WHINEY has dug himself a whole and decides to abandon it.)

….well, most people just choose not to think about prison in America, wouldn’t you say?

(not wait for MR. PROVE-IT to respond. MR. WHINEY continues)

The abstraction of prison is something that people have essentialized into the way they imagine society because they view it as the only possible deterrent to criminal behavior. It is essential that most people continue to imagine a theoretical construct instead of a real physical one when they think about prisons in the world, or else the fantasy, of who prisoners are, and how they deserve to be treated, might get complicated or even shattered.

For these people: people for whom prison is never likely to become a physical reality, it must feel necessary to envision an environment with inhumane conditions, because incarceration must appear to be a worse prospect than living in society generally. This makes thinking too closely about the conditions of incarcerated people an undesirable and unnecessary activity for anyone who feels served by the existing judicial, economic and political structures—

MR. PROVE-IT

—Thinking about prisons sucks.

MR. WHINEY

Yes indeed, thinking about prison “sucks.”

(MR. WHINEY stumbles over the pronunciation of the word, “sucks.”)

For many Americans, it is important to know that prisons, or correctional facilities, exists, but it is just as important that they exist as a dark myth that can serve to deter future criminal activity.

MR. PROVE-IT

Well, that brings up a question that makes a mess out’a all of this, doesn’t it?

What is the function of a prison in the first place? What do folks expect a place like McPherson’s Unit to do for the good of the rest of us?

Mr. Whiny, yr saying that purpose of prison is to prevent future criminal activity, but if that’s true, then why did people ever stop using harsher penalties for criminal activity? You know, penalties like cutting off the hands of thieves, or flogging masturbators? After all, the dead can’t commit no crime, right? When we think of “deterring factors,” modern prisons are a cake walk compared to the nightmares of the past.

MR. WHINEY

That last sentence is certainly true, but it also answers the questions it is trying to ask. One of the continuing struggles faced by institutions of criminal justice is that there seems to be a hard limit to how effective harsh penalties can be in deterring future crime.

The difference between no consequence and some consequence has proven historically measurable, but the point where harsher consequences equals fewer people engaging in criminal behavior appears more tied to people’s faith that the existing system of justice is fair and protects their personal interests, than it is to the severity of the consequences for breaking the law.

MR. PROVE-IT

That is a big claim there. Are you just making this up on the spot or are you basing this on some kind of research?

MR. WHINEY

(MR. WHINEY does not lose a beat.)

It is important to question the credibility of sources, especially when we are hearing arguments that support our own ideas about a subject.

But, in this instance, it doesn’t even matter if I can prove my claim or not, because the reason I began to elaborate upon this position in the first place is to establish it as a theoretical position that exists and exerts influence over the application of criminal justice in America.

Some people have believed it, and thus it has impacted the way criminal justice is administered. Other positions and theoretical frameworks have also played a role in shaping our justice system. Theories such as: prisons exist to punish bad people; or that prisons exist to disenfranchise and criminalize minority populations; or that prisons exist to rehabilitate and reeducate disposed members of society that have lacked access to more legitimate means of social integration as well.

Arguments have been made on behalf of all of these positions and all of them have held more or less sway at different times, but the actual physical buildings, made out of concrete and steel, do not just reform quickly because someone thinks it is a good idea.

MR. PROVE-IT

(growing skeptical and accusatory in his response.)

Are you going on another long-winded rant only to say that an actual prison, and the way it ends up running, is not based upon any one person’s ideas?

MR. WHINEY

Especially so in a pluralistic representative democracy.

MR. PROVE-IT

See, that sounds like you’re arguing for that muddled “post-modern complexity” crap that you accused me of when we were discussing whiteness.

Sure, there are different attitudes that have gone into the making of each prison in America, but there are no fucking prisons in America made out of gingerbread cookies and kindness. What is the point of discussing the function of prisons if we do not present specific answers and how they have or have not lived up to those ideals?

MR. WHINEY

Maybe there is none, and we probably should move in the direction of discussing specific examples soon enough, but it is important to keep in mind that even the best laid plans tend to bend and sway in the slow-moving world of public policy.

Whatever function incarceration is supposed to fulfill in society, it does so in the face of all the other collected expectations for it, even the ones that operate counter to that original purpose.

MR. PROVE-IT

Blah, blah, blah. Make this relevant to McPherson’s Unit.

MR. WHINEY

McPherson’s Unit is the long-term correctional facility for women in the State of Arkansas.

As the number of women incarcerated in the state continues to rise, McPherson’s Unit will go from being THE facility, to being just one of the facilities for the long-term housing of incarcerated women in the state. As that happens, it will be important that people keep questioning the value of putting an increasing number of women into long-term incarceration. We must pay attention to the women that we incarcerate and why we incarcerate them. Where do these women fit into our models of criminal justice? Who are we protecting by locking these women up the way that we do, and what ends do we hope to see in society by doing so?

MR. PROVE-IT

That is a good call to bring gender back into the conversation if we are going to get specific about McPherson’s Unit or women’s incarceration. There’s a lot of confusion outside of prisons about who the women who fill these prisons are. To answer that question for Arkansas, we can look the State’s Department of Corrections data for the fiscal year of 2015. According to the records they provided us, the top 10 current population offenses committed by women are:

1. Manufacturing/Delivering/Possession of Controlled Substances – 186 women, serving an average sentence of twelve years, three months, and eight days.

2. Murder, First-Degree – 95 women, serving an average sentence of thirty-five years, six months, and sixteen days.

3. Forgery – 70 women, serving an average sentence of seven years, one month and four days.

4. Robbery – 62 women, serving an average sentence of thirteen years, ten months and twenty-four days.

5. Aggravated Robbery – 48 women, serving an average sentence of twenty-six years, one month and sixteen days.

6. Theft of Property – 48 women, serving an average sentence of thirteen years, one month and zero days.

7. Failure to Appear – 45 women, serving an average sentence of seven years, seven months and ten days.

8. Residential Burglary – 40 women, serving an average sentence of eight years, nine months and four days.

9. Possession of Drug Paraphernalia for Meth or Cocaine – 36 women, serving an average sentence of five years, seven months and twenty days.

10. Battery, First-Degree – 32 women, serving an average sentence of eighteen years, three months and three days.

(MR. WHINEY takes a beat to collect his thoughts before responding.)

MR. WHINEY

That is a widely diverse list. How does it line up with your expectations for what women were being incarcerated for?

MR. PROVE-IT

Well, it’s no shocker that so many women are in prison in Arkansas for drug-related offenses. That goes along with what I hear the most those few times that prison statistics make the news.

I was a bit surprised to learn that the average sentence length for the most common drug offenses is over twelve years. That’s suspicious. Like there must be some mitigating circumstances that are not immediately obvious. Like maybe there are some intense outliers who got busted with kilos. Otherwise it is just fucked up brutal sentencing for drug offenses. Also, I didn’t expect murder to be number two.

MR. WHINEY

That was a little surprising, wasn’t it? It caught me off guard too, until I considered the lengths of sentences.

I agree with your suspicions regarding the drug sentencing, but even at 12 years it is almost a third shorter than the average sentence of a woman facing murder charges. It is only logical that crimes with longer sentences result, over time, in more women incarcerated for that crime, even if the yearly rate of conviction for the crime was significantly less. And since only one woman has been put to death in the State of Arkansas (at least since the death penalty was resumed at the end of 1976) it makes sense that even just a few murder convictions a year add up eventually.

MR. PROVE-IT

(give a gruff but thoughtful sigh.)

I guess in that context, it might be more surprising then that the average sentence for first-degree murder is only thirty-five-and-a-half years. I wonder how they calculate that; do they just assign a 99-year sentence for life?

MR. WHINEY

That is a great question, Mr. Prove-it, and one that I am sure a number of experts in the ADoC office of Public information are capable of answering. Maybe we should have asked one?

(There is a noise like whole milk being spit against a microphone, followed by uncontrollable laughing that cannot be placed with one voice or another. After the laughter and labored breathing subsides, the conversation continues.)

MR. PROVE-IT

Oh Mr. Whiney,

(MR. PROVE-IT stops to sigh loudly and catch his breath.)

…I didn’t see that joke coming. I guess you want me to explain to our audience why that question is so funny?

MR. WHINEY

If you would be so kind…

MR. PROVE-IT

Well…

(stops for a beat to collect his thoughts and decide where he should begin.)

…When Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett started this investigation, he did so with the delusion that he was going to put different voices of people involved in the criminal justice process in conversation with each other: incarcerated women, guards, local citizens, state politicians and members of the Department of Corrections.

At first, he was fairly successful. Everyone he’s tracking down was happy to talk about the history of McPherson’s Unit, and its role in Arkansas: state politicians, members of local historical societies, reporters, the families of inmates, members of State Board of Corrections, you name it. However, that all changed after he made a single request for some statistical information from the Arkansas Department of Corrections Office of Public Information and a request to the warden of McPherson’s Unit to for either an interview or a facility tour. He/we/the investigation then hit a major snag. They sent him the requested information—the top ten list revealed above—but they requested that he fill out a special Department of Corrections Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Artists don’t usually ask to get permission for their work. They just start doing it. Benjamin had not been required by his university to submit to IRB supervision and so he did his best to provide the ADC the information requested. A week after he submitted his IRB to the Arkansas Department of Corrections, he received the following information in an email:

(reads the email out loud to the audience)

“Good Evening Mr. Garrett: Your proposal ‘Understanding Incarceration/Understanding McPherson Unit’ has been very thoroughly read, reviewed and discussed by an Arkansas Department of Correction IRB (Internal Review Board) Committee and I am sorry to inform you that your proposal has not be approved.”

Since that email, no one employed through the Arkansas Department of Corrections has responded to any of our communications.

MR. WHINEY

That was very thorough. We do not know if the denial was based upon the results of a background check or a failing to submit the correct paperwork. No one will tell us. The Department’s response—or lack thereof—has had the effect of radically changing the scope of this investigation, and it has definitely altered what information will be presented and how that information will be discussed.

MR. PROVE-IT

That is true, but it makes us sound like we’re on a vendetta against the Department of Corrections for derailing the biggest project we have ever undertaken.

MR. WHINEY

Stating it as such does little to counter that possibility.

MR. PROVE-IT

Probably not. Nor does that fact that we buried this information more than halfway through our investigation. BUT…if they did shut us down out of past political affiliations, then it is unlikely that that slight was going to shift our focus in a more favorable direction. I guess—

3RD RESPONDENT

Duuudes, like, what is going on here?

(A new voice has interjected itself into the conversation. Both MR. PROVE-IT and MR. WHINEY are caught completely off guard and let this new perspective establish its own tone.)

I can totally dig that this journey through the…time-space continuum…was destined to feature, like eh, an episode or something of inner space exploration…

(3RD RESPONDENT says “inner space exploration” like he is actually traveling to the far reaches of the cosmos, and lets his consonants linger in every word.)

…but y’all are, like, turning the premise of this whole dealio into a heavy dose of inner drama. I’d ask you to, I don’t know, wind the old watch back to jam on that question about why these women are doing time and let your ego train off the rails for a little bit so another engine can use the tracks, but…dudes, from the peanut gallery over here, it seems like this train is the only one in town, man.

MR. PROVE-IT

Who the fuck are you?

MR. WHINEY

Indeed, Mr. Prove-it, what voice is this that interrupts us now, just as we were finally getting to the place of this place-based investigation?

3RD RESPONDENT

Who cares who I am, man? Or, like, especially, who you are, dude? Or why you don’t have answers to questions that should, like, have been totally obviously going to make “the Man” clam up, man?

Because, like…come on…I think y’all know you could have said a lot of this personal stuff to, like, I don’t know, a therapist, or maybe a spiritual guide, or AA sponsor…and then the usefulness of an investigation into a women’s only ice box, could, you know, be about that place, instead of the one inside your own mind, man.

MR. PROVE-IT

Ice box?

(MR. PROVE is honestly confused by this new voice’s lingo which feels like it might have crawled out of one of those 70s sexploitation movies referenced earlier in the investigation.)

3RD RESPONDENT

Yeah man, haven’t you ever read Cleaver’s Soul on Ice?

MR. WHINEY

Speaking of distractive commentary…

3RD RESPONDENT

Alright man, chill out…I feel you man…but cosmically,

(At this point 3RD RESPONDENT lowers his voice to nearly a whisper, as if he has leaned in to get real with the other voices.)

it seems to me like you guys are so afraid to say anything real that, you know, you take every opportunity to, like, just turn the gaze back on to yourselves. If y’all don’t have the faith to just let the words out, man, maybe you should stop pretending like this is an investigation of anything but your own insecurities, dude.

MR. PROVE-IT

Insecurity Dude, you are annoying as shit, but I can see why you have picked this time to make yrself present. There is some real shit here that we need to get to, and I think we should take the first part of your challenge to heart. We need to have some faith in our audience’s ability to evaluate the value of our voices for themselves.

(Stiffens his voice.)

McPherson’s Unit? Women incarcerated in Arkansas/America?

INSECURITY DUDE

Well that is groovy but…

MR. WHINEY

—Agreed, Mr. Prove-it.

(MR. WHINEY doesn’t give a shit and presses on past INSECURITY DUDE’s continued mumbling.)

Analysis of the top 10 convictions of women incarcerated in the State of Arkansas raises many questions that will require more careful consideration than amateurs like us will accomplish. Yet, it also raises fair questions, even for someone who may not have considered these issues at all.

MR. PROVE-IT

I know, right? I mean, Failure to Appear sounds like bullshit. It means that somebody was out on parole or probation and then missed a court-date, so the length of punishment is mostly tied to a different crime. But if we were so chill about these women being out in our local communities, why would we think that putting them back in prison, and having to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year to keep them there for an average of more than seven and a half years is a good idea?

MR. WHINEY

(MR. WHINEY busts out into a statistic from who knows where.)

—$23,000 dollars a person in the State of Arkansas in the year 2014.

MR. PROVE-IT

I get that folks feel like there’s got be some consequences for breaking the rules; and if people are skipping court dates because they are doing terrible things, then it would make sense to put them back in jail for doing the bad shit. But life happens. And failure to appear just means they didn’t show up, not that they were doing something bad while on parole.

It doesn’t make any sense that folks can complain about government spending and then happily fork over so much to lock up people that they were comfortable living next to the day before.

MR. WHINEY

It is a mystery, especially when we add in all the increased physical, mental and social health risks associated with incarceration; especially incarceration like what happens in McPherson’s Unit, that houses minimum- and maximum-security inmates in the same building. Prisons, as in our monolithic institutions of social order, create so few opportunities for restorative justice and so many opportunities to reinforce social injustices and inequalities.

MR. PROVE-IT

Hold on a moment…

(Pauses for a beat)

…I think I know, but I can never be too sure with you: What is restorative justice? Isn’t justice…Justice?

MR. WHINEY

(growing flustered at having to back track)

Of course it’s not.

Restorative justice is based on the idea that the social response to crime should focus on healing and restoring what had been criminally violated. Restorative justice solutions include things like making vandals clean up vandalism and become active volunteers in the communities where they were vandalizing so they have a reason to respect the people whose property they damaged. It is about asking what can make the world more whole again after it has been damaged by violence or disrespect. It is an alternative idea to retributive justice, which is the old “Eye for an eye” model that prioritizes making all things equal in injury, or a preventative justice model, which focuses on increasing security measures and creating an environment in which breaking the law seems unfathomable.

Rarely is any justice system dedicated whole heartedly to just one of these models, but there are some practices that might make sense in one model that are completely contradictory to another. An advocate of retributive justice might advocate for the death penalty, for example, while an advocate for restorative justice might argue that it only prevents the perpetrator of a murder or other violent crime from dedicating their life to working toward healing and helping those they have harmed—

MR. PROVE-IT

(interrupting MR. WHINEY’s rambling.)

—Thank you, I think that clears it up for me just fine. Clearly, there are some serious scholars out there that probably can address what alternatives models of justice might look like right?

MR. WHINEY

Definitely! And that is a bit of a tangent for us at the moment anyway, because the only reason it ever even comes up is when people start a conversation about incarceration as a practice of criminal justice from a place that thinks prison is the only way that societies have ever handled criminality. If they are a little more knowledgeable about the history of criminal justice, they might instead be operating from the idea that prisons reflect the most enlightened means of handling criminal justice that society has ever conceived, but the basic principle is the same.

MR. PROVE-IT

Ok…

(Slowing things down a beat again.)

I agree that this ain’t the time to dive too deep into prison alternatives, ’cause we have a lot of history to cover. Maybe we can suggest that our audience consider viewing the documentary 13th, if they have an interest in hearing a diverse array of scholars and public figures discuss models of incarceration past, present and future.

MR. WHINEY

A great suggestion, especially since that documentary goes to such great lengths to consider perspectives across political and theoretical perspectives. For the sake of an investigation into the conditions of McPherson’s Unit, it seems unnecessary for us to be concerned with alternatives when we need to be focused on what actually is.

MR. PROVE-IT

Well, alrighty then! Let’s talk about McPherson’s Unit.

Setting:

Newport Daily Independent, Newport, Arkansas, January 16th, 1998. “It was a celebration for a new prison complex which brought Gov. Mike Huckabee to Newport Thursday. He said he had mixed emotions about the facility.”

MR. WHINEY

The history of prisons in the State of Arkansas is not pretty, and the history of women’s incarceration in the state is downright reprehensible—

MR. PROVE-IT

(Interrupting.)

—This better not be an attempt to enter back into abstraction, Mr. Whiny.

MR. WHINEY

(Continuing as if uninterrupted.)

—Demarking the space between abstraction and reality is your realm of expertise, Mr. Prove-it, but in this instance, it feels foolish to attempt to represent a facility like McPherson’s Unit divorced of its historical context.

MR. PROVE-IT

I get it. It’s possible that McPherson’s Unit is a better prison than the prisons before it, and still fail’s at being better than nothing.

MR. WHINEY

(Chuckling at MR. PROVE-IT’s stark skepticism.)

Indubitably. McPherson’s Unit, even upon its conception as an understaffed and criminally mismanaged private prison, was leaps and bounds ahead of the historical precedent of women’s incarceration in the State of Arkansas, from statehood until its construction.

MR. PROVE-IT

That’s a big claim for our readers to swallow.

Y’re tossing a helluva accusation out right from the start: “criminal mismanagement.” I love it.

MR. WHINEY

On the contrary… …I think criminal mismanagement is provable as a step up from what came before. It implies that the mismanagement was socially recognized as a crime instead of the legal methodology of handling women who fell outside of social gender conventions.

MR. PROVE-IT

Snap. I do believe they call what you are doing, “throwing shade.”

(It might feel frustrating to MR. WHINEY, but MR. PROVE-It loves the snarky sass that MR. WHINEY has brought to the table, or the tree, or the desk, to set the stage for a serious tear down of what has passed for criminal justice in the State of Arkansas. In a sense, his playfulness is intended as an invitation to the AUDIENCE. It might be time to get out your popcorn.)

But I think you better break it down if you want the weight of yr ideas to pack their punch in full. I can see now why you want to start from the beginning. Please, take it from the top.

MR. WHINEY

Arkansas entered the union of the United States in 1836.

This situated it as a developing state, developing its own criminal justice system on the heels of the great penal reform movements of the early 19th century. These reform movements saw the biggest shifts in criminal justice theory since the beginning of the European Enlightenment. America, being the new world-wide civics project, was a testing ground for social theories and institutions across disciplines, and two models of incarcerations were put into practice here for the first time that would go on to define debates about criminal justice for over a century: the Pennsylvania model and the Auburn model.

The Pennsylvania model, predictably enough, was named after the state that first put it into practice, specifically referencing the carceral model adopted at the Eastern State Penitentiary on the outskirts of Philadelphia, and then shortly after at Western State Penitentiary outside of Pittsburgh. This model of incarceration reflected strong Quaker principles of silent isolated reflection—separating the criminal from the social factors that enabled his…

(MR. WHINEY stops himself mid-sentence as he realizes his use of a gendered pronoun was not unintentional, but a symptom of a larger problem with the theoretical history of incarceration.)

…early prison models all assumed a default male gender of their prisoners. Because sexism yes, but sexism at roots much deeper and more blatant than linguistics or ignorance.

The disciplining of women was a patriarchal duty expected of men: The man was to keep his daughters in line until they were married off and then became the responsibility of their husbands. This is far too significant a factor in the history of women’s incarceration to stash away in a digressive tangent. Hmm…I know that we need to talk about this in much greater detail, but perhaps not in the middle of our previous conversation about prison models that impacted incarceration in the State of Arkansas. Should We—

MR. PROVE-IT

(interrupting.)

—Hold up there, Mr. Whiny! I say this is a damn fine time to discuss the utter lack of thought that went into women’s incarceration in the theoretical construction of how prisons came to be in the United States!

After all, if we waste our audience’s time, explaining both models, and then come to the realization that neither model ever considered women as people, or citizens, who will be incarcerated…well, wouldn’t that make us guilty of suggesting that these “good-ol’-boy” theories are more important to the history than the existence of women as people? That’s some grade-A bullshit for “trying to set a record straight.” What better evidence can we offer for why women’s prisons have historically failed to be anything but disasters of abuse, violence, and “mismanagement?”

MR. WHINEY

Wow, Mr. Prove-it. Touché.

I think you just concisely defined why that should have been our first historical consideration…

(MR. WHINEY pauses a beat to consider again all that MR. PROVE-IT had to say.)

…Now that it is stated, I can think of little more to say…

…except, maybe, we should add that the bondage and incarceration of women was institutionally in practice during the Enlightenment, it was just not a practice of criminal justice. It was practiced through the asylum as medical and moral treatment, because if men were failing in their patriarchal duties to control the women in their lives, they had to construct a physiological reason they could blame women for it. If we center gender in the history of incarceration, it is very clear that the institutional practice of restricting women’s freedoms has been about codifying their status as property. It has occurred at such a fundamental level that it long predates the institution of prison. With a bunch of white men sitting around in ivory towers, it seems an inevitable consequence of patriarchy that women’s incarceration, as a criminal justice issue, would be deliberately hidden for so long.

MR. PROVE-IT

Well, I think that is a pretty important comment to add.

I agree with you that, in a list of institutions designed to control women, the prison is a relatively new one, but you are coming up short on the importance of race in yr story. Women’s incarceration was a carefully crafted and vital part of the slave trade. It specialized in turning black women into raw sexual objects, breeding animals, physical laborers, domestic laborers, and the cohesive glue that held communities of slaves together.

The incarceration of women is bigger than criminal justice and we can’t back away from that. To do so would be letting mainstream white-feminism off the hook for ignoring the messy conversation of women behind bars, AND letting social justice movements off the hook for playing along in a reform game for a criminal justice system designed around the assumption that prisoner’s rights were only ever going to be an issue of what rights white male prisoners deserve.

MR. WHINEY

Look at you Mr. Prove-it, using intersectionality to take both me, and the historical models of prison to task.

Congratulations, sir! And your points are well received:

It is important to consider the realities of women’s incarceration in the United States because the reality of women’s incarceration was not a reality that was ever considered in the theoretical or physical construction of women’s prisons.

Historically this is easily proven, but it is also present in the architectural construction of the Larger McPherson/Grimes complex. The company designing this facility created a mirror model in which two identical facilities were built directly across from each other. One, Grimes Unit, for men, and the other, McPherson’s Unit, for women. It was assumed that, if kept separate, all other aspects of incarceration would be kept equal for both the women and the men—

MR. PROVE-IT

(Interrupting.)

—That “separate but equal” mentality sure is a fuck job isn’t it.

MR. WHINEY

Mhhmm…

(MR. WHINEY has a dissertation he thinks he could probably write about MR. PROVE-IT’s interjection, but decides instead to ignore it.)

…Even if one day humanity finds a method of incarcerating women and men in prison-like conditions that are equally just and effective, it must be considered that that model will not be based off a historical model that only ever considered the needs of incarcerating men.

MR. PROVE-IT

Ok, that is all true.

But you are continuing to ignore the role that race has played in the history of incarceration in the United States and in Arkansas specifically.

MR. WHINEY

Not by intention, and we can change that right now.

Both the Pennsylvania model and the Auburn model were developed at a time when the vast majority of people serving time in state penitentiaries were considered white. This was not necessarily because of an increased criminality of white people, but because very few people that were not identified as white were given the benefits of full citizenship into the United States of America.

Most indigenous people were treated as foreign combatants who were not even subject to the protections guaranteed by the treaties that were signed in their name. White settlers violated the terms of treaties, often with little more than a slap on the wrist, and sometimes in the employment of prominent territorial governors and plantation owners. Indigenous efforts to defend or retaliate against these aggressions were paraded through Colonial to Revolutionary to Jacksonian America as savage massacres that called for overwhelming retaliation. Even the slightest hint of criminal behavior in an ingenious person, group or nation became justification for the forced deportation and slaughter of entire populations. Many of the forts built throughout the territory of Arkansas were designed to serve as concentration camps to control the forced movement of indigenous people through the territory.

Thus, even though Newport, as a city, remained unincorporated at the time of either the Choctaw relocation, which was occurring twenty miles to its northwest through Batesville Arkansas, or at the time of the Creek and Chickasaw removal through the old Memphis to Little Rock military road to its south, the legacy of the Trail of Tears painted the relationship between the white American settlements of Arkansas and the various nations of indigenous peoples that predated those settlements. S0, while the fledgling state was heavily involved in the incarceration and deportation of indigenous peoples throughout Arkansas, it was never for the purpose of serving Justice.

MR. PROVE-IT

And of course, there is the incarceration of slavery.

MR. WHINEY

Yes, it is impossible to talk about slavery and not talk about the incarceration of human beings.

Arkansas was established as a slave state at a time in US history when the institution of slavery was the defining artifact of southern economic and cultural identity (Not just the southern economy, the whole world economy, but no one else but the south was willing to acknowledge it). If the South imagined itself to be a descendent of the European Aristocracy, it was because the plantation filled the role of the fiefdom or noble estate. Slavery was the serfdom that enabled it. After legal ownership, physical bondage is the next most defining condition of slavery, and the ways in which African and indigenous slaves were held in bondage could not be considered anything less than incarceration, even if its horrors might far exceed what the word has come to mean today.

MR. PROVE-IT

In other words, you are saying that forcibly holding folks against their will, in conditions designed to make them question their own humanity, was A part of slavery, but only ONE part of its inhumane practice?

MR. WHINEY

Exactly. How much the practice of slavery impacted models of penal incarceration is debatable up until the time of the American Civil War. After all, judicial prisons were for citizens with certain rights protected by the Constitution, not for slaves. That all changed with Emancipation—

MR. PROVE-IT

(Interrupting.)

—Just like how men, within patriarchy, were supposed to be able to keep their women in line, slave owners were expected to take responsibility for the discipline and punishment of their slaves—

MR. WHINEY

(Interrupting back.)

—Expectations that the white men of a community were going to take personal responsibility for the discipline of everyone except themselves within their communities extended past the Civil War into Reconstruction and beyond the turn of the century in the form of the KKK and organized lynching. Criminal justice in the South has only a limited and recent history of belonging within the confines of governmental authority.

MR. PROVE-IT

(MR. PROVE-IT pauses for a beat to consider all of the ideas that the investigation has put forward together.)

It’s funny…

(MR. PROVE-IT says ‘funny’ like doesn’t mean funny.)

…we started off talking about the role of prisons in the history of capital-J “Justice,” and how it feels like folks have this idea that prisons have been THE institution of social order for forever. But when we look at American history, and especially the history of “Justice” in the South, the prison over time has had only a nominal role in serving justice, and a much bigger role in preserving economic and racial order.

MR. WHINEY

Which is why discussions about the relatively recent rise of rates of incarceration in America, starting in the mid-1970s onward, can be so misleading.

The expectation that prisons were going to serve as a deterrent to criminal behavior, instead of clandestine, and often racially motivated, mass violence, is also a relatively recent social phenomenon.

MR. PROVE-IT

(Attempting a more enlightened tone.)

You know, its starting to sound like we’re arguing that—compared to history—prisons might not be the most terrible means of enforcing justice.

MR. WHINEY

Well…certainly the people who have advocated for them throughout history would agree with that position.

It may come as a surprise to learn, but prison reformers have been considered radical philanthropists and humanitarians at the time they were advocating for their ideas.

For example, both the Pennsylvania system and the Auburn system…

(Mr. WHINEY realizes that this is the third time that he has mentioned the Auburn system and he has still never explained it. He pauses for a moment to consider laying it out now, but decides to hold off, hoping that, eventually, MR. PROVE-IT will notice the absence and bring it up himself.)

…well, early models of incarceration, were designed specifically to accommodate the needs of white male citizens, and what institutions of corrective oversight would push them back into the mold of a model citizen, which of course was white and male. It should be pointed out though, that it was a pretty radical idea at the time that criminality was not an innate trait and that it could be addressed through corrective actions at all.

MR. PROVE-IT

Ah, come on, it couldn’t have been that radical.

Isn’t Christianity a religion based upon the concept of forgiveness? Civilizations around the world have had legal codes that allow for guilty parties to make amends for their crimes and continue to function as productive members of society. The idea of a criminal justice system based upon reforming criminals ain’t no American invention.

MR. WHINEY

Fair enough, but prior to the Pennsylvania model, judicial incarceration was either an act of holding criminals until they faced judgment and punishment—basically the role of jails today—or else they were workhouses, galley ships, or places where prisoners were to economically work off their debts to society.

While that concept of economic restitution is still present in many of today’s prisons, and was enshrined, in part, in the Auburn system…

(MR. WHINEY smiles as he finds a reason to attempt to explain the Auburn system that feels natural and not forced.)

…the two American models were the first to institutionalize and architecturally situate the reformation of a prisoner’s soul into policy and stone.

MR. PROVE-IT

Maybe now that we’ve talked the shit out of the historical failings of prison theory to address issues of gender and race, it is time to finally layout those Pennsylvania and Auburn models for our audience?

(MR. WHINEY smiles and lets out a laugh.)

—Wait, what is so funny?

MR. WHINEY

(Mr. WHINEY’s ignores MR. PROVE-IT’s question, leaving the answer as unspoken joke shared only with the AUDIENCE.)

Well…actually I think you are speaking in hyperbole if you claim that this brief and unsubstantiated conversation about the historical failings of prison theory is “talking the shit” out of the issue.

But you might be correct that we may have given as much insight as our amateur and fragmented perspectives will allow. Our culture’s continued insistence that models of social order that are rooted in the oppression of specific groups can be easily universalized and “solved” with equity and justice for all is one of the fundamental aspects of our problem. Especially when those answers revolve around deciding there is nothing that can be done about them and we should just go along with how they have been done before.

MR. PROVE-IT

I can’t argue with that, but we keep name dropping something we haven’t explained.

I bet our editorial self is gonna make us present some kinda concise and organized version of these two models much earlier in this investigation, or stick them in an appendix or some shit, despite the fact that we’ve given clear reasons why we’ve refused to do so thus far. You know what, fuck that! Fuck you…editor voice…that insists on remaining invisible and changing things without anyone’s knowledge! We are not going to explain those systems here at all.

(MR. WHINEY’s previous plan to sneak in his explain the Auburn system has come crashing down around him. MR. PROVE-IT has made the issue personal and MR. WHINEY knows he will look like a pawn of the man if he tries to make a case now…But just to be sure…)

MR. WHINEY

We are not?

Setting:

Directions: From Little Rock travel approximately 100 miles north on Highway 67 North. Turn right on exit 83, Highway 384. Travel approximately 2½miles and turn left on 384 S (302 Corrections Drive), McPherson’s Unit is on the right.

EXAMINER

How has this history of incarceration impacted McPherson’s Unit?

MR. PROVE-IT

So, you are still listening, Examiner!

Well, we have already decided not to cover the historical criminal justice models of incarceration centered on reforming white male criminals back into productive American citizens up through the Civil War…so, I guess you are really asking for the rest of the story?…

(Waits a beat for a response from EXAMINER and after getting only silence, MR. WHINEY continues.)

MR. WHINEY

…Well both of those two competing models—that we won’t mention again—had one thing in common, they were quite expensive to run on a per-prisoner basis.

They also demanded that society as a whole buy into the notion that the moral reformation of criminals into citizens was a worthwhile cause. It is no coincidence that the backlash against this notion coincided with the collapse of slavery and an influx of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. Creating two new large groups of people that were excluded from the category of white American citizen at the time these movements were losing steam.

MR. PROVE-IT

No, it’s not.

Nor is it coincidence that “law and order” political campaigns, where politicians played to constituent fears and hatreds, sprung up in a fire storm at the end of the 19th century through the beginning of the 20th.

MR. WHINEY

In both the North and the South, models of incarceration shifted from reformists visions of individual penitence towards cost-effective models focused on the economic exploitation of the prison laborer.

MR. PROVE-IT

Maybe, but you aren’t seriously saying that the North and South were equal in response to this shift!?!

Yes, racism and xenophobia were and still are prevalent in the North. And yes, the government used them to justify cramming two or three prisoners into cells designed to house single prisoners. And yes, the new, post-Civil War, prisons looked more like those old European workhouses…BUT almost overnight, you saw the South restructure its justice system to fill the labor pool lost by the end of slavery.

Hell, it happened so fast that they couldn’t even build new buildings to house the folks they were incarcerating, and so many southern states turned to chain gangs and “prison farms” that utilized the existing infrastructure of slave plantations.

MR. WHINEY

The 1860s saw the death of the prison reformation movement in the United States that had once been held up as a shining world-wide example..well at least in Europe and the colonial empires—

MR. PROVE-IT

(Interrupting.)

—Then the next 100 years of penal justice in the United States was a dark age for all of the violent and horrific reasons that you can imagine.

MR. WHINEY

True, but we do not need to rely on our imaginations to talk about the process of criminalizing minority racial and ethnic communities in the United States.

The horrors of the convict leasing system employed in many southern states, including Arkansas was a model that saw prisoners rented out to plantation owners in a direct continuation of the practices of slavery, and can be read about extensively in the book Slavery by Another Name, by Arkansas educated historian, Douglas A. Blackmon.

While organizations like the NAACP worked tirelessly for over a century— and under physical and existential threat from groups like the KKK—to challenge these policies in court, sadly, the prison farm, in a form, still exists today in Arkansas, and other southern states. Officially, convict leasing was made illegal at the federal level during FDR’s presidency, but it continued off the books throughout the South, as prisoners were given “permission” to serve their time living and working on the farms and plantations of prominent citizens. In the State of Arkansas, it continued until the state experienced its otherwise unsuccessful reform movement in the 1960s—

MR. PROVE-IT

(Interrupting.)

—Hold on there Mr. Whiny! That is presenting a pretty one-sided view of things.

After all, officially, Governor George Donaghey oversaw the dismantling of the convict leasing system starting with his election in 1908. And don’t forget, or write out of history, the activists who have been doing prison reformation work in Arkansas—activists like Laura Conners, who petitioned the Board of Corrections to dismiss the head warden of Tucker Prison farm in 1921 for the inhuman treatment of inmates.

MR. WHINEY

Yes, but that motion was denied and the legacy of violence and corruption at the Tucker Prison Farm went on to demand national attention, and multiple Supreme Court injunctions, for the next 50 years. We cannot grow soft of our histories of our institutions just because we want to recognize that they were not the cultural monoliths that they are often made to seem.

MR. PROVE-IT

(MR. PROVE-IT is convinced and ups the intensity of his rhetorical tone.)

Fuck, Mr. Whiney, don’t stop there with euphemisms like violence and corruption for absolute unimaginable barbarity.

The Tucker Telephone, a torture device where prisoners had a live electric wire attached to their nut sack—controlled through a rotary phone—is named after the prison farm where it was invented, and went on to be used by American soldiers in the Vietnam war…The brutal conditions at that one prison alone have inspired books and movies.

MR. WHINEY

Yes, it has. Into the 70s Arkansas prisons were run like criminal enterprises with the primary expectation of the state being that the prisons turned a profit off farm labor.

To cut down on the costs of operation, entire prisons employed only two or three guards called wardens. The rest of the staff was made up of current prisoners—called trusties—who were given guns and held responsible for policing their fellow prisoners.

MR. PROVE-IT

The Civil Rights movement took its sweet-ass time making its way into Arkansas’ prison system. In the meantime, wardens acted like kingpins. “Favors” were “earned.” Sexual violence, extortion, and bribery were rampant.

MR. WHINEY

And while there was a brief stint in this time period where the penal incarceration of white women occurred at a separate women’s prison farm just outside of Jacksonville, AR–known as Pea Farm—African-American women were held on location at the same prison farm as African-American men, and no matter where they were incarcerated or the color of their skin, women in prison in Arkansas have a long history of being subjected to sexual slavery at the hands of their jailers.

MR. PROVE-IT

That’s the gods-ugly truth.

And it’s been pretty damn-well documented—even though the conditions at Pea Farm have been nearly erased from history. Apparently, somebody didn’t want it known that the women incarcerated there were taken regularly to Memphis, to be prostituted in brothels there.

MR. WHINEY

The fate of women in penal institutions has never been pleasant, and the State of Arkansas is no exception. The Arkansas Board of Corrections had been run as an exploitative for-profit system since the State Legislature asked it to take on that role with the end of slavery.

It would use up anyone it could get its hands on to keep things running smoothly and equally important, under the radar of the general populace. Like so many other institutions throughout history: slavery, imperialism, war—women’s bodies have so often been treated as objects of reward and trade. It has taken a willful ignorance to keep that role a secret.

MR. PROVE-IT

Which leads us to McPherson’s Unit…

MR. WHINEY

(MR. WHINEY interrupts MR. PROVE-IT’s dramatic pause.)

—Not quite.

Women continued to be incarcerated, for the most part, at sub-facilities of other correctional complexes from the end of the Pea Farm through the 1960s and 70s, but starting in the 60s and continuing into the 80s and 90s, a reform movement began that culminated in a number of federally mandated reforms that saw an overhaul of the entire Arkansas Department of Corrections system.

MR. PROVE-IT

Ah, you want to go into this first.

And introduce a bunch of important characters to the investigation that have some name recognition within both the national and state discussion of privatized prisons.

MR. WHINEY

I know who you are trying to allude to, but before we go there, let’s first address the role of a man named Terrell Don Hutto.

MR. PROVE-IT

Well you’re correct that that is not the big name I was hoping to introduce, but it does eventually get us there.

And Hutto is a mighty big name in the discussion of privatized prison. After all, the T Don Hutto Residential Center is a controversial privately run “center” run under the auspices of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office for the detainment of nonresident families and children, none of which have been charged with any crime except illegal entry into the United States.

MR. WHINEY

You are jumping ahead in the timeline of our narrative.

In 1971, Hutto was the newly appointed Commissioner of Corrections for the State of Arkansas with a strong agenda of reform, hoping to build on the work of previous reformers to permanently dismantle the trustee system, but only because it hand been mandated by the US Supreme Court in July of 1970. It was not until Hutto took over in June of 1971 that it became the official policy of Arkansas Department of Corrections to ban inmates from carrying firearms. Hutto assumed control of a department rife with violence and corruption and he worked to increase non-incarcerated personnel and security in all of the state’s prisons, as well as regulating prisoner conditions like bedding, medical care and food service. He began a number of innovate educational and work-release programs and oversaw the separation of maximum-security facilities from general population facilities as well as overseeing the construction fo the first units dedicated to juvenile offenders and elderly offenders. This went a long way to reducing the level of violence in Arkansas prisons in which both the very young and very old were subject to abuse and manipulation from long-term violent offenders.

But rampant violence and sexual assault continued to be a problem in Arkansas state prisons. U.S. federal courts continued to hear cases against the Arkansas Department of Corrections and through a series of cases such as Holt v. Hutto, Finney v. Arkansas, Finney v. Hutto, and Hutto v. Finney, the State of Arkansas’ prisons again went before the Supreme Court where it was determined by the Attorney General of Arkansas that prison officials acted in “bad faith” in their obligations to remedy the horrific conditions of Arkansas prisons.

A lawyer who worked under this Attorney General of Arkansas, William Jefferson Clinton—

MR. PROVE-IT

(Interjecting.)

—There it is—

MR. WHINEY

—Don’t interrupt—

—an attorney-general-appointed lawyer who worked on the Hutto v. Finney case that went before the Supreme Court, reported that the Arkansas Prison system in the 70s was an absolute “hell-hole.” It took a lot of time and work to fix, and that the problems ran deeper than any specific administrator. When asked, this lawyer described Hutto as “not a bad or evil man. He had a terribly difficult task with limited resources to accomplish it. I would not have wanted his job.”

MR. PROVE-IT

So, I guess it could be said about Hutto’s time as commissioner that Arkansas finally saw the biggest reforms in its history, but not necessarily as a result of his management.

MR. WHINEY

Reductive, but not entirely inaccurate.

By the time Hutto left his position as commissioner of corrections in 1976, Arkansas prisons were experiencing massive changes and much of these changes were being undertaken under the eye of future president Bill Clinton.

MR. PROVE-IT

You mean, Arkansas Attorney General Clinton—who’ go on to become one “tough on crime” governor—who’d go on to become a president who campaigned heavily for a crime bill that would greenlight the adoption of privatized prisons in America, and just happened to provide the funding that paid the way for the Grimes/McPherson Complex.

(Swooping in from the silent void that encompasses everything beyond the voices of the debating investigative narrators, a new speaker asserts his way into the conversation.)

4TH RESPONDENT

—Y’all are killing me, mang!

Show’em the big picture—the illuminati shit.

Hutto gets Arkansas moving in the right direction—by getting the guns out of the hands of the fuckers serving time—separating the meal from the meal worms—literally. Sure! But what is he really up to, mang? Improving conditions? Maybe as a side-effect—but his real project—his real project, mang—is the industrial revolution of a feudal state prison-industrial-complex—BAM!—He was burning down the baronies so the petty bourgeoisie can finally have its day in the sun—

(4TH RESPONDENT continues, almost as if he does not need oxygen to fuel his breathy words.)

The ADC was a shit show of a state-run institution—with a revolving door at the top and dead prisoners pilling up on the bottom—READ about it, mang—THOMAS MURTON, mang—quote, Accomplices to the Crime, end-quote, mang—The truth is out there—and Hutto saw it on those ever-crumbling walls—He saw it and it burned him up—It burned him, mang—working for a, quote, state, end-quote, that was burying its bodies in shallow unmarked graves—instead of cemeteries—Hutto saw it, mang—He saw it—and started formulating his new system, mang—right here in Arkansas—refined it in Virginia—and then signed on with Tom Beasley and Doctor Crants—DOCTOR Crants, mang—Doctor is his first name—no shit—not a title—to start the first private prison company in America, mang.

(MR. PROVE makes as if he plans to respond but 4TH RESPONDENT does not surrender the microphone.)

Y’all think, quote, Clinton, end-quote, pushed Hutto out, mang—for making with his, quote, bad faith, end-quote, comments?—naw—fuck that, mang—Hutto and Clinton were Arkansas Democrats—through and through, mang—right at that time when the, quote, Dems of Arkansas, END-quote, were taking the white hoods off and—finally—picking up the protest signs—You think they weren’t in on it together, mang?—Weren’t—yeah, quote, in collusion, END-Quote, mang—That is some bullshit—Clinton goes on to get crowned, quote, the first black president, end-quote, of the Younited states—by none other than Toni Morrison—fuckin’ TONI MORRISON herself—and what does he do, mang?—but oversee the largest growth ever in the privatization of state and federal prisons—while Hutto’s company rises—it rises, mang—and he becomes—like—the profiteer-in-chief of the private-public partnership.

(Again, 4TH RESPONDENT stops just long enough to create the illusion of an opening before continuing.)

But it doesn’t stops there, mang—Oooohhh no—You think this shit isn’t still going on?—Within just the last three months, mang—CCA—the Correction Corporation of America—has, quote, rebranded itself, end-quote, into—into “CORE CIVIC—so it can, yeah—quote, provide three distinct business offerings—

(4TH RESPONDENT adopts the tone and speech patterns of a robot.)

CoreCivic Safety—a national leader in high quality corrections and detention management—

4TH RESPONDENT breaks robot character to return to ranting)

—that should be, quote, international, end-quote, mang—because their correctional facilities are all over the globe, mang—

(4th RESPONDENT returns to robot voice.)

CoreCivic Properties—offering a wide range of innovative, cost-saving government real estate solutions—

(4TH RESPONDENT breaks character again to start a rant, that begins with a nervous laugh.)

—Ha! Try—We will own and manage all government infrastructure—so the State pays us to manage all their, quote, site-specific management services, end-quote—Fuck that, mang!—and—

(4TH RESPONDENT returns again to robot voice.)

—CoreCivic Community—a growing network of residential reentry centers to help tackle America’s recidivism crisis—

(4TH RESPONDENT finally drops the robot voice for good.)

END-FUCKING-QUOTE—Did y’all just hear that, mang?!?!—they are—like—out to own all government services!—Y’all we’ve gotta help the people, mang—see through this smoke screen, mang—Clinton and Trump are more than golf partners, Mang—this public-private merger is more than forty years in the making, MANG…We’re all Fucked.

(Between the outrage of the outburst and 4TH RESPONDENT’s slough of accusations, assumptions and assertions, there is a beat of silence while all the respondents collect their thoughts. Finally, MR. PROVE-IT responds.)

MR. PROVE-IT

We get another one of these guys, huh?

Examiner?

Is this really going to be the new normal around here?

Is this really what we need?

Because people were already lining up to take this investigation seriously, so you decide to just…let this conspiracy…theory…mang…into the fray?

Make it a battle royal?

(The AUDIENCE is confused by MR. PROVE-IT’s appeal to EXAMINER to act as gatekeeper, when it seems like EXAMINER has been limited to the role of moderator since the beginning of the investigation, but maybe the intensity of CONSPIRACY THEORY MANG’s claims combined with a growing chaos and confusion about what he wants this investigation to accomplish has dulled MR. PROVE-IT’s understanding of this investigation’s organizational structure.)

CONSPIRACY THEORY MANG

You think your professional wresting reference is witty here, mang?—Just because your favorite video on YouTube is the one featuring a pre-presidential Donald Trump getting stone-cold-stunner’d—straight into the mat—in front of thousands of screaming fans who probably went on to vote for him?

MR. PROVE-IT

Yeah, but that video is kickass. And I don’t care if you have one-billion dollars, or two billion…

(MR. WHINEY, trying not to let his frustration with the current tangential digression show, responds with scorn.)

MR. WHINEY

Gentlemen…while Conspiracy-theory-man,

(MR. PROVE-IT and CONSPIRACY THEORY MANG interrupt to correct MR. WHINEY’s mistake.)

MR. PROVE-IT             CONSPIRACY THEORY MANG

Mang.                                     Mang.

MR. WHINEY

CONSPIRACY THEORY MAAANG’s contribution, at this juncture is of questionable value.

However, we are not here to play respectability politics or discuss YouTube videos.

There are connections between Hutto and Clinton that could lead a rational person to ask some of the questions that CONSPIRACY THEORY Mang raises. Although we would be absolutely irresponsible as investigators—even as amateur investigators, not to offer some balancing counter points and questions.

Clinton WAS the Attorney General that threw Hutto under the federal court bus—by declaring that Hutto’s administration had acted in bad faith to investigate prison abuses, and as a result, pushed Hutto out of his position in the ADC. Turning around to suggest that President Clinton would be the one that paved the way for Arkansas’ first private prison, is a big stretch though. The push for private prisons has mostly held up at the state level, and it is individual states that have been responsible for the biggest and most expensive mergers of government and private industry.

Additionally, the State of Arkansas only experimented with one private prison venture, and that contract was awarded to CCA’s chief competitor—Wackenhut. It seems unlikely that the Hutto-Clinton connection is very strong, or you would think that the contract would have gone to his company.

CONSPIRACY THEORY MANG

Y’all mean to tell me…

(Pauses a beat for dramatic effect.)

…that all it takes—for you…mang—to stop looking—to stop searching for connections between the global and national “manipulators” is lack of immediate—and personal—financial profiteering?—No wonder our financial watch dogs failed so spectacularly in the collapse of 2008, mang—and no wonder they will again within the next 5 years.

MR. PROVE-IT

And 9/11 was an inside job, right?

CONSPIRACY THEORY MANG

(If CONSPIRACY THEORY MANG is aware that MR. PROVE-IT is teasing him, it does not register in the tone of his response.)

No way, mang!

That’s quack science—but—but saying that the CIA had nothing to do with the California 80s crack epidemic—because it can be “proven” that they did not “invent” the crystallization of cocaine—that ain’t the same thing as declaring them innocent, mang— of providing fronts for counter-revolutionary militias throughout Latin America—do you know what I’m saying?—to distribute cocaine in our, quote, urban centers, end-quote—in exchange for weapons, mang.

Even if—and in my eyes, maaaang—that is a big IF—even IF…Clinton and Hutto—weren’t “in collusion”—if they “never” discussed issues of “privatization”—of prisons, mang—as a solution for rampant state-wide institutional corruption—it is undeniable that both their attitudes about the prison industry—in the United States, mang?—were shaped by that legacy of abuse in the State of Arkansas…mang.

(CONSPIRACY THEORY MANG does not make it easy to latch on to coherent arguments, but MR. WHINEY has faith that there is reason to try.)

MR. WHINEY

So, your claim, if I got this right…

…is that regardless of whether it was intentional or not, is that it is likely that the history of incarceration in the State of Arkansas: a History of abuse and neglect, which has largely been ignored on the national scale, has played a central role in in both Hutto and Clinton being open-minded to the possibility that almost anything else had to be better?

MR. PROVE-IT

See, to me, that is the most damning and difficult argument to ignore against government-run institutions of incarceration.

When a prison is state-run, there is a stead-fast belief on the part of most Americans—even those on the left—that the system itself is solid and good. Folks think that all the problems that we encounter with putting that system into practice are the faults of individual bad actors running things.

The mainstream political parties fight tooth and nail over who’s gonna take over—just long enough for the person they put in charge to get overwhelmed by systemic problems—and then blame that person for not being capable of overcoming a system designed for abuse and corruption. You just can’t put people in complete control of other people’s lives and pretend like you haven’t created a time bomb that is just waiting to go off. It seems Terrell Don Hutto might have fallen into that trap, and “slick Willy” Clinton was one of those career government-types who specialized in making sure that the buck always stopped with some other sucker.

MR. WHINEY

Ok Mr. Prove-it.

(Something has just snapped for MR. WHINEY and he has shifted in lecture mode.)

You can legitimately question Bill Clinton’s commitments to accomplish social change and willingness to side-step accountability…but thinly veiled sexual and— frankly—misogynistic side-banter like “Slick Willy” has no place in this investigation…This isn’t 1st grade.

MR. PROVE-IT

(MR. PROVE-IT just got called out on his sexism and lashes back defensively.)

I was not the first person to call him that.

MR. WHINEY

(For all of MR. WHINEY’s faults, letting people off the hook for sexist behavior is not one of them and he has seen reactionary defensiveness like this in the responses of many an otherwise ardent pro-feminist male ally.)

No, you weren’t. But “it wasn’t me” is the official excuse of cowards and enablers of oppression.

And that last “some other sucker” comment is at least as offensive as the nickname or, at least, mentioning them together makes them both worse. In addition to getting us wrapped up in some macho-tough-bro-talk-metaphor relating sex to an extortion game—your comment also had the effect of derailing a productive conversation about the privatization of prison in Arkansas and the United States—

CONSPIRACY THEORY MANG

(Interrupting.)

—that’s not cool, mang.

MR. WHINEY

No, it’s not cool, man.

Because that conversation was really starting to go to some constructive places and illuminate some interesting links to our current investigation.

(MR. WHINEY really lets MR. PROVE-IT have it now, with a scolding that sounds like it could be directed at a 1st grader.)

Which is—SUPPOSED—to be focused on the institution of McPherson’s Unit and the people who have been directly impacted by its existence.

Not our own pathetic male insecurities.

Setting:

“The possibility of locating a regional prison in Newport is already receiving opposition even though a public hearing concerning the prison will not be held until tonight…An ad which appeared in the Monday’s edition of the Independent and paid for by M.______ of near Engleside, asks questions about the safety of children playing in their backyards and mothers shopping after dark. The questions are addressed to the ‘concerned citizens’ of Jackson County.”

EXAMINER

Who has McPherson’s Unit impacted?

MR. PROVE-IT

That’s the real question isn’t it.

The one we should’ve been answering from the beginning. What does any of this matter if it is not affecting real people in real ways?

(MR. WHINEY appreciates MR. PROVE-IT’s dedication to keeping things real but thinks comments like that depreciate the amount of work that has gone into this investigation. He wants to respond, “Hard-ass skepticism doesn’t erase or trivialize the work of contextualization.” Instead, he takes a breath and tries what he hopes will amount to a more productive conversation.)

MR. WHINEY

In a roundabout fashion, I’d argue that we have been.

We just had to answer this question first for ourselves. Because part of the illusion of incarceration in the communities around us—in our cities, our states, our countries, our worlds—is that either they do not affect us unless we end up housed within them, or else they only positively impact us by separating us (the good and law-abiding citizens) from the really dangerous elements of society—

MR. PROVE-IT

(Interjecting.)

—like the murderers.

MR. WHINEY

(Responds with a dry sarcasm.)

—Yes, like the murderers.

When we think of a society without prisons people immediately assume that means a world of violent criminals running wild in the streets. Never mind that levels of crime can always be tied more closely to income disparity than to lax codes of criminal justice.

MR. PROVE-IT

(Chuckles.)

Ok, ok, ok! I think we’re on the same page here. We don’t need to run back over the same shit we’ve already covered about why places like McPherson’s Unit exist.

So, “everyone” is one answer. But we can get a lot more specific than that, right? Some groups are going to be more impacted than others.

MR. WHINEY

The most obvious answer then, would be the women incarcerated there.

MR. PROVE-IT

Yeah, for sure. But that’s an incomplete answer to me.

Shouldn’t we say: The prisoners, the people who work there, and the community/city that houses it.

MR. WHINEY

I don’t buy that, Mr. Prove-it. That seems like a pretty contrived answer that reinforces systemic injustice.

The women incarcerated should be centered in the discussion on that I think we agree, but what kind of false attempt at impartiality is it to list the prison staff separately from the community that houses it?

(MR. WHINEY pauses a beat to let the weight of MR. PROVE-IT’s capitulation to the state sink in.)

And…

(Pausing another beat.)

…if you are going to set aside time to consider the guards, wardens, nurses and others involved in the process of incarceration, you better talk equally about the companies that built McPherson’s Unit and profit off fat government contracts to provide services to it now. Not to mention, we you better address all the politicians, the Department of Corrections employees, and everyone else that takes it upon themselves to make the decisions that affect how McPherson’s operate. I don’t just mean mention them, I mean name them. Make them real. Investigate just how much money they have made off their positions.

I mean you better call out people like chaplain Kenneth L. Dewitt who was charged with fifty counts of third-degree sexual assault for pressuring three inmates at McPherson’s Unit into providing him sexual favors, and then situating those people in the larger social world they occupy. Dewitt for example, based his prison ministry and classes on the teachings of Bill Gothard, a man with deep ties to former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee—yep, that Mike Huckabee—who as governor opened McPherson’s Unit in 1998 and pushed corrections policy towards giving religious organizations the kind of access to McPherson’s Unit that enabled Dewitt’s abuses. Oh, yeah, and for TV fans, Gothard’s ministry is the one that the Duggar family, of 19 Kids and Counting, sent their son Josh to for counseling after molesting two of his sisters. Bill Gothard who is accused, himself, of sexually harassing as many as 30 women under his influence.

MR. PROVE-IT

—Do you need to tag out?

We can call Conspiracy Theory Mang back out here—

(MR. WHINEY does not find this a time for jokes. He continues and some measure of nonverbal communication between him and MR. PROVE-IT silences all further interjections.)

MR. WHINEY

And while we are at it, we should give space for the families of the women incarcerated in McPherson’s Unit to exist and express the sorrows and pains of having their daughters, sisters, wives and mothers locked up on the opposite side of the state, many for years.

We should explain the difficulties of arranging travel when that means having to drive five hours or more, and many without their own reliable means of transportation—which can mean no visits at all for the duration of the sentence.

Twelve years probably seems like a long time to serve a sentence for possession to the woman behind bars, but what does it mean for her children?

MR. PROVE-IT

(MR. PROVE responds honestly, but in a tone that respects MR. WHINEY’s serious demeanor.)

You are on the warpath, Mr. Whiney, and I like it, but you might be slipping into some hyperbole.

Newport is located on highway 67, which is the major highway between Little Rock and St. Louis, MO. You can take a Greyhound to Newport for less than 30 bucks. Now that ain’t nothing! And it is probably too much for a lot of folks to manage. But compared to some of the other possible locations in the state the prison could have been built, I’d call that relatively accessible.

MR. WHINEY

Maybe…

(Pause for a beat.)

…Maybe if your family is based in Little Rock. Then Newport is not the opposite end of the state—but Little Rock is smack dab in its middle. Newport is in the Northeast quarter of the state. Not too far from Little Rock, but what if you were arrested in Fort Smith? Or Texarkana? It would be almost a four-hour drive for your family to come see you.

MR. PROVE-IT

You know, this is one of those emotional appeals that could be real powerfully made through one of those fancy infographics, don’t you think?

Something like a chart that shows where the women incarcerated in McPherson’s Unit were arrested by county.

Can we put one of those in a script?

MR. WHINEY

Yes, it would be, and I don’t see why a script couldn’t have an infographic, although its performance would be quite the directorial challenge.

Unfortunately for both us and our audience, as you already know Mr. Prove-it, this kind of statistical data is exactly the kind of information that has been denied to us by the Department of Corrections research and planning office. It feels a little underhanded for you to draw attention again to the fact that the Department of Corrections has chosen not to participate in this investigation.

MR. PROVE-IT

Well, you say that this is the space that we should talk about ALL the people impacted by the existence of McPherson’s Unit, right?

And that sounds all high and mighty…but we both know—and all the rest of these voices know too—that that is waaaay beyond what amateurs like us are gonna make happen.

Your ideas, about getting an in depth, big picture, look at the economic and political development of McPherson’s Unit is right on. And it would be a great project for some professional and respected social scientist or journalist to undertake…But, “mang,” that ain’t us.

Instead of getting caught up again in some hypothetical discussions that our audience will smartly dismiss because, “who the fuck does this guy, or guys, think he—

INSECURITY DUDE

(Interrupting.)

—For real, Dudes, who do we think…

MR. PROVE-IT

(Interrupting the interruption.)

—Shut up, Insecurity Dude. You’re not helping.

Let’s take a look at some specific stories of people who have been impacted by McPherson’s Unit then and see what they can tell us, you know, as investigators.

MR. WHINEY

Splendid suggestion Mr. Prove-it!

I think I have just the case for us to study—compiled previously by Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett—that looks at an example of a women who died of an illness while incarcerated in McPherson’s Unit, and the difficulties that her family had in finding out in time to help her.

Let me present the case of Nikki Rust:

Setting:

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF JACKSON COUNTY, ARKANSAS 1ST DIVISION-CIVIL

DEANNA RUST, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS EXECUTIX FOR THE ESTATE OF NIKKI GAYLE RUST, DECEASED

PLANTIFF

VS. CASE NO.: CV-16-39 NURZUHAL FAUST, DEPUTY WARDEN, individually and in her official capacity; CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS D._____… EMPLOYEES OF ADOC

DEFENDANTS

MR. PROVE-IT

—Wait, who was that jumping in the middle of that story about Nikki?!?

Was that supposed to be me? Insecurity Dude? Some new voice not bound by the laws of scripture? It sounded like it was supposed to be me, but come on, not even I am that heartless.

I mean…sure, with the new Yammander-in-Chief looking to toss the Affordable Care Act out the window, I could see a lot of folks feeling pushed to ask questions like these about what kind of health care prisoners have a right to in comparison to yr average citizen, but we have spoken personally to Nikki’s sister and mother.

I would never be capable of being so blunt or hostile.

MR. WHINEY

No matter how carefully we try to organize and isolate ourselves in this investigation…I fear that there was always destined to be some overlap.

We are, after all, all fragments of Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett.

It can’t be that shocking that we see ourselves with his efforts at a unified voice, right?

And anyway, weren’t you the one who told us not to go looking too closely at that curtain?

But, yes I think you are correct to point out that the fracturing of the authorial self—experienced in the compiling this investigation—is an ongoing complication of Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett’s identity and not just explicitly a narrative craft tool being exercised exclusively for the benefit, or detriment, of our audience.

(Pauses a beat.)

And speaking of complicated messes, this is pretty much the first time we have even considered the issue of health care in incarceration.

MR. PROVE-IT

True!

Talk about a complicated mess to try to understand!?! I think we could have approached this investigation with an actual team of researchers and assistants instead of mess of split personas and we’ve still struggled to make sense of how healthcare works in prison.

MR. WHINEY

You can say that again Mr. Prove-it.

Being shut down by the Department of Corrections didn’t help much here either.

Medical care in prisons, and especially in the State of Arkansas, has its own pretty dark and terrifying history. Back in the 60s, most medical care was overseen by inmate “doctors” with no formal training in medicine. At the infamous Tucker Prison Farm in ’67, the head “doctor” was federally exposed as running a drug smuggling and distribution ring from the facilities infirmary. Laws establishing rules and regulations for the medical care of prisoners started getting federally regulated in the 70s, although medical care litigation continues to be the most expensive legal challenge to any Department of Corrections.

Today, medical services in Arkansas detention facilities are contracted out to private health service providers, essentially privatizing a public medical care service, and creating a hidden public-private partnership within the issue of incarceration that is very rarely thought about. I am sure that everyone incarcerated in the State of Arkansas values being attended by actual medical service professionals instead of a fellow inmate running a drug smuggling ring out of the infirmary, but “better than a drug dealer” is a pretty low bar to set for health care.

MR. PROVE-IT

Even with those standards, things get tough competing with shrinking state budgets and a public that ain’t very kind to inmates.

The case of Nikki is certainly complicated, although—as a human being—I don’t know how anybody doesn’t feel the heart break of her family. And isn’t everyone left asking the same question: Would she still be alive if her health care hadn’t been as tied to treating her like a prisoner as it was to treating her like a human being?

MR. WHINEY

And is prison alone the only mitigating factor in Nikki’s death? Obviously, if she were not locked up in close proximity to another women suffering from an infectious illness, then it’s unlikely she would have gotten so sick in the first place. So, on one hand, we have to say the two are directly linked in the case of Nikki’s death…but, at the same time, people catch infectious illnesses outside of prisons as well. How do you establish criterion to determine how much accountability for preventing infectious illness rests on the shoulders of the Department of Corrections?

MR. PROVE-IT

Well, shit—ain’t that the issue with carrying out justice generally in a complicated world?

As often as not, it’s gotta come down to the people reviewing the case. Which is why Nikki’s sister has chosen to focus on the question of why the prison administration took so long to notify the family of a medical emergency. Losing a sister or a daughter is never going to feel ok, but proving who’s to blame is a real gamble. Finding out that someone you love has died several hours too late to be there, or do shit about it, that seems like a provable brutality.

MR. WHINEY

Unfortunately, since this is still an active case, and because no one at the Department of Corrections is willing to communicate with us anyway, it is difficult for us to present any perspective other than Nikki’s family, since they were so kind to sit down with Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett and show their grief in person.

Which means that some readers are going to share in the skepticism of that “Not-Mr. Prove-it voice” and argue that we are presenting the case of Nikki in a leading and biased fashion. But as those limitations are imposed by factors outside of our control, I don’t really—excuse the language—give a shit, do you?

MR. PROVE-IT

Ha ha, no I don’t.

Besides, Nikki Rust was a real person…

(Pauses a beat.)

…As of this moment, I can look up her Facebook page and see a picture of her smiling and standing together with her children. I can scour the Internet and find the video of her sister being interviewed by Little Rock TV news reporters…

…If real experts, or a mass of angry protestors, want to either challenge our findings or use them to back up Nikki’s family and push for more justice in our justice system—well, that would just tickle us fucking pink!

MR. WHINEY

As pink as a pansy!…assuming that pansies can be pink.

To readers who might ask why we, or Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett, have provided so little physical description of Nikki Rust, or of the racial or sociological background in our study of her case, I think it behooves us to confess to the deliberateness of that decision.

(MR. PROVE-IT chuckles at MR. WHINEY’s use of “behooves” but otherwise remains silent as MR. WHINEY continues.)

It is difficult to dive into physical details to someone who died related to illness and not have those details spill over into presumed judgments about how those details may have contributed to her death. We value questions about social identity and incarceration—obviously—from the length of time that we spent analyzing these things in ourselves, but letting you, our audience, think about how aspects of identity, like race and social class, might have played into her medical treatment, is a more worthwhile outcome than projecting our own assumptions of these factors on the case for you.

MR. PROVE-IT

Besides, we’ve already told you that Nikki’s case is entirely researchable for yrself online.

I’m pretty confident that we’ve already owned up to having the evil plot of pulling you, audience member, into this collective investigation, and if we haven’t…well then, shiiit. I guess that cat is out’a the bag…

(MR. PROVE-IT and MR. WHINEY both pause for a beat.)

MR. WHINEY

Well…death is not the only medical concern that women might face during their time incarcerated.

MR. PROVE-IT

No, it ain’t—

MR. WHINEY

One of the most terrifying and barbaric carceral practices women have faced in the State of Arkansas, or maybe anywhere on earth has to be shackling during childbirth.

MR. PROVE-IT

—A practice so awful that it deserves its own entire investigation—

MR. WHINEY

Agreed…and one that incorporates far more professional resources than we, or Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett, are going to be capable of mustering on our, or his, own. However, it is such an important topic that we have to recommend our readers read up on their own, if they have the emotional space and time for it, the painful case of Shawanna Nelson. A woman incarcerated at McPherson’s Unit in 2003 for credit card fraud, who—despite protests by nurses and doctors—had to give birth with her wrists and feet shackled to her hospital bed.

(BOTH MR. WHINEY and MR. PROVE-IT pause for a beat.)

MR. PROVE-IT

I had never thought about it, but did you know that five percent of women are pregnant when they get locked up?

Maybe that don’t seem like a lot…but over time…over the history of incarceration in Arkansas… well, I don’t think she is the only woman who’s had to give birth in chains.

MR. WHINEY

No, I don’t think she was.

And when you factor in hundreds of years of slavery, and how African American women were valued according to their potential fertility…the legacy of shackled childbirth has even darker and more racist implications.

MR. PROVE-IT

As men, pregnancy behind bars is not a reality that we will ever face. No matter how radically we stick to our politics in these reactionary times and must contemplate the potential of ending up behind bars, doing so pregnant is never really going to be on our radar. And yet, even as a complete outsider, it is scary shit.

Where is a pregnant woman going in the middle of labor?

How is she getting there with a guard at the door, shackled or not?

Is a woman convicted of writing bad checks any more of a danger to doctors, nurses or herself than any other woman giving birth?

How have we built this monster—“prisoner”—so fucking convincingly that it overrides an identity like pregnant woman?

MR. WHINEY

I don’t know how to answer those questions…

…But there is a touch less terrible news surrounding this issue today, thanks to the courage of Shawanna Nelson. She sued the State of Arkansas for her treatment while pregnant and incarcerated.

In positive news, that 2009 case Nelson v. Correctional Medical Services, brought enough attention to the practice of shackling women during childbirth that a Federal court ruled decisively against the practice. The court ruled that “shackling a woman prisoner during labor and delivery, in the absence of a clear security justification for such restraints, violates the Eight Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

In less positive news, at least for Shawanna, the ruling also determined that Nelson could not clearly demonstrate that Officer Turensky had knowingly violated established constitutional rights, since this issue had not previously come before a Federal court.

Since this case, twenty-four states have passed specific measures restricting the use of restraints on pregnant incarcerated women, and in 2008 President George W. Bush signed the Second Chance Act into Law, requiring that any use of restraints on pregnant women be documented with justification and there have been no further cases of incarcerated women being shackled during childbirth to come before Federal courts.

MR. PROVE-IT

So, it is possible that Shawanna Nelson’s case might be the last time we hear about a woman giving birth in shackles?

MR. WHINEY

We can only hope.

Although the rate of women’s incarceration continues to climb nationwide, even though overall incarceration rates are decreasing. So, it is unfortunately possible that this issue is not completely resolved legally.

MR. PROVE-IT

Well, I ain’t here for fancy theorizing, but the issues of prison and motherhood challenge the very core of correctional incarceration doesn’t it?

I mean, if the idea for prisons in the first place was to physically tear a person away from their socializing community, isn’t motherhood like…the exact opposite?

MR. WHINEY

That is an interesting and challenging point for departments of corrections to face, Mr. Prove-it, although it risks reductively generalizing the experience of motherhood unfairly. But, even if that is the case, the relationship between socialization and motherhood is worth considering on a sociological scale.

How responsible for enforcing the social expectations for motherhood is our legal system supposed to be?

According the United States Department of Justice and their Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than half of the women incarcerated in America are mothers of children under the age of eighteen.

8.5% of these mothers experienced homelessness in the year prior to arrest, more than twice that of incarcerated fathers in the same situation. The sexual violence and mental health statistics are even more alarming.

59.7% of incarcerated mothers who reported living with a child under the age of 18 prior to arrest reported experiencing sexual abuse.

63% reported substance dependence or abuse.

72.8% reported living with mental health issues.

29% of incarcerated mothers, who had not been living with their children within the last 3 years, reported being homeless within the year of their arrest.

It is pretty hard not to see deep links between the gendering of crime and access to social support networks.

MR. PROVE-IT

I ain’t going to disagree with your statistics or the scope of the issue, but this is a connection—motherhood, support, and crime—that can be demonstrated less abstractly in one of the highest profile cases that McPherson’s Unit ever saw, the case of Christina Riggs:

Setting:

The curtain has closed but the voices continue.

MR. WHINEY

When I review the case of Christina Riggs, the only truth that leaps out at me from the complexity of her life and situation is that the greatest crime a woman can commit in the state of Arkansas is to be responsible for the death of her children.

Her family, the extended victims of her crime, never pushed for the death penalty. And, with her children dead, she never posed a future threat to anyone except herself. To what end could anyone have felt that the death penalty was the most fitting crime for a woman like Christina?

MR. PROVE-IT

I don’t know, and I don’t disagree with yr skepticism about the necessity of the death penalty for any social or preventative purpose.

But given that it’s what she wanted, I can’t help but think that in a sick sense, this outcome was probably more humane to her than forcing her to live out a life in prison or make her try to find some other way to get herself killed behind bars. A God-fearing Christian concerned for Christina’s mortal soul might claim that her case worked out just the way God wanted it to. After all, suicide is a mortal sin in Christianity. A repentant mother put to death just might have a shot at an afterlife with the children she thought she was saving from future torments.

In a very sick, very southern, brutally Evangelical sense, there is an inescapable logic to putting Christina Riggs to death isn’t there? I mean, I can hardly think of a more appropriate plot for a Faulkner-styled southern Gothic tale.

MR. WHINEY

I can’t believe you would suggest such a thing Mr. PROVE-IT. You, of all of us, should be sensitive to the fact that Christina Riggs was a real person, not a tragic literary heroine.

She was suffering from chronic and intense depression and, by her own account, post-traumatic stress disorder. She needed help, and she needed it long before she took the lives of her children. It is disgusting to suggest that it was anything but grotesque negligence on the part of the state for shaping a collective narrative out of her life.

Christina Riggs cannot be made into a representative metaphor for the consequences of failing in some sacred duty of motherhood. It is despicable for us as investigators to try to sit here and make judgements of Christina or the social circumstances that led her to commit her horrendous crime. Whether society wants to declare that this was the vilest crime imaginable, or a tragedy of social failing, her execution accomplished nothing but reinforcing that the consequences of failure as women to fulfill the roles of wife or mother in a patriarchal world will be death.

MR. PROVE-IT

Why don’t you tell us how you really feel, MR. WHINEY?

MR. WHINEY

I think I just did.

We set out on this investigation hoping to look deeper into a real brick and mortar building—to dig into its mysteries and make visible the nearly impossible task of enforcing a system of criminal justice in a world where social justice is sorely lacking. It should hardly be surprising to anyone that we were destined to fail long before we ran into official obstruction.

We set out believing that with observational transparency and an identity fractured to allow us the luxury of openly questioning our own assumptions, we were going to be entering this project free of bias and capable of focusing on issues that need to be approached without depending upon institutionalized political positioning. We wanted to avoid the kinds of formal structures of research and reporting that create either/or models of knowledge-making, that look at every new issue as one with an easy answer just waiting for a white man to solve it.

Arkansas built a prison at 302 Corrections Drive in response to decades of corruption, neglect and deliberate injustice that has been directed at an intersectional class of human beings, “women prisoners.” A group that has experienced some of the most awful conditions imaginable. Certainly, looking deeply into the past of the incarceration of women—in the world—in America—in Arkansas—it is difficult to claim that McPherson’s Unit is not leaps and bounds better than what came before it.

And yet…the gross and violent aspects of incarcerating women continue to manifest regardless of legal reform and public outcry. Sexual violence, negligent health care, undertrained guards making poor decisions in the face of exigent pressures, are all consequences of our society’s conceptual approach to justice as much as to our attempts at its practical application.

MR. PROVE-IT

The more we expect our prisons to do, the greater the risk that our expectations will clash irreconcilably.

MR. WHINEY

Yes, Mr. Prove-it, that is remarkably concise.

How can any one institution simultaneously hope to:

– Punish all the bad people;

– Correct immoral and anti-social behavior;

– Isolate violent predators from those they would seek to harm;

– House the homeless;

– Provide mental health care and facilitate substance abuse recovery;

– Enforce the social boundaries and expectations of sex, race, class, gender, and sexuality;

– And provide a counterbalance through which the rest of us define the scope of our freedoms?

Maybe the real question about what purpose we hope our prisons can serve should be redirected. Maybe the real question is: what services have we allowed ourselves to assume can only be provided by the most brutal and authoritarian institutions of the state? And how can we do a better job of meeting the needs of a pluralistic society by abandoning systems of justice designed to oppress marginalized people and work towards adopting systems of justice that focus on restoring both the personal and the community-based needs of all of us?

MR. PROVE-IT

Maybe we should stop trying so hard to justify our need for prisons like McPherson’s Unit, and start looking for ways we could live together without them?

Setting, scene, characters, time:

A poet or an artist or an anarchist or a teacher or a student asked himself a question he could not answer about a place he has never been. A polyvocal chorus responded. Whatever you have imagined has transpired between you and the chorus over the course of this investigation. The only questions left will be the ones you set out to ask.

The END