The vanload of fresh ”maggots” had scarcely pulled to a stop outside the state`s first prison boot camp before The Man With No Eyes charged inside the vehicle`s door.
”All right, you knotheads, listen up!” growled the figure in reflective sunglasses and black commando garb.
”From this point on, you will not do anything unless a staff person tells you to do it. . . . You! Quit smiling at me or I`ll be all over you like a cheap suit! . . . Now, I want you to get out of this van and move as fast as you can and line up with nose and toes against that wall.
”Do you understand, maggots?”
”I can`t hear you!”
”YES, SIR!”
”MOVE!”
In its attempt to deal with the country`s fastest-growing prison population, the Illinois Department of Corrections has spent nearly a half-billion dollars building more than a dozen new prisons and remodeling many of its old ones.
It has tried early parole, electronic-monitoring parole and work release. And now this, which Supt. John L. McCorkle, Dixon Springs` commanding officer and official camp greeter, described as ”prison guards dressed like ninjas, making 17-year-old kids nearly wet their pants-but for a purpose.”
It is Scared Straight, with a twist: the motivational theories of Gen. Patton teamed with the transcendental philosophies of onetime jailbird Henry David Thoreau, whose writings are posted throughout the camp along with those of many unconvicted great thinkers.
Beyond the lofty goal of changing attitudes is the practical matter of arithmetic, for the state and for inmates. Only first offenders are eligible and participation is voluntary, but the alternative is a real prison, where as McCorkle delicately put it, ”17-year-old boys get turned into 17-year-old girls.”
If offenders stay for 120 days, their sentences of up to 5 years are set aside and they are released on special probation. In exchange, the state saves money and frees hundreds of prison beds.
At dizzying speed, the young car thieves, burglars and gangbangers who scrambled out of the van on a recent fall morning were run through an indoctrination gantlet by the Intake Committee of the Impact Incarceration Program:
”What is your first name, maggot?”
”Gerald, sir.”
”Wrong! You have no first name here. Your first name here is Inmate. Have you got that, knothead!”
More than a few of the inmates were wobbly-kneed and tearful within minutes of their arrival. The only female among them, who appeared shrunken from her 6 feet, 184 pounds, appeared totally disoriented by the presence of two female officers directly in her face.
”We had one inmate in an earlier group who wet himself,” noted a Dixon Springs staff member.
”We make them think they will get the hell beat out of them, but we never do it, because if we did, we would be meeting their expectations,”
McCorkle said. Of course, physical abuse is also strictly forbidden, he added. ”I don`t like you-you people are criminals,” he bellowed at the arrivals.
”This program is not fair. Life is not fair. If life was fair, criminals like you would not exist,” he continued. ”Here you will have the opportunity to change your lives and become a productive member of society, instead of the parasites that you are now.”
An uneasy spectator
At times, the hazing took on the air of choreographed street theater. Individual guards danced in, stung the ears of their charges-but without using profanity or racial epithets-and then danced out to be replaced by another howling commando at the compound, which sits near the tip of the state in the heart of the Shawnee National Forest.
The theatrical air was enhanced by the occasional covert winks and smiles exchanged among the guards, and by the presence of about a dozen spectators just a few feet away, local citizens come to witness the verbal carnage.
Craig Laben, vice president of the First National Bank in nearby Golconda, was among a group of businessmen invited to observe.
”I guess I felt uncomfortable a little bit,” he said. ”I`m sure it is more humiliating for the inmates having other people watch. But most people I`ve talked to think this method is worth trying.”
After each male inmate was strip-searched and had his head shaved, he was ordered to shower, don camp-issued Jockey shorts, then line up in view of the spectators against an interior wall.
Overhead was a sign that read:
”It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.” -Henry David Thoreau.
4 kids at home
”The real reason I took this program is that I got four kids and I don`t want to be gone no four years-that was my original sentence,” said inmate David White, 25, of Chicago, convicted on two counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.
”I just have to pay attention here, first of all, then motivate myself,” he said. ”It ain`t nothing I never been through before. My mother hollered at me all the time.”
”It is impossible to predict how many (inmates) we might reach,”
McCorkle said. ”My basic philosophy is that we can change their behavior but we can`t change their attitude. That comes from within.”
Since the camp opened in mid-October, 18 ”quitters” have departed, at either their own request or McCorkle`s, who judged some unable to adapt. A good many were scared off by the first four hours of initiation. The program will house 200 men and women when fully operational at the first of the year. Inmates are roused at 5:30 a.m. and kept in perpetual motion throughout the day and evening. There is no television, no reading time, no radio, no weightlifting, basketball or baseball.
”If they want to watch Pee-wee Herman or Garfield Goose, they can go to prison. They aren`t going to watch it here,” McCorkle said.
Any conversations with staff members must be preceded by ”Inmate requests permission to speak.” New inmates often shout these mandated phrases in their sleep. Otherwise-officially, at least-inmates are not allowed to speak except to say ”Excuse me” when passing in front of staff members or
”By your leave” when passing behind them.
Twice a day, the prisoners are put through rigorous exercise and motivational runs of several miles. In between, they saw logs, pick up trash and clean, all at breathless pace.
At night, inmates attend educational and substance abuse classes until lights out at 9:30 p.m. Classes dealing with stress and with such basic skills as writing checks and applying for jobs, will be offered when staffing is completed.
Inmates who do not conform are put on special work details and denied five-minute breaks. Those who fight must carry a heavy ”Motivational” log together all day. Guards also may run problem inmates through the exercise of the day (pushups, leg lifts, etc.), but no more than 15 repetitions can be ordered. Even without weapons, these guards command respect unheard of in other state prisons.
”They may hate me when they come in here and want to take a swing at me, but after a few weeks they see why we are screaming at them,” McCorkle said. ”Everything we do here is for a purpose.”
Whether the purpose is served by boot camps any better than by regular prisons is not clear, he conceded. Studies of similar programs in other states show that boot camp graduates are just as likely to return to prison as inmates released from standard prisons.
The camp`s message got through to one particularly hard-headed inmate after he had been forced to dig a hole in the surrounding forest of scrub pines all day long, the superintendent said.
”The kid told me that he hated the officer more with every shovel he threw. But at dinner that night, the officer told him he had made him dig the hole all day because with his attitude that`s just what he was doing, digging a hole for himself.
”A light went off in the kid`s head, and now he is one of our best inmates,” McCorkle said.
If the potential for change is present in such a camp, so is the opportunity for abuse, he noted.
”We certainly watch the staff,” McCorkle said. ”We make it clear if we feel they are abusive we are going to run them out of the program, and fortunately we have not had any problems yet that we are aware of.”
Lightening up
The superindendent is a key to maintaining the balance between motivation and maliciousness, he acknowledged.
Off the firing line, McCorkle is a congenial sort who describes himself as ”6 feet 4 inches and 235 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal . . . but my wife will not verify that.”
The son of a career Army man, and a native of nearby Metropolis, McCorkle received the Silver and Bronze Stars for valor in Vietnam. He is an 18-year veteran of the Department of Corrections, most recently serving as a captain at the Jacksonville prison, ”where I played the hard guy role more with my staff than with the inmates.”
To ease tensions among the staff and the inmates, McCorkle occasionally leads long-distance runs with the inmates while chanting, ”Superintendent is my name . . . took this job `cause I`m insane.”
He has also been known to accept jibes from his subordinates.
As the wearying four-hour intake process wound down that day, McCorkle encountered another sort of problem endemic to a prison camp ruled by mock terrorism.
The superintendent had been hovering over inmate Jose Fernandez, 20, as the camp barber shaved the head of the surly Chicago gang member.
After assuring Fernandez in no uncertain terms that gang activity is not welcome at the boot camp, McCorkle announced, ”I`m the head gangbanger here.”
As McCorkle walked away from the shaven and chastised inmate, he was pulled aside by his second-in-command, Maj. Jim Suits.
”Superintendent, we have a problem,” Suits said.
”What`s that, Major?” McCorkle responded.
”Well sir, I already told him that I am the head gangbanger here.”
