In 1874 on McNeil Island, a body of land west of Steilacoom, Washington, was where the first penitentiary was built in the United States. Washington state was the first region in this country to establish a brick-and-mortar prison solely for the purpose of warehousing human bodies. The state has been the national leader in the prison industry since its inception. Congress authorized the establishment of the territorial jail in Washington on January 22, 1867. A few years later, on September 17, 1870, the Federal Government purchased 27.27 acres on McNeil Island for a federal prison. The prison, federal McNeil Island Penitentiary, officially opened in 1875 with just nine inmates and seven guards. By 1934 the prison expanded into a Federal Farm Camp with an increase of acreage to 2,107.3 and the total prison population swelled to 320 inmates. The additional acreage and labor allowed for the prison to be self sufficient, providing its own vegetables, fruit, pork, beef, and milk. With the blueprint solidified, the self sufficient warehouses continued to pop-up all over the state and spread across nation throughout the 19th century. Along with being able to provide their own agricultural and labor needs, prisoners as a labor force began to spill into other industries. Even Washington’s own mega-cafe franchise Starbucks took a dip into the prison labor pool to increase profits during the 19th century. Now hundreds of industries play a part within this prison industrial complex.
Experimental Leader in Corrections, Abolishing Parole with Voting Rights Restored Upon Release
Seeing as how Washington holds the national record for establishing the trend of incarcerating people, it’s interesting to see that the state’s prison population is lower in comparison to other regions with similar state populations. In theory for the 17,000 people incarcerated in this state, once we apply the proper reforms to sentencing and pass the most effective legislation we could accomplish a record low prison population. Washington is surprisingly not only unique in its prison history, it also has some distinctly different criminal justice policies. For example the parole system was abolished in Washington state in the 1980s and is one of the few States in this country that does not monitor citizens through parole. While this means that all life sentences are effectively ‘life without the possibility of parole’, it also means that once people are released into the community after serving their sentences that they aren’t constantly terrorized by the risk of going back to prison for meaningless violations. Washington State is also one of the 14 states in which felon voting rights are automatically restored upon a person’s release.
As we can see through its unique criminal justice policies, Washington State’s department of corrections has been the most experimental throughout history. Journalist, John McCoy and photographer, Ethan Hoffman came into Walla Walla Penitentiary during the end of the 1970s when the department was in the midst of an attempt of allowing prisoner self governance. The book Concrete Mama documents a very distinct point in Washington’s prison history, “The prison rebellions of the early 1970s undoubtedly improved certain aspects of the prison…incarcerated people had more access to the courts. Sexual violence among prisoners decreased. Religious freedom expanded”. McCoy spoke about his difficulties documenting at the prison, an extremely volatile and unpredictable environment, but the rare and incredible opportunity to roam the prison freely with unrestrained access to prisoners even with its difficulties is unfathomable for us today. I had the pleasure of participating in a discussion panelists which included both McCoy and Mead as well as Mark Cook, co founder of the BPP- penitentiary chapter and Gerard Boseman, UW student and Black Prisoners Caucus representative. The panel discussion was hosted by Professor Dan Berger who recently launched the Washington State prison history archive as well as wrote the introduction in the newest edition of Concrete Mama.
Prisoner Self Governance is Plausible
Concrete Mama is a beautiful collection of interviews recorded by John McCoy and photography captured by Ethan Hoffman in the 1970s. The book launch and panel discussion had a beautiful turn out with students, staff, community members and activists from across the region coming together to discuss the parallels between the stories covered in the text with the events of today. Cook, who’d been incarcerated for 40 years with experience at Walla Walla, spoke about the violent conditions which inspired a demonstration among inmates with the campaign slogan, “if you care, grow your hair”. This slogan was an extremely powerful statement during a time when prisoners were restricted from wearing their hair any longer than a buzz cut, growing their hair was a blatant act of rebellion. Just as inmates have found ways to resist prisons throughout history, Walla Walla prisoners purposely grew their hair long in protest of the violent conditions that they were forced to live in. It’s incredible to see how throughout history the restrictions placed on prisoners were never enough for them to remain silent about their dehumanizing conditions. From overflowing toilets to waving banners and even when they have nothing to sacrifice prisoners have always been more than willing to put their bodies on the line in protest. We can see this in campaigns with prisoners who choose to grow their hair, refuse their food or stay in their cell from work despite the severe threat of retaliation from staff.
The book’s second edition comes at a beautiful intersection in Washington state prison history where there are more people now than ever questioning why prisons haven’t changed since the 80s. Its been several decades now since we as a collective society realized that we’d taken the wrong steps and our criminal justice department, especially since recent realization we haven’t done much as a society to correct those issues and yet there are millions of people nationwide that suffer the daily dehumanizing consequences of these policies and have been for decades. It’s time that we make the desperate reforms that this unjust system demands and that de-carceration become a state priority with the intention of it becoming a national priority.
Along with book authors and formerly incarcerated features in the book there was also a new era component to the event which included myself and panelist Gerard Bozeman, recently released from Monroe correctional complex last year and a member of the black prisoners caucus. Bozeman spoke about the comparisons between conditions in prisons today and those depicted in Concrete Mama, for which both he and author McCoy agreed that little to nothing has changed. While this realization can be disheartening, it was refreshing to see from the stage a room packed full of people eager to understand the conditions that prisoners have been forced to live with throughout the 80s into today. I urge folks who are doing work as it relates to the prison movement to host events like these that give people ranging from curios to activist, the opportunity to connect and to network with one another.
New Bill Restores Prisoners’ Voting Rights in WA
After the event I was able to hear about a new bill in Washington state’s legislature to give incarcerated felons the right to vote. The bill, HB 5207, requires the amendment of the state constitution. The Bill will receive a hearing next week at Washington State legislature on Wednesday at 8 a.m. If Washington passes this legislation it will join Maine and Vermont as states that counts and record all of its incarcerated citizens votes in state and local elections. Incredibly moves being made towards restoring prisoners voting rights in multiple regions throughout the country including Washington, New Jersey and New Mexico. If we as a society are serious about correcting the injustice is that our criminal justice system has caused, it’s essential that we follow legislation and listen to incarcerated activists throughout the entire process of initiating bills and campaigning for legislation until every single prisoner has the right to vote. As apart of the Right2Vote Campaign we must be willing to defer our vote as it relates to criminal justice to the prisoners in our state. It’s obvious that the current trend of voting on behalf of a population that is silenced legislatively is not effective, and is actually degenerative and retroactive. There have been too many so-called reforms like the Sentencing Reform Act, the Truth-in-Sentencing Act and Prisoner Litigation Reform Act that have actually contributed to mass incarceration. If we want to see real change to this system then we need to listen to those who are trapped within it.
During the era illustrated in Concrete Mama we saw that Washington does have a desire to influence lasting changes in the criminal justice system that would allow our department of corrections to be a rehabilitative and corrective environment. Sadly, for some reason this ideology was shifted before it could really produce results, now we must recommit to the discarded idea that prisoners can’t be self-governing and prisons can’t be safe spaces for the people that are forced to live there. Washington is the leader in incarceration Nation, so let’s reverse the trend and make our state a leader in the de-carceration with a new vision for the new year beginning with giving incarcerated people their Right2Vote back and committing to dramatically reducing our prison population with sentencing reforms that address the unjust biases that former policies created
