Click on the link below to view a three minute video to get a taste of what you’ll encounter when you read Unusual Punishment.
Category Archives: Multimedia
SUPER CUSTODY
At the beginning of 1970, the system of control that had prevailed for decades at the Washington State Penitentiary was about to collapse. By 1972, that system was only a memory. In this video, three men – Superintendent B. J. Rhay, prison chaplain Jim Cummins, and an inmate – talk about what convicts and staff both called “super custody.”
CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS QUIT DOING THEIR JOBS
As the system of prison control known as super custody collapsed at the Washington State Penitentiary, there was nothing to take its place. Frustrated and afraid, many correctional officers quit. Most of those who didn’t quit, simply looked the other way. As one inmate put it, “We were so much in control of the prison that a lot of guards didn’t have an opportunity to really do much with us…. When help was needed, that’s when they were called. I can’t even really remember them walkin’ around too much.”
THE THIRD FLOOR
In this video, Dick Morgan, an officer for less than four months is told to go to the third floor of the hospital where, it was said, too many inmates had hung themselves with their hands tied behind their backs.
WHEN THE INMATES RAN THE JOINT
Throughout most of the 1970s the inmates controlled most of the real estate inside the penitentiary walls. In this video, an inmate describes what it was like.
TURNING A BLIND EYE TO SUFFERING
The Washington State Penitentiary was a dangerous place during the 1970s, and that danger affected the relationship between inmates. In the following story, an inmate who was president of the Black Prisoners Forum Unlimited (the B.P.F.U.) during the 1970s describes what it was like.
ASSAULT IN THE AUDITORIUM
The prison auditorium was a dangerous place in the Washington State Penitentiary in the 1970s. In this audio tape, an inmate describes a near fatal assault when the lights went out.
HOSTAGE RESCUE AT THE WASHINGTON STATE PENITENTIARY
On New Year’s eve day, 1974 inmates at the Washington State Penitentiary took hostages in one of the cell blocks and in the prison hospital. In this audio tape, associate superintendent for custody at the time of the incident, Jim Harvey, describes how the hostages were rescued.
Concrete Mama – the Book
In August 1978, photographer Ethan Hoffman and his journalist friend, John McCoy, quit their paying jobs at the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin to do an in-depth study of the biggest story in town, the Washington State Penitentiary. The result of their work was the iconic book, Concrete Mama, Prison Profiles from Walla Walla. In this video, Ethan Hoffman talks about making Concrete Mama against a backdrop of images from the book.