Bad Apples and Dirty Baskets
David  B. Gulick, Ph.D.
University of Delaware

During the summer of 1981, five guards in a southern prison beat a sick and weakened inmate unconscious, revived him, and beat him unconscious again. Names and places are changed.

Prison officials, when defending their organizations against charges of systemic brutality, corruption, and exploitation have often embraced what is referred to here as the "bad apples" defense; the notion that a "few bad apples" are contaminating their organization and that institutional problems can be solved by locating and removing a few dysfunctional, independently acting, "bad" individuals from an otherwise "good" system. As such, they claim the ability to "take care of business" without interference from the outside, especially the courts. The following account rejects this simplistic notion and suggests that guard to inmate violence is a complex phenomenon imbedded in the structure of the prison experience and not simply a management problem to be dealt with by disciplining a few substandard employees.

The violence described below took place in a southern prison during the summer of 1981. I had recently completed the standard recruit training program and was working as a guard while conducting participant-observation research in the prison. The incident involved a black male prisoner ("Jones") locked in the solitary confinement wing in one of the more troublesome units of a massive prison complex. Also involved was a group of career minded guards- a "goon squad"- skilled in the tradition of "tuning up" or "head strumming" errant inmates, a shift of guards who had been accused of being too easy on the "a______" in solitary confinement, and a shift supervisor with a reputation for "taking no s___" from above.

One of my first assignments was to "feed and shower" inmates in the solitary confinement unit. (Prison staff only entered the area during such times.) There were upwards of twenty inmates housed in the "prison within a prison" for offenses including, fighting, stealing from other inmates, and drug use and for refusing to work in the fields. Each isolation cell had two doors, an inner one with steel bars and an outer one constructed of solid steel. All of the solid doors were open except one. Given court decisions barring the closing of the solid cell doors and the fact that the afternoon sun raised temperatures even in the "open" cells well above 100 degrees, it did not occur to me at the time that someone might be inside the closed cell - a third level of a "prison within a prison?". No dinner had been prepared, no name tag was on the door, no mention was made of the presence of life inside the solid steel box.

During my second day in isolation, however, I heard muffled screams coming from the closed cell. With me at the time was one other guard and an inmate dining room worker. In response to a question from me, the inmate stated, "No boss, Jones ain't getting nothing until I'm told otherwise. He don't get no air, he don't get no water, he don't get no nothing until boss Smith tells me so." Similarly, the other guard with me stated, "Hey, I do what I'm told. Boss Smith says he (Jones) don't eat, he don't eat. He f_____ with a boss last week on A wing. Besides, sitting in there in the dark is gonna be the least of his problems. You don't f___ with bosses around here!"

While the other isolation inmates were showering, Jones continued to call from his cell. I was told to ignore him. "Let that nigger go ahead and scream, the f_____ should have thought of that s___ before he threw hot water on boss Thomas." I ignored the guard's warning and opened the cell door (a decision that may have indirectly contributed to the severity of the beating that was to come later). As the door opened, Jones cringed in a corner of the cell with his hands over his eyes. No light had entered his cell for three days and the flood of light was apparently quite painful. Two-inch roaches scurried toward the rear of the cell where Jones was sitting naked on a perforated steel bunk with no mattress. His body was covered with abrasion sores. His eyes were yellow and red. His immediate request was to have his hopper flushed. Though he reportedly had not eaten or drank since his isolation, he had used the hopper several times and the stench was overwhelming.

I entered the "pipe run" behind the cells and flushed the hopper. Rat feces were visible throughout the run. Openings in the ventilation grates between the pipe run and the cells supported Jones' (and others) claims that rats had been in their cells. The problem was compounded for Jones because he could see nothing in his cell, though the same problem was present for the other inmates during evening house when all lights were turned out in the isolation wing. The guard I was working with expressed anger over my decision to open the outer door of Jones' cell and flush the hopper. "I'll tell you what boss, you gonna learn real fast to follow Smith's orders if you expect to continue working in this place." He closed the door and again turned off the water supply to Jones' cell.

On Tuesday (my third day assigned to the wing), the same scenario took place except Jones was given a meatless dinner -vegetables stirred together into an amorphous mass- and drink. The outer door, however, remained closed and no spoon was allowed, thus forcing Jones to eat with his fingers in the dark. At this point, bewildered that such practices would continue in my presence in spite of the staff's knowledge of my research function (I was also experiencing a mixture of ethical conflict and fear of personal liability), I informed the supervisor that I could not continue to work in the isolation wing under such blatantly illegal conditions. He responded:

"Yeah, it's a real problem. We were going to just kick his ass real
good and forget about it, but Major Nelson said no. The Special
Master is coming tomorrow and the major won't let us f___ up
Jones. I told him that we either get to f___ up Jones or he can
have my badge. There is no f_____ way that I can run this shift if
convicts can get away with f_____ with bosses. I'll tell you one
thing though, if I quit over this s___, there will be a whole shift of
bosses quit with me!"

The supervisor explained that Jones had been sent to isolation for throwing hot oatmeal at a guard. Inmates informed me that Jones had thrown the oatmeal in response to a guard throwing hot water on him the day before and then standing there laughing as Jones suffered the scalds. I was never, however, able to clearly establish how the conflict between Jones and the staff began.

The day after my discussion with the supervisor, I was assigned to a guard tower outside the institution. This came as a surprise in that the grant I was working on called for most of my time being spent inside the building. The reason for my isolation, however, became clear at the end of the shift when I was called back inside the unit for a shift meeting. We were told that the Special Master had visited them institution during the shift prior to ours and was unlikely to return for a while. Then:

OK, for you guys that have been worried about it, I'll tell you now that the score has been settled between the "Christians and the lions." It seems that Jones again tried to attack one of the bosses down in the hold, but  this time luckily we were ready. There were four of us there to help restrain Jones. With "just the amount of force necessary," we were able to get Jones back in his cell.

The statement was followed by hand slapping and laughter among the guards. The supervisor, demonstrating his contempt for externally imposed standards (a posture highly respected within the institution, even among many inmates), had taken on an ironic, comically angelic, expression as he stated the phrase "just the amount of force necessary" (the federally imposed standard for use of force). The presentation was effective and functioned to unite the group of guards in a feeling of camaraderie. Most of the shift left in good spirits and met in a local bar to celebrate "things getting back to normal."

Two people claiming to have taken part in Jones' beating told me that after they had been given the "go- ahead," two guards entered the isolation wing and told Jones that he could come out and take a shower. Three other guards also entered the wing but remained out of sight of the cells. Other inmates in the wing heard the other guards enter and called to Jones warning him that he was being set up. Jones reportedly refused to come out of his cell, stating that it was not time for his shower and, additionally, he was sick and could not stand up. The two guards entered his cell and immediately called for help stating that Jones had attacked them. The three remaining guards rushed into the cell to find that first two guards holding Jones on the floor, one of them holding his hand over Jones' mouth. Jones was kicked and beaten unconscious, awakened, and beaten unconscious again. Afterwards, he was again left naked in his cell with the outer door closed. I was later told that Jones was removed to the prison hospital. I was never assigned to the isolation wing after the incident, and never had first-hand conversations with inmates who were in isolation at the time of the beating. The guard relating the incident to me stated, "It's about time Major Nelson allowed us to f___ up Jones. Just like Adams told you, we would have all quit along with him if he hadn't. It's just common sense,you can't let convicts get away with f___ with a boss. We'd lose all control around here."

Jones was victimized by a rigid and repressive social structure with a (proud!) history of racism and violence. He was beaten not by a few pathological individuals, but by a group of career-minded employees having at least the tacit permission of senior staff. There was no attempt to cover up the incident. Indeed, the guards openly enjoyed and took pride in their ability to deliver "just the necessary amount of force."

Staff-to-inmate violence will not be curbed by removing "a few bad apples." The problem is with the basket.