— EE SERRE eS See HE SEER 4 by J. R. Freeman of headlines lately. crime for which he was sentenced. While the incident caused a stir in the immediate philosophy hasn’t changed much. And because re- sidents have begun to circulate petitions requesting guard dogs at the prison, more towers, and have suggested among themselves that Mr. Mack and his bureau of corrections are not sufficiently protecting their life, liberty, and property sufficiently, the Supsrinfendgpts philosophy bears more scrutiny. No Stranger No stranger to the region, the 60-year-old penolo- gist was born in Harrisburg and raised from infancy in Nanticoke, where he graduated from high school with the class of 1931. After taking an AB and MA degree from the University of Pennsylvania, he be- don. During World War II, Mr. Mack served 37 months in the U.S. Navy, where he selected naval air cadettes for flying school before being assigned to a military stockade. There, his job was to retrain prisoners and return them to naval duty. After the war and back at Huntingdon, Mr. Mack became director of the treatment center and was transferred to the Dallas facility when the 1250- -acre institution opened in 1959. ber 1971, by Bureau of Corrections Commissioner Allyn Sielaff, a man for-whom Mr. Mack has great respect and admiration. One high administration official at tige Harrisburg level confided recently that Mr. Ma political prowess, but on experience and credentials alone. The official said the administration felt “comfortabifl with Mr. Mack at the helm. It had been Mr. Mack who saw SCID change from the days when it was a specialized institution for defective delinquents with as high as 900 residents, to a full- fledged prison. In 1968 the law setting up the delin- quent center was declared unconstitutional, at which point the facility became a correctional insti- ‘tution for adult felons. Today it houses about 800 such inmates. But as one of those inmates recently commented after reading a blistering attack against the institu- tion and Mr. Mack in a Wilkes-Barre daily news- paper, ‘Christ, you would think the community just discovered we were here.” Few Visitors At the same time, Mr. Mack gets few visitors from the community at large. Most of the people with the prison directly, with an occasional news- man worked in. Luzerne County Dist. Atty. Patrick on the institution property, until last week, though he has become an avid critic of Mr. Mack’s policies. And Mr. Mack’s aggressiveness to get to the heart of a problem came through swiftly recently when nearby residents became critics. Mr. Mack invited came about through 33 years experience. I insist on decency and respect between human beings—in- mate to inmate, inmate to officersa a officer to in- mate.” : residents became critics. Mr. Mack invited the group to meet in his office. And 45 did just that. At the base of that policy and perhaps at the base of the Mack philosophy lies the simple premise: change of attitude. Mr. Mack is quick to correct the novice who might visit his office and begin talking about rehabilitation, a word he claims to have drop- ped years ago. “We're not trying to rehabilitate residents (he never refers to them as prisoners), but change their attitude,” he explains. ‘Every one of those 800 men in there know they have broken the law. It’s .our job to make them see why they broke it, and how they can live in a free society without breaking it again. The word rehabilitation carries with it a con- notation that a resident needs to get well. Most often sidents here.” While Mr. Mack has remained aloof of the com- munity surrounding his institution (he works hard, socializes little, lives at the institution with his wife, Ruth) he is likewise looked upon by his resident population with mystery. Though DA Toole’s charge that Mr. Mack never goes into the confines of the prison itself is a joke (he goes in almost every day, from his office outside the high fence, during which he has been knocked unconscious twice) the’ inmates under his supervision know and appreciate his concern and effort in their behalf on a mass: scale. But many of the inmates find it hard to under- stand why he is riot concerned with their individual cases. ’ Officer Trust Mr. Mack’s position as prison warden, therefore, is not fully appreciated by either the community at large, nor by the inmates under his control. A seg- ment of the community which misunderstands him is driven by fear of possible escapes, while the re- cannot deal with individual cases frequently, no control. There are simply too many individual cases for that. And besides, Mr. Mack trusts his correc- tional officers to deal with the individual. This trust, which he explains has come about through the years rather than through any recent circumstances, carries the Mack jailhouse philo- sophy forward in a host of innovative programs de- signed to change attitudes of his subjects, and back- ed by a great deal of Mr. Mack’s own vigor. The day he took over the top position at SCID, Mr. Mack issued an immediate policy position to be posted for all personnel as well as on all cell block bulletin boards. In the statement, Mr. Mack ex- plained: : “you will find my attitudes unchanged in the main. I will continue urging for both personnel and “the resident population dependability in work effort, involvement in self-improvement programs, and “Pride of accomplishment and positive self inven- tory have long since made their mark, giving rea- sonable assurance that the. inmate concerned is a N decency in interpersonal relationships.” However, Mr. Mack cautioned: “You will find my insistence on respect for human dignity intensified in all aspects of institutional operation. I want em- ployees and residents alike to understand my firm dedication to this most basic of human rights. In- mate to inmate, employee to employee, inmate to employee, and employee to inmate—these relation- ships must reflect my heartfelt desire for human decency and mutual respect in our daily routine at SCID.” Remains Firm And that’s not to say that Mr. Mack was relaxing any rules. He was merely suggesting a method: “The disciplined structure of our operation pro- cedures shall continue, with the sole purpose of nur- turing an institutional ‘climate’ that permits each resident full opportunity for self-improvement and the earliest possible release to free society. ‘But implementation of this disciplined structure shall reflect, I assure you, absolute compliance with the following principles of prison management: kindness without indulgence; firmness without harshness; strength without brutality.” And during crisis or under pressure, Mr. Mack’s philosophy doesn’t change. Recently, when one in- mate in the maximum security block stabbed another, Mr. Mack was under pressure from var- ious political leaders. His response was simple, both to outsiders as well as to the prison population: “Bigotry is no respector of persons or places. There is evidence of it all over the world. I am parti- cularly saddened by episodes such as occurred last night, because they jeopardize my efforts to win community and legislative support of the innovative programs so badly needed in our prison system. “But I will not curtail humanizing conditions for over 99 percent of our resident population because of explosive actions by, less than one percent. “I intend expanding inmate activities in sports, rap sessions, and the creative arts, with community help and endorsement, and intend doing so with as much vigor as we devote to job training.” And his faith in his subjects did not falter: ‘‘I be- lieve if a man is treated like a man, he can be ex- pected to act like one.’ His institution is a ‘‘graduate school” Mr. Mack explains, where a diagnostic center serving 15 sur- rounding counties send their sentenced men. The center, after a screening and testing process, de- cides which men are to be sent to which state prison. No longer does a judge make this decision. The new regionalization policy adopted by the Bureau of Corrections works well generally, Mr. Mack says, because it tends to keep inmates closer to homes and families. But because of overpopulation in the system, he points out, it can’t work completely, else an institution like Graterford, near Philadelphia, would be swamped with 3,000 inmates. Rules Are Strict While strict rules and regulations govern visitors depending upon circumstance, Mr. Mack generally encourages visitors to his institution. In fact, a thorny problem in his side brings out his sometimes rather dramatic behavior when faced with the fact that it’s hard for many families to visit their inmate relatives because of the location of SCID. The insti- tution, situated well into the countryside, has no public transportation link with Wilkes-Barre, its closest city, except by taxi at a $12 round trip cost. This Mr. Mack feels sure, keeps many visitors away from his resident population. : Once there, the visitor finds himself feeling relax- ed and comfortable in a friendly atmosphere, thanks partly to the professionalism of Mr. Mack's staff. And it’s really that staff which makes Mr. Mack’s jailhouse philosophy work. Though short- handed (there are 209 officers and guards) Mr. Mack’s training program is a long-range plan to ‘place back in our society men who are better equip- ped to function there than they were when arriving at SCID. And it’s the full confidence in his staff that is accomplishing this feat. While he has requested an additional 40 guards for the institution (the has- “We want our inmates to leave this institution not only with tamed tempers, but also with a philosophy of life more in keeping with that of free society. In duce not only; tamed, ‘but: better men in our inmate sle is with the legislature to appropriate the money) Mr. Mack and his staff are setting about doing the best they can with what they have. Fifteen months ago there were five counselors—today there are 15. Busy Inmates On a given day it’s not unusual to find as many as 710 of his approximate 800 residents actively en- gaged in some sort of work or training whether it’s a main gate detail of seven, to a morning band session of 34, to a detail of nine assigned to the print shop, 23 in the weave shop, 11 in the bakery, four in the dry- cleaning plant, 28 in the agricultural detail, 11 in the plumbing shop, or 31 in the mattress factory. The point is that the large majority of the popula- tion is busy. And as Mr. Mack explains it, they're not just learning to make license plates where they emerge into a society one day that has no license plate factories, or moving rocks from one pile to another. Rather, the residents are being given an opportunity to learn something useful that permits’ them the opportunity to show pride in accomplish- ment. And it’s Mr. Mack’s “team approach’ with his correctional officers that highlights the program’s success. In a recent training program memo, Mr. Mack summarized that his staff should: “Begin the in- mate in closely supervised activity, and move him on to greater freedom and self responsibility as he shows readiness for it. Repeatedly expose him to his strengths and weaknesses until he shows recogni- tion and understanding in that connection on his own, and gives reasonable promise of behaving in a manner that emphasized his strengths, and mini- mizes his weaknesses.” Issues Caution During the inmates incarceration for eventual re- lease to society, Mr. Mack has cautioned his correc- tional officers to: ‘recognize each inmate’s adjust- ment problems; plan an individual program in accordance with these problems, changing it as conditions warrant; strive constantly to get each in- mate to develop insight into his problems and insti- tutional responsibilities, and guide him into more ward each inmate for progress shown.” “Training is aimed at decent inter-personal rela- tionships and consistency and dependability | in work habits,”” Mr. Mack says. sure 100 percent effectiveness in these plays? He answers, ‘‘We cannot, since there is nothing ab- solute in dealing with human beings.” Not only is Mr. Mack obviously proud of the re- sults of his staff, but at the same time he cautions: “Once you consider an inmate to be hopeless, you're going to do the same with another inmate much ea- sier and quicker.” To aid his officers in their daily endeavors, Mr. Mack offers a host of suggestions. Among them are: “treat inmates firmly, but fairly; do not shame the slow thinkers in front of other inmates; curb your temper. Nobody thinks straight when he’s mad; do not be biased by an inmate’s offense, or attitude, or manner of carrying himself. We believe every one of our inmates can improve. You must think so too, and keep trying to get the inmate to work toward self-improvement. In summary, he stresses: ‘In handling inmates, patience and understanding are a vital, constant must.” Flood Recovery Perhaps it was this jailhouse philosophy that made the flood recovery effort at SCID the most vital to the outside community of anything recently occuring at the institution. During the high water stage last June, SCID re- sidents were doing more than their part to help vic- tims by baking an average of 2.500 loafs of bread daily, distributing hundreds of gallons of soup, pro- ducing hundreds of gallons of milk from their own dairy herd, donating peanut butter and other “The important thing is not how long it takes, or how frustrating it is, or how we can do a better job of it than we are now doing. More important is the firm conviction that there is hope of change in attitude for ow our inmates.’ i A Greenstreet News Co. Publication Warden | staples. Additionally, SCID contributed 1,000 blan- kets, 2,000 cots, all of their fresh fruit, and the like. Beginning the day the killer Susquehanna spilled over its banks, Mr. Mack was swamped with inmate requests that they be permitted to help flood victims in any way possible. Quickly, Mr. Mack, with the help of then Greenstreet News staff writer Dottie Beckham, organized a team of 200 inmates to jour- ‘ney to the ravaged areas of Kingston and Wilkes- Barre and help the less fortunate victims, the old, the indigent, the handicapped, clean up their homes and belongings. Day after day, week after week, the approximate 200 inmates loaded into in- lots of ‘‘elbow grease’’, with a minimum of security precautions, to aid stricken flood victims. And during the two-month program only one inmate “walked away’ from his cleanup detail, an impres- sive record in anyone’s book. Meanwhile, back at the institution’s carpentry shop, inmates built 1,000 sets of steps for HUD mobile homes. Lots of Experience While Mr. Mack's jailhouse philosophy may have ment the flood detail inmates obviously felt, it was not a philosophy that developed as suddenly as the flood waters spilled over the dikes. | Mr. Mack says flatly that his prison approach fin- ally ‘‘crystallized” from his 33 years experience. “How can we keep a man locked up usually for years doing nothing but making license plates or moving rocks from one pile to another, and then set him free? Would this be the kind of man we would want as our neighbor, or work associate?” he asks. “You teach a dog to shake hands, not by hitting him,’’ Mr. Mack reasons, ‘but by rewards. Should we do less for humans? Our goal is to make the re- sident feel there is some good in him that can help him adapt to a free society. We must aid him in this endeavor.” And this quickly gets Mr. Mack to thinking about his theories and practices of attitudinal change. “These changes cannot evolve in a vacuum. Life means working with your fellow man—harmonious- ly and productively. There is no pride of accom- plishment, and only theoretical insight, if prison programming entailed therapy only. ‘But together, the impact on the inmate is signifi- cantly effective. He is busy; he is working; he sees things made with his own hands; he is carrying his own weight—all these things serve as fertile soil for the planting of the ‘seed’ of accomplishment.” Definitive causes of criminal activity are as yet unknown, Mr. Mack says. ‘You cannot touch the criminal’s problem, or smell it, or feel it. The best we can do is ‘sense’ it.” | “We believe the answer lies in the development in each resident of pride of accomplishment, and posi- tive self-inventory or insight,”” the superintendent said. “In general, it is a man’s successes in life that failures. The achiever thrives in an orderly society, and takes pride in his job, his family, and his friends. The loser, on the other hand tends to resort to self centered short cuts, and inevitably heads to- ward continued failure. Name of Game “Attitude, then, is the name of the game, and a man’s abuse of values its end product.” And Mr. Mack added another dramatic point: ‘‘Dammit, programming has got to replace ‘warehousing.’ Mr. Mack believes rather firmly that his tenure at SCID has developed more humanizing conditions at the correctional facilities. Most of his residents would agree. ‘Disregard of human dignity, harsh- ness, restriction of legitimate expression, these things will not be tolerated,” he recently told his staff. But Mr. Mack has not disregarded the community at large in his prison approach. ‘We believe that anything that sparks pride of worthwhile accom- plishment aids immeasurably in our job of reshap- ing inmate attitudes. Community interest and co- operation during, and especially after, an inmate’s incarceration are vitally necessary if our efforts in the prison setting are expected to bear fruit.” THT Moiese ioe kb onde by J.R. Freeman “Noone feature of this operation is more important than any other. All must function as a team, a coor- dinated complex of institutional activity that fo- cuses, as one unit, on effecting attitudinal changes in each inmate.”
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers