American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment

One day, Bauer is assigned to suicide watch, and the unit is filled with clouds of pepper spray. The SORT officers in charge spray an inmate believing he is hiding a weapon. The inmate moans in pain, but the officers ignore him. Winn’s usage of chemical agents is seven times higher than that of Angola, the largest state penitentiary in Louisiana. Although there is no gang culture at Winn, a CCA prison in Idaho was accused of allowing gangs to discipline prisoners. An FBI investigation found rampant inmate violence at the Idaho facility, but CCA was never sanctioned.

One of the inmates on regular suicide watch, Damien Coestly, is moved to a segregation cell with an older man with mental health issues. Despite threatening suicide several times, the SORT officers ignore Coestly’s pleas. When Coestly hangs himself from a bedsheet, the officers are late to respond, and Coestly dies 19 days later. He weighs only 71 pounds. Bauer secretly shares personal video of Coestly with the young man’s mother who laments her ignorance of her son’s plight. Coestly’s troubles were no secret to Winn’s staff, however. Records indicate that both the prison psychologist and a counselor were aware of his suicidal thoughts. A student of the law, Coestly filed repeated grievances against CCA, but the Department of Corrections denied his claims. He also went on hunger strikes to protest his treatment, but his cries for help were dismissed as “playing games and trying to manipulate the system” (166).

Despite journalistic exposés and legislative investigations into the humanitarian abuses of convict leasing, what finally began to unravel the practice was declining profits. When Texas plantation owner Edward H. Cunningham lost his monopoly on convict leases, the state was forced to use several smaller companies which only leased the strongest “first-class labor.” Prison superintendent Thomas Goree suggested the state purchase its own plantations on which to employ “second-class laborers, negroes, boys, cripples, such men as we cannot hire out for first-class labor” (169). Surprisingly, the state-owned farms generated a higher profit than the private ones, encouraging the state of Texas to purchase over 20,000 acres of new plantation property. Conditions on state-run plantations were little better than on contract properties. Convicts often mutilated themselves to avoid the harsh working conditions. Nevertheless, state-owned prison farms soon became “the main mode of incarceration for many Southern states” (170). As the cost of leasing convicts rose, the profit margins decreased, and when the cost equaled that of free labor, states began to end their convict leasing programs.

The death knell for the leasing system was the torture and murder of Martin Tabert, a 22-year-old white man arrested in Florida on vagrancy charges and sentenced to three months labor in a lumber camp in the early 1920s. After complaining of health problems due to unsafe working conditions, Tabert was whipped excessively and left to die. His family, suspicious of the company’s version of events in which he supposedly died of pneumonia, launched an investigation, and found collusion between the sheriff and the private prison company. The company settled out of court, paying the family $20,000, and was absolved of all blame. The story generated so much negative publicity that Florida was forced to abandon its convict leasing program. After the brutal murders of thousands of Black men within the convict leasing system, the death of a white man put the final nail in the coffin.

Bauer reflects on his complicated relationship with “Tattoo Face,” an inmate who pushes the limits and dares him to do something about it. Bauer attributes this to his “rookie mistakes,” which include treating inmates kindly and second-guessing his decisions. He fears inmates are taking advantage of his compassion, and so he decides to set a few basic boundaries and stick to those without wavering. The job, however, constantly presents a series of ever-shifting challenges—he must not only play the authority game with the inmates, but he also feels tested by fellow COs. Bauer struggles to decide whether to stand with them or do the right thing. Trying to find small moments of humanity carries a cost in status and respect. Out in the yard, an inmate named “Gray Shirt” counsels Bauer about disrespecting prisoners for perceived slights. Respect, he argues, is earned, and if Bauer wants respect, he needs to let things slide more and stop trying so hard. This leads to a conversation about Gray Shirt’s past history with the law, his defiance of authority, and his sexual relationship with a probation officer when he was 13. He also issues a veiled threat, claiming that no price is too high if he wants “a motherfucking CO ass bad enough” (185). Despite the threat, however, Bauer sees Gray Shirt, whose real name is Derik, as honest and a potential bridge between himself and the other inmates.

Later, during recreation time, Bauer confronts an inmate who tries to go out to the yard without authorization. Bauer tries to assert his authority, but the inmate threatens him. After confiding in another CO, hoping the inmate will get sent away, the other officer admits that enforcing discipline is unrealistic without adequate backup. Bauer steps outside for some fresh air, and Derik offers more advice: “Stop coming at people with that uniform. Come at a person like you would treat ‘em in that world” (191). Derik goes on at length about just wanting to be left alone, the pain he felt when his brother died, and his anger at being treated as less than human. Bauer gets pulled in until Derik shows a flash of rage. For a moment, Bauer fears him, realizing the threat is real. That night, after transcribing the recordings from his hidden microphone, he meets Anthony at a bar. Anthony threatens to break the jaw of a guy who beats him at pool, and Bauer secretly hopes a fight will break out “so I can release some tension” (194). After five hours of sleep, an exhausted Bauer gets a speeding ticket on the way to work the next mornin