In the summer of 1965, Drew (not his real name) was nine years old. His family lived in a sixth-floor walk-up in Harlem, and his best friend lived in the apartment below. Drew was on the street one warm day, tossing a ball up to his friend, who was grounded, when the boy stepped away, saying he’d come right back. But he never did, and not long after, Drew watched in horror as the windows blew out and flames engulfed both apartments. His sister and mother burned to death in the fire, thought to have been caused by an exploding gas can. “She was a strict working-class mother,” he says. “She’d kept me in check in a way my father, who was disabled by a stroke, could not. After she died they sent me to some counseling, but I was out of control.”
A corrections officer suggested he try to get into a Life Learning Program–a small, self-contained residential unit intended to hold 44 inmates that’s run by evangelical chaplains and volunteers. County had four such units, including one in the maximum-security Division Nine run by Marcus Baird, chaplain for the entire division. They’re the only residential rehabilitative programs for adults at County. Drew talked to Baird and signed the required contract, pledging to get up early every morning, help clean the unit, participate in all classes, complete all homework, and join all prayer sessions. He also agreed not to smoke, drink, swear, use drugs, or bring in pornography or other contraband.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Malcolm Young, executive director of the John Howard Association, a reform group appointed by the federal district court to monitor conditions at County, says that violence and disciplinary incidents are less common in the LLPs than in other units. “Inmates and correctional staff and leadership will all say the Christian dorms are quieter, safer,” he says. “Inmates will say that’s why they want to be there.” I’ve visited County dozens of times in the past three years as a volunteer for the association, and I’ve seen a stark contrast between the LLPs and the other units. The men on other decks mostly swing between hostility and boredom, but the men in the LLPs are upbeat. The walls in the LLPs are decorated with their drawings of Jesus and Bible quotes they’ve copied, and I’ve watched them spontaneously start singing gospel songs and share bread from their lunches to make pizzas. And unlike other prisoners, they don’t talk to visitors about their cases–they want to know if the visitors have been saved.
Now no one can participate in Baird’s program: in August it was shut down as part of a security-driven reorganization of Division Nine that keeps most inmates locked in their cells 23 hours a day. The other three LLPs, which are in different divisions, are still open, though it’s not clear for how long. Baird, who learned his program had been closed–and its participants dispersed into the general population–when he arrived for work that morning, doesn’t know whether it will be allowed to reopen. Officials at the sheriff’s office and the jail didn’t respond to repeated inquiries about its fate. “I don’t understand why they closed it,” says one inmate who was in Baird’s program. “We were a group trying to be progressive in a negative environment. We were producing good fruit.”
He managed to land in one of the work decks. He says they offer the chance to leave the unit to go to work, which helps alleviate the boredom–inmates without classes or a job have virtually nothing to do but watch TV in the dayrooms or stay locked in their cells. He also says that the inmates selected for work are among the more sensible; because they can be sent back to general-population decks if they cause any trouble, violence is rare. There are also over-40 decks, medical decks for inmates who are injured or in poor health, and protective-custody decks, where prisoners are kept under continuous lockdown. “A medical deck has some gangbangers hiding out there,” says Drew, “but it’s safer than a general-population deck.” So are the over-40 units. “Usually they vote on what to watch on TV instead of fight over it or have some mobster bogart it. But they still have fights.”
Baird tried to see that everyone entered the LLP voluntarily. But the corrections staff had the authority to assign inmates wherever they chose, so his unit sometimes had more than 60 men. Among them, he says, were “people who have no business being there. It’s tolerable if someone comes in for pseudoprotective custody and they go along with the program. But when men feel forced to be there and resent having to observe our rules, it’s a problem.” Drew echoes that complaint: “When they’re overcrowded they put troublemakers in who don’t want to obey rules, like no TV during quiet times. They act out and get in fights.”
“If someone sleeps in late or misses group or curses, an elder might tell Chap, who might bring it up in group. Maybe the guy will have to write out a chapter from the Bible that relates to what he did wrong.”
