Take the Reason Prisoner Read online

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  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction November 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  TAKE THE REASON PRISONER

  No process is perfect ... but some men always feel unalterably convinced that their system is the Be all and End all. Psychology now, should make prisons absolutely escape-proof, and cure all aberrations....

  JOHN J. McGUIRE

  Illustrated by George Schelling

  * * * * *

  Major general (Ret.) James J. Bennington had both professionaladmiration and personal distaste for the way the politiciansmaneuvered him.

  The party celebrating his arrival as the new warden of DuncannonProcessing Prison had begun to mellow. As in any group of men with acommon interest, the conversation and jokes centered on that interest. Therepresentatives and senators of the six states which sent criminals toDuncannon, holding glasses more suited to Martini-drinking elephants thanhuman beings, naturally turned their attention to the vagaries in thebusiness of being and remaining elected.

  Senator Giles from Pennsylvania and Representative Culpepper ofConnecticut accomplished the maneuver. Together they smoothly cut thegeneral out of the group comparing the present tax structure to rape,past the group lamenting the heavy penalties in the latestconflict-of-interest law, into a comparatively quiet corner.

  "Well general, no need to tell you that we are all as happy to haveyou here as Dr. Thornberry seemed to be," Senator Giles said.

  Bennington nodded politely, though he had not been much impressed bythe lean, high-voiced man who had greeted him with such open delight.Dr. Thornberry had expressed too much burbling joy when he had beenrelieved of his administrative job as Acting Warden, had beenoverly-happy about resuming his normal duties as Assistant Warden andChief Psychologist.

  "I'm very much interested in some of your ideas on reducing theoverhead here, general," Culpepper said, "although I'm also wonderingif they may not cost my good friend, the senator, some votes in hisdistrict."

  "That will be no real worry," Giles said thoughtfully, "if I can showthe changes are real economies. Today that's the way to gain votes andI'd come up with more than I'd lose."

  "But your turnover," Culpepper said. "I can see that in a regularprison, where they have the men a long time, it's easy to train themin kitchen work and supply. But here.... How long do you plan to keepthem, general?"

  "I'll try to get back to the original purpose in setting up Duncannonas quickly as possible," Bennington said. "Dr. Thornberry agreed thatfive days is the maximum time his sections need to complete theanalysis of a prisoner and decide what prison he should go to. Afterthat, we will have sound reason to start charging the individualstates for each day we have to keep their consignment."

  "Complicated," Giles said. "I mean, the bookkeeping."

  "Not at all. I'll either hold the next top-sergeant that comes throughhere or borrow one from Carlisle or Indiantown Gap. He can set up asort of morning-report system, and when the states learn they willhave to pay us to handle the men _they_ should be feeding, we willsoon see ... well, there won't be six hundred and fifty men, women andchildren stuffed into barracks designed to hold three hundred andfifty."

  Bennington had spoken calmly and he lifted his glass casually. Butover the rim of his drink he caught the eye of another old soldier.

  Ferguson, who had been a private when Bennington had been only acaptain in Korea, eased himself to within earshot.

  The two had risen in rank and grade together. Thirty-three years hadtaught them the value of an unobtrusive witness to the general'sconversations.

  * * * * *

  "But with personnel changing so rapidly--frankly, I didn't understandyour reference to a replo-depot," Culpepper confessed.

  "A replo-depot," Bennington said, calling deep on his reserve ofpatience, "is the place to which all persons called up for militaryservice must go first. There, they go through a process similar to theone we use here: a complete physical, a complete mental, a completeskill-testing, all used to decide where the man himself can best beused--or imprisoned. Then they are forwarded to that assignment."

  Culpepper nodded, but he still seemed puzzled.

  "You could waste an awful lot of men on just handling the food andequipment that such a command needs, unless you used the men passingthrough," Bennington went on. "But, if you have a small permanentcadre who know what to do and how to do it, they can handle largegroups of untrained men.

  "And you'll not only save money, you'll give these men something to dowhile they are here," he added.

  When Giles and Culpepper exchanged glances, Bennington wasimmediately and almost totally certain that his explanation had notbeen needed.

  "Seems to me you could economize even more if a part of that permanentcadre were trusties," Giles said.

  "I would think so," Culpepper said, "but of course you would have topick the men very carefully."

  Giles approved of that idea. "Responsible men, not hardened criminals.Men who once held a prominent position in their communities, but madea mistake and now would sincerely like a chance to redeem themselves."

  "Take the example of Mike Rooney," Culpepper said. "A tragic case,that. He's lost a good government job and with it all his pension andretirement rights. And how? By simply having an accident with agovernment helicopter when he was using it on a combination ofgovernment and personal business.

  "Rooney--" Giles said thoughtfully. "Yes, I know him very well.Wonderful chap, nice family of growing boys. Now there is the sort ofman who would make you a good trusty, general. I would recommend himvery highly."

  "I feel the same way," Culpepper said.

  Bennington signaled to Ferguson, used the excuse of freshening hisdrink to cover his thoughts. Rooney ... Rooney ... oh, yes, theInternal Revenue official with the odd ideas about whose tax should becollected and whose should be neglected ... and coming here forprocessing on a minor charge.

  The old run-around, Bennington decided: Put the man in jail on a minorcharge until the hullabaloo over his major crime no longer made bigheadlines.

  If word had gotten down to the State level that Rooney was to be takencare of, the former tax collector must be sitting on a lot of hotstuff.

  The right phrase here will buy a lot of co-operation, Bennington toldhimself, remembering the overcrowded barracks, among the long list ofthings needing a change before this place operated properly.

  On a short-term basis, the answer was clear....

  "Gentlemen, I have no doubt that anyone you recommend for specialconsideration would, in some way, deserve that consideration," hesaid. "I am further aware that one hand washes another and that if Iexpect some favors from you, I should expect to do some for you."

  He held down his temper while the politicians exchanged glances ofmutual congratulation.

  "But," he said, "if I establish a trusty system, it will be anhonorable one. I would be seen in hell first before I would allow anyman to use the setup as a place to hide in comfort during a short rapwhen he should be sweating out a long one.

  "Your friend Rooney will get exactly what he deserves. And not a thingmore."

  Giles had slowly turned a turkey purple, but his voice remained calmand even. "I think you stated the proposition fairly, general. Youwill get from us the same amount of consideration that you gi
ve us."

  The party had been over for an hour, but Ferguson was still at work onthe debris. And his old sergeant had, Bennington estimated out of longexperience with cleaning up after stag parties, at least anotherhour's work ahead of him.

  The general returned to staring out the big picture window overlookingthe prison compound.

  _Something was wrong...._

  It wasn't Giles and Culpepper. A call to a friend in the Bureau ofInternal Revenue, a few words to each of the six governors who hadconcurred in his appointment, either or both of these would take careof those gentlemen, very thoroughly.

  _Something else was wrong...._

  He knew the basis of his feeling. He had led troops too many years notto have learned how rapidly a commander can establish a feeling ofempathy, even on the first day of a new command.

  He knew the basis for the feeling, but he couldn't pinpoint an exactreason.

  Or could he?

  _Why were there absolutely no lights at all in the prison compound?_

  He spoke over his shoulder to Ferguson, "I'm going for a little walk."

  "Want me with you, sir?"

  "No, I don't think I'll need you. Keep going and finish up in here."

  "Right, sir. You've got your pistol."

  The old master sergeant was stating a fact, not asking a question.

  "Ha!"

  Bennington's barked reply arose from memory of his first argument withThornberry. The assistant warden-chief psychologist had been astoundedto learn that the general did not trust the conditioning process as asolid basis for prison security. Beginning there, the openingengagement in the battle of ideas, their contrasting philosophies haddeployed and made the entire prison a battleground.

  But Bennington dismissed his chief assistant from his thoughts as soonas he stood in the darkness on the little knoll outside his house. Heconcentrated on orienting himself.

  * * * * *

  The camp had not been changed much when it had been made over from aground-to-air missile station, protecting the freight yards ofHarrisburg, into the processing prison for six states.

  They had tapped the Juniata a few hundred yards northwest of where itjoined the Susquehanna, for the water that filled the moat encirclingthree sides of the prison. The union of the two rivers formed thewater barrier on the east.

  _What was it Thornberry had said about the moat? Oh, yes, not to keepthe poor misguided inmates imprisoned, but to keep unwanted peopleout...._

  When his eyes were accustomed to the darkness, Bennington walked eastand came to the first of the two new additions to the camp. A longbuilding, used by psychological and medical men to determine the totalamount of usefulness to society left in a man convicted of a crime.

  Beyond it, the second addition, a barbed-wire-enclosed building calledThe Cage, where prisoners where first received and conditioned.

  He turned and began retracing his steps, at the same time mentallyfollowing what happened to a prisoner in each of the two buildings.When the official party accompanying him to his new post had arrivedlate yesterday, for the second time he had followed a man through theprocedure.

  The quick frisking and the slow interview with two purposes, byvisual, oral and written tests determining the amount ofsuggestibility to hypnotic conditioning plus the quicker giving of acard to denote a temporary classification.

  Light gray for minor offenses; yellow for major crimes; pink forlifers, psychos and killers; blues for juvenile delinquents; green forall females, with a colored clip-tab denoting the weight of theoffense.

  A temporary classification it had to be, Bennington decided, for theweight of the offense in itself never measured the man. How manyrepeaters, men inevitable to a life of crime, had come here to behanded a light gray card in The Cage, while other, different men,once-upon-a-timers, had come out carrying the yellow or pink?

  Could and did happen, the general knew, could and did happen even inhis former military life, where consideration of a man's record was aprerequisite to deciding the sentence, with review and review andreview automatic not a matter of initiated appeal.

  However, here, in the psycho-med building, was what might be calledre-judgment, for here, assisted by the latest advances that couldtrickle down through the long bureaucracy above--and aided by ideasthat yeasted up, not down--Dr. Thornberry's staff went back to basicswith the question, what is re-claimable, for the man and for us, inthis man?

  But not the first day ... that was routine.

  Strip and change to prison clothes.

  _Mental memo: What happened to the civilian clothes that the prisonerssurrendered? Was there the smell of a small but lucrative rackethere?_

  Then, on the basis of that preliminary in The Cage, through one of twodoors. A few went into the room where a massive injection of sedativesmade them virtually vegetables. Most of them, however, were sent intothe room where Judkins, the new technician who had also arrived onlyyesterday, would fit the "tank," the big helmet, down over theprisoner's head and conditioned the man with mechanical and oralhypnosis.

  The results, from drugging or hypnosis, were the same. From eitherroom the prisoner came with his face a blank.

  Mud-faces, or in a new use of the words from the Original World War,"doughboys".

  Those two rooms were harder to get into than to leave. The securityprecautions of The Cage extended to the moment the prisoner was led tothe door and started out of those rooms. But from there on....

  No, Bennington decided, let's drop security for a moment. Somethinghad happened in the rest of the processing he and the committee hadwatched and the meaning of that something had emerged only tonight atthe party.

  Not in the physical ... and that had been good, as complete as themost expensive clinic Bennington had ever seen, a thorough probing fora structural reason behind the crime or crimes....

  But the second mental, that quick recheck of the completeness of thedrugging or the hypnosis.... It had been there that both Giles andCulpepper had been very, very interested to learn if anything aprisoner said at this point was admissible in a court of law.

  The general now understood their relief at Thornberry's explanation:Anything a man said while under the influence of psychologicalconditioning was considered as obtained under duress.

  * * * * *

  Bennington was still meditating on what Rooney could reveal as hewalked around the mess hall in the center of the compound. Then heturned to consider again his prison's routine.

  He leaned against the south wall of the mess hall and looked across atthe four barrack buildings bulking against the darkness. They were thetwo-story type the Army erects for temporary purposes and usespermanently.

  The smell from the overcrowded buildings hit his nose again asstrongly as it had in the afternoon.

  And sounds hit his ears, soft sounds that had been muffled by the longmess hall between him and their source, low sounds further kept fromhim by the light wind from the north.

  The lights in the barracks had been off since 2100, except, of course,for the eerie-blue night lights, and the prisoners should be in theirbunks, asleep or at least silent, immobile.

  _But why were all the lights off in the compound_, and Benningtondamned himself for not seeking the answer to the question before.

  _Thornberry would tell me there is no need for light; that theprisoners can't escape because their drugging has made them unable, ortheir conditioning has made them afraid, to leave the prison._

  The sounds, the flickering like fireflies or carefully thumbedflashlights, didn't come from his near right, Number One, minorcrimes, or Number Two, major crimes exclusive of murder.

  They came from between Three and Four.

  Number Three. Psychos, sex deviates and murderers, with a couple ofpadded cells and barred windows needed upstairs, even though theinmates were conditioned.

  Number Four changed by the addition of an extra latrine for the secondfloor. Females on the
first, juvenile delinquents on the second.

  Bennington had learned to move like a ghost, move quietly or die, onthe almost forgotten battlefields of a police action in Korea. He hadhad a post-graduate course in the South-East Asian jungles. On theChilean desert he had added to his skills.

  He moved now as he had then.

  But there was little reason for caution. The guards were too busycollecting their fees, the juvenile delinquents were too busy actingas ushers, with even the sex deviates from Number Three busy.

  The customers, of course, were far too interested in what they werebuying.

  And there was nothing to be done tonight. Bennington snarled tohimself, as he carefully made his way back to the house.

  But tomorrow morning....

  * * * * *

  A good breakfast inside of him, the early morning sun brightening thescene before him, not even combined could they dispel any ofBennington's bitter anger at the memory of last night's saturnalia.

  He marched across the twenty-five feet separating his house from theAdministration Building, a long, two-story structure on the westernend of the compound.

  The entire end nearest his house was taken up by Message Center, theone room which had had Bennington's full approval on his tour ofinspection both times he had seen the prison. Internally, the separateparts of the prison were linked together by telephone, a P.A. system,and intercom. The outside world could be reached or could come to themby 'phone, radio, teletype, and facsimile reproduction.

  Bennington opened the door, glanced up to check his wristwatch withthe big clock on the wall.

  0800.

  He stepped inside, closed the door, looked around.

  The man on night duty was sound asleep.

  Bennington coughed once, loudly. The man raised his head and lookedsleepily around.

  "Are you the only one