Deviant Criminology
Dr. Richard Weaver Jr., Heather Kenney, and Rachel Czar take listeners on a journey through the world of true crime. With their unique careers in the criminal justice and academic world; they work to provide an entertaining and educational experience for listeners. This podcast examines many areas of true crime including; the formation of laws, cases that defined caselaw, and crimes that impacted the world. Please join us on this journey as we transition from professionals in criminal justice and academia to budding podcasters.
Deviant Criminology
Eastern State's Dark Legacy of Isolation and Corruption
Prepare to rethink everything you thought you knew about prison reform. Eastern State Penitentiary, established in 1829, was a radical experiment in solitary confinement, driven by Quaker ideals of repentance and reflection. What began as a groundbreaking vision quickly unraveled into a cautionary tale of psychological trauma and systemic corruption. Listen as we navigate the labyrinth of this institution's history, revealing the stark contrast between its lofty goals and the grim reality that unfolded within its walls.
Discover the architectural marvel and inherent dysfunction of Eastern State's wheel-spoke design, which isolated inmates to encourage penance but instead fostered abuse and corruption. Hear firsthand accounts of criticisms from prominent figures like Charles Dickens, and explore the ethical debates that surround solitary confinement. This narrative also sheds light on the broader social biases that pervaded the system, particularly against immigrants and people of color during the Industrial Revolution, which exacerbated the failures of Eastern State's reformative promises.
As we journey through the turbulent 1920s, witness the descent of Eastern State Penitentiary into chaos, unable to cope with overcrowding, gang culture, and drug use. Reflect on the fruitless attempts at prisoner self-governance and militaristic control measures that only fueled rebellion. This episode serves as a stark reminder of the systemic failings that have persisted for over two centuries, underscoring the urgent need for a justice system that prioritizes mental health services and genuine rehabilitation over mere incarceration.
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So this episode is going to be kind of a history lesson in criminal justice. We'll be talking about the developments of prisons and punishment in the United States. Specifically, we're going to talk about the development of Eastern State Penitentiary, which is in Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1829, and it kind of goes from the past into the modern era, where it ended and was closed in 1971. So I'm Richard I'm.
Speaker 2:Heather, and let us tell you about Eastern State. So in the early 18th century, prisons were still a new institution in the United States, and Eastern State Prison was one of the first and most expensive prisons to be built. The prison was built utilizing a system of solitary confinement cells.
Speaker 3:In the early years of the United States and across European history, crime was associated with sin as seen through the Christian faith. Criminal acts were the cause of a sinner's actions against God Before jails and prisons. Punishment for crimes were handled in a vast field of methods, including fines, public humiliation, such as the stocks, physical beatings such as whipping or flogging, and public hanging.
Speaker 2:Public floggings. I want to talk about this one for a second, because these were done by religious people, Right? So I have a question. You're tied up in public, your shirt's stripped off. A guy takes usually something that kind of looks like a cat in nine tails Do you think there was ever a criminal tied to the state? And the guy rears back, hits him the first time and the guy's like ooh, I think I just learned something about myself. And that second hit comes and he's like Ooh, I think I just learned something about myself. And that second hit comes and he's like vlog me, daddy, yes. And the guy's like you know what? I'm not doing this, I'm going to put him in the stocks, Get this guy away from me. Like that was one of those like deviant mind frames that we haven't had yet. That popped up. And it's like there's gotta be some guy. That was just like vlog me, me, daddy, Now, yes, please.
Speaker 2:So they were like you know what we're going to go to solitary confinement Like, no, we're not going to do this anymore.
Speaker 3:Forget that no more.
Speaker 2:Yeah Like they're liking this too much. Like I just stole that guy's horse, flog me. So the jails of the United States pre-prisons were not used to house convicted criminals were not used to house convicted criminals. Jails at the time were these facilities that were used to hold citizens until either they went to a court and were sentenced, or to house debtors and people that owed money to either the government or private people like businesses, bars, taverns, they or their family, and they were put there until their family or friends could raise enough funds to pay off their debts. So the concept of prisons and punishment developed in Europe during the Enlightenment period of the 18th century.
Speaker 3:For those who enjoy the study of ethics or philosophy. This concept of prisons as punishment was informed by the theories founded in utilitarianism. This theory believed that crime was not based on the religious concepts of sin, but through the violation of social norms and laws established by the state.
Speaker 2:So this is kind of where you see, and in the United States you really saw these moves away from religion and the basis of the Constitution and things by the founding fathers. So the Quakers at this time period, coming even into the 1800s, were still like, oh, people commit crimes because they're devout from God and they're removed from their faith and they need to be brought back to repent against their sins. Need to be brought back to repent against their sins. The federal government and state governments are starting to move more towards this ethical framework of no like. It's just you're violating these social norms that we created and laws that we think civil society should believe in. So the concept of these enlightenment theorists and utilitarianism. The prisons in the United States quickly became overcrowded facilities that housed many repeat offenders. So Pennsylvania authorized the construction of this new massive facility that would become Eastern State Penitentiary in 1821, and the prison would open eight years later in 1829.
Speaker 3:The Pennsylvania Prison Society wanted to stay with the humanitarian approach laid out by utilitarian theorists, which they felt was being abandoned in other states' approaches to prisons, invoking their Quaker beliefs, which we have discussed in a previous episode, looking for the reform of prisons and not pure punishment. The core belief was that man needed reflection and solitude to reform their criminal ways. This was seen to be achievable through solitary confinement.
Speaker 2:Yes, taking individuals, throwing them in a box and saying talk to God, and it sounds bad. It's much worse. Their cells were designed to keep them from interacting with other prisoners and it would allow them to sleep, eat, pray and perform their work, which prisoners had a variety of trades that they were allowed to partake in. As examples, some inmates were shoemakers, leather workers, dress designers, but they all had to have some type of trade that they would partake in in their cells. The basic foundation here is penitence, or becoming a penitent person, which is defined as feeling shame or remorse, or feeling guilt or embarrassment. The concept of the penitentiary system was that individuals placed in these institutions would feel guilt and remorse for the crimes and deeds that they had committed and, through solitary confinement spent in prayer and contemplation, would be purged of their deviant behaviors.
Speaker 3:If only it worked that way.
Speaker 2:Which it definitely did, and this prison just kind of becomes a nightmare scenario of why what sounds good on paper does not work out at all. And one of the things that was looked at with this when we get into the design of the prison. It was made that they would be in those cells 23 hours a day and to be allowed to sit outside one hour a day, so you're completely cutting them off from human interaction. That's not going to lead to anything good.
Speaker 3:But they thought it would.
Speaker 2:They thought it would, because it would bring them closer to God, which now we know it brings you closer to all the people in your head that talk to you when you develop severe mental illness from isolation.
Speaker 3:So, with the construction of the original prison set out to be complete isolation of prisoners from each other. It meant that the builders had to ensure that the cells were thick, plumbed with airflow and did not allow for communication between the cells. With airflow and did not allow for communication between the cells, the cells needed to be designed to make the specific requirements of having water, waste removal, heat, sleeping and workspace. The exterior of Eastern State was designed to be intimidating to citizens, designed to be fear, invoking and to be a symbol to those thinking of committing crimes. To see this monument to punishment and rethink such ideas.
Speaker 2:And if you look at this facility like it was made to be in the Gothic style and it is in in a weird way, it is beautiful, like it is intimidating. The walls are 30 feet high and some of the original structures that were put in there the pictures I saw from early to mid-1800s it's these big wooden doors. It wasn't until the 1900s they put the metal bars and stuff and I think actually with the wooden doors it was more intimidating. But not only the fact that it was made to be intimidating and it does look. Look intimidating is that, minus the cells. Looking at the exterior of the walls, it still stands today. So the engineering was a marvel. Now what happened inside, as we'll learn, talking about the history of this is a shit show. But the outside is still beautiful, it still stands today and I think looking at it, especially if you're coming from a religious community in the 1800s, looking at this building, it does make you think twice. Like you know, I'm going into hell behind those walls. So in reality, did it deter people using this gothic style in this massive facility? I don't know, but I could see where their thinking was by designing it the way they did. The exterior of the estate was designed to be intimidating.
Speaker 2:Like we said, it was made in a Gothic style, and to do this, they had to reach out and find the best architect they could. So to achieve this goal, pennsylvania enlisted the architect John Haviland, who created a prison utilizing a circular formation. The design, if you think about it, looks like an old wagon wheel with eight spokes, seven being cell blocks and the eighth being the entry into the prison, each spoke being a wing of the prison that housed prison cells, each having its own exterior workout area. So you had the cell and then each single one had a little yard outside of their doors. At the center was the guard center, making it that they could observe each wing, for a total of 250 cells, from one central location.
Speaker 2:This type of prison design was called the Pentopticon and it was based on the designs and ideas of Jeremy Bentham, who was an English philosopher and ethics writer, and this system is still utilized in the modern era. If you look at a lot of prisons, if you watch the 10 million TV shows that's way exaggerated but that are on there on travel and history and ID, there's always that center piece where you see the guards standing up on what almost looks like an interior tower and they look out and can see everything that's happening. This was kind of done to minimize the number of guards you would need In the Eastern State. This was made to kind of make more sense because all the inmates were in solitary at all times, so you didn't have to worry about mingling and people walking around and everything else. You just had to kind of be more of the ears to listen and make sure nobody was communicating.
Speaker 3:Which is really creepy when you think about it that person at the top who can see everything and know everything, while you're supposed to be thinking about talking to God, and there's a person at the top who can see everything and know everything, while you're supposed to be thinking about talking to God, and there's a person up above staring down on you.
Speaker 2:But they couldn't see them and this comes in later because the cells were not actually well designed. So what they could see was these little windows that were leading into the cell. There were no doors inside the jail, so to get into the cells you had to go outside and come in, which was the worst design, I could think. You have to go outside and the elements come in. All you could do inside is there was a little window to pass food and then work supplies too. I don't know who designed it. Again bad.
Speaker 2:I know what they were trying to do was cut the ability for people to interact with them from inside the prison, but you also just made it if a medical emergency is happening or something else, they have to run all the way outside and come in through the yard. It just again not sure who designed this idea. So in the design phase they noticed a major flaw, which I have to say is a major problem that should have been seen right away, and that is that in the first three buildings, as I just said, the cells only had doors on the exterior of the cells that came through the exterior workout area of each cell, and the inside only had a small window slash door system and you can see pictures of this online there's tons of pictures of Eastern State that they could pass food materials through. This is a major design flaw. So if guards were hearing the prisoners interact with each other, which they learned to do, or having a seizure or some type of medical emergency or equipment broke or something, you've got to go outside and now you're entering their territory. So it's just was a bad flaw design.
Speaker 2:It was only in these first three cells but just really put, I think, the inmates in danger because if something happened it's going to take much longer for the guards to respond and the garden's in danger because you're coming into their element from outside in. So the prison was designed with 30 foot stone walls which are really intimidating. Like I said, even today I could see, especially, like I said, the more religious people really being entranced by this and seeing it as I don't want to be inside that facility. Eastern held both men and women, but the latter would be less than 10% of the entire population. This way, it was easy to control in the early days of the facility, men and women separation because of the solitary confinement scheme which kept all prisoners in the cells 24-7. But later on and we'll discuss it housing women became more and more of an issue and eventually they would be removed from the prison.
Speaker 3:The prison from formation held all kinds of criminal offenders and crimes. Some examples in the early years included sentences for burglary, horse theft, forgery and murder and everything in between, with sentences ranging between two to 14 years, depending on criminal offense.
Speaker 2:One cruel fact about the original policies of Eastern State was the inmates not only being held in the solitary, but they were not allowed to have contact with anyone. That included family and friends, and really it was designed for them to not have interaction with corrections officers except in extreme circumstances. This was because their incarceration was supposed to be about their examination of their crimes, so their sentence was seen as the only person you should be communicating with is God and repenting for your sins. They were not to speak out at all and they could actually be punished for any attempts to speak or communicate with inmates or guards.
Speaker 3:The plumbing and the ventilation in the prison was not healthy and often damp, with toilet filth being in pipes for days at a time. This must have really been disgusting, especially in the summer. I'm sure that that also led to a lot of other health problems and health emergencies along the way too. I mean, it can't be a very good situation.
Speaker 2:And some of the stuff that you read about. There was a problem with dampness and dankness because they wanted it to be able to stay cool, so it's got these vaulted ceilings in each cell at this time, but then that also leads to moisture in the room. These are open pipes so that smell can come in. So there was a lot of problems with health and hygiene that was talked about.
Speaker 3:Another awkward, but not unusual even in this day fact is that Eastern State became a destination for academics and politicians to examine the social experiment. Visitors would come on a regular basis to observe the facility, see the design and learn about the goings-on. The design of the prison was widely appreciated by visitors and would become a model for a large portion of prisons being built.
Speaker 2:Even today, that wheel-spoke design is a crucial concept utilized in many prisons spoke, design is a crucial concept utilized in many prisons and though a lot of people appreciated the look and design of it, but the beautiful idea of solitary confinement and limited interaction with staff was kind of a pipe dream and I think even today we talk about this. In the criminal justice system, especially the prison system, corruption and power can corrupt absolutely the system, especially the prison system. Corruption and power can corrupt absolutely and there were accusations of abuse and neglect basically from day one, which is a problem when you design an entire prison on the concept of isolation. Humans are social creatures and we will not get into the potential for abuse of power and control. That is something that we can see was going to happen, but it was bad enough that just five years after opening, the state started an investigation that was launched because of a slew of accusations. This includes abuse of power by guards failing to support the solitary and quiet policies, a multitude of issues of how funds were being used, misused, disappearing, and some of these violations of solitary was they were having inmates taken out of their cells to help clean the prison, to do work for guards and interact with each other. That completely violated all the aspects of what was supposed to be done and the prison board said, wait, violated all the aspects of what was supposed to be done. And the prison board said, wait, what is going on here? So they started this investigation. There was also the utilization of torture against inmates and by those that violated the concepts of the prison, and one of these tortures was in to this day.
Speaker 2:I've seen these devices before and they're I'm just going to be vulgar, they're fucking disgusting, and the fact that we as a species ever thought it was great. But basically it's a metal bar that goes around the mouth and at the front of it is a small metal lip that goes between your teeth. They tighten that down on the back and connect it to your arms that are crossed behind your back and it starts to pull your head and eventually, what this does? Like it would just shatter the teeth in the front and it's forcing your head back to the point where it just stretches everything and starts to break your jaw and shatter. So, upon learning about this in the prison, borders like this violates the utilitarian and quaker goals that we had of incarceration.
Speaker 2:So, and one thing I learned working around prisons and jails during my time is that prisoners are intelligent and crafty. So not only was it that the guards were allowing them to communicate and come out, but just because you tell them they can't do something doesn't mean that they're going to listen. They are. You know, prisoners are human beings, they're crafty.
Speaker 2:So Eastern was no exception to this prisoners coming up with new ideas of ways to communicate, and one thing they started doing was utilizing the pipes, because it's an open pipes. It was not. Now we have flushing toilets and things either, just open pipes they would go into and it would go into a bigger system. So they would either talk through the pipes or they would send messages of written paper through the pipes or through doors. So because of all this, the political leaders got involved and said we need to have some changes. There were a lot of politicians and academics that viewed the solitary confinement design as being cruel and unusual punishment, specifically focused on the fact that humans are social creatures and that putting them in a small confined spaces for years is not only unhealthy physically but mentally as well, and some even put that it violated the Constitution against cruel and unusual punishment, and I think no other than Charles Dickens, who wrote about the horrible approach in 1842, saying he compared the prison design to a person being buried alive for years.
Speaker 3:It kind of is, though, when you think about it, because you're cut off from all society, all people, and like you were talking about, like the abuses going on and people being forced to do labor for the guards or cleaning Nobody would ever know, because you're not allowed to talk to anybody.
Speaker 2:Exactly and we know they knew the utilitarians, which is one ethical framework and kind of theory that people come from and it's a mind frame of philosophers. You know utilitarianism had this view, but you also already had other schools of thought, like deontology, immanuel Kant which I always go back to because I'm a deontologist that were trying to take out utilitarian approaches to prisons reform and this was not helping the case. Utilitarians were trying to get past of look what this can do. No, it's becoming abusive. You're seeing, like I said, torture. You're seeing abuses of power. They're not following the system and it's not working for reform.
Speaker 3:So an interesting fact was that, although the approach of solitary confinement was billed as being groundbreaking in reforming criminal behavior, statistically it ended up being on par with the results from other prisons around the country. Eastern had to change as the concept of solitary confinement became less affordable as the number of prisoners grew around the United States. Population expanded via immigration and influx into cities.
Speaker 2:We'll not discuss larger issues in the criminal justice system at this time. In politics that kind of demonized and punished individuals based on race, national origin and other biases, that would be a whole different podcast. But we do have to at least acknowledge that there was a boom after the Industrial Revolution started in the US of immigrants coming in and then people of color that were um so and the north, supposedly free, but the industrial revolution kind of put them in indentured servitude as well. So you, for me, you had a large portion of the people from the irish and italian backgrounds who were held down in cells in eastern state penitentiary, just solely based on their country of origin. Now again, like I said, I'm very proud of my Irish and Italian heritage and I'm not going to say maybe some of us might have done some stuff to end up in prisons, but nobody deserves to just immediately be considered a criminal because where you come from.
Speaker 2:So in the 1870s, eastern State had to change with the times and the growing cost. The utilization of solitary confinement that involved inmates, hand-manufactured goods such as shoes and clothing was no longer profitable for the prison, so they had to start utilizing mass production facilities. Other prisons around the US had kind of embraced the industrial manufacturing of goods in the prisons, so it was helping those prisons make money. One way was by the goods they were making, but two was kind of the leasing of their prison population and other prisons leasing out their space and prisoners for cheap labor. Eastern realized that they were going to have to at some point, if they wanted to be self-sufficient, embrace this idea.
Speaker 2:So I found that as a problem. So you're punished for being poor and stealing some shit, like we'll say that. So now you're sentenced to prison where you work for free, so other people can make money off of your labor and you get nothing. Well, you get the skills that you learn so that when you get out you have something that you might be able to make money off of, to not steal again.
Speaker 2:This just sounds insane to me, like it goes back to the concept of private prisons. If each inmate is making you as the warden, or the people in the prison, money and it's making the rich business owners and the community money, it doesn't seem like there is really this inherent interest to keep those prisons empty, but more to get them filled and to keep those people there Because they're making money for the rich and, as has been shown over time, we haven't gotten into, but I'm sure we'll talk about it was pretty damn easy back then Just to find somebody guilty or something. So I kind of believe that Even now private prison's wrong Back then. This is even worse.
Speaker 3:Whenever you add a profit motivation into any type of thing that involves people's freedoms or liberties, it's just not a good idea, because now, like you said, you're making money off of keeping people imprisoned. Now, like you said, you're making money off of keeping people imprisoned and for whichever system you look at, now you're supposed to be, it's a conflict of interest, because you're supposed to be making these people independent so that they can go out in the world and work for themselves. But if you do that, then you lose your labor force.
Speaker 2:So you have that conflict of interest where you really don't want them to get better and go out into society and reintegrate, because then, as you said, you lose your workforce. Well, using the terms of the time, you have these irish, italian immigrants that are working in the prisons, but they're coming over here, poor, maybe they do steal, maybe they don't, maybe they do get disorderly conduct and drunk, maybe they steal a horse. Probably half of of them, I'm going to say didn't Throwing numbers out there, this isn't a statistic or anything. But then you also had freed colored people that were now coming up north Slavery's into civil wars over. Suddenly you see a huge boom and people of color that are suddenly committing all these crimes. That goes back to well, we can't use them as slaves, but if we imprison them, we can still use them for free labor. Now it's just because they broke the law. Instead of we can own these individuals, same with the Irish indentured servitude that is cut out in that time period. Well, now we can just force them through prisons. So I think there's a lot of scholarly work. I didn't go down this route. I've probably spent more time on it now than I meant to originally.
Speaker 2:That now became America through this revolution and saw that anybody that didn't look that British type when they come over here, if they're a little bit darker skin, like the Italians, the Sicilians or fuck, if you're just Irish, you're screwed Like the British hated you. I'm pretty sure, like the Irish came over here, like America it's not British anymore they're immediately locked up, thrown in prison. They're like shit, they're just British. America, it's not British anymore. They're immediately locked up, thrown in prison. They're like shit, they just British. So you know, like when the Irish would come over, one of the ways they would get citizenship is you have to fight in this war, and they would send them to Mexico to fight. And the Irish got down to Mexico. We're like we, we actually kind of like these people. We're going to fight for the Mexicans and they did so. It's kind of don't mess with the Irish, which comes back to haunt America here in a little bit when we talk about prison reform.
Speaker 3:So in the period of 1877 to 1894, the facility added four new cell blocks to try and handle the boom of inmates At the turn of the century. Eastern State was dealing with overcrowding issues, like many prisons at the time or even now. The population boomed to over 1,400, forcing some cells to have four or more inmates. This was inhumane and disgusting, as the cells had not been designed to hold such numbers.
Speaker 2:With a growth of new ideas on how to reform prisons. Eastern State changed with the times of the reparation movement, which included the facility, adding a full-time teacher and a library, along with allowing families to visit every few months. Big changes for the facility and the approach to treating inmates was based off of the Irish system of imprisonment and criminal reform that was happening at the time. This creates a contrast for my people. So my friends and family know I have a strong Irish heritage. I've said it a couple of times in this and I kind of find it ironic as an Irish American Like I have this theory that there was some Irish person that came to America.
Speaker 2:They were being demonized and in prison and this Irish person like writes their family back home like they're treating us like shit in these prisons. We're being abused, forced to work in these horrible situations and around this time is kind of when Ireland's also having their revolution and their fight for peace. So there's like these Irish scholars are like, hmm, Britain sucks, treats us like shit, america sucks, treats us like shit. We're going to become the example of how to treat prisoners. So our Irish brothers, who just somehow end up in prison in basically every country, can be treated better, who just somehow end up in prison in basically every country, can be treated better. So lo and behold, the Irish, who again are demonized as convicts everywhere, also become the model of how to treat convicts.
Speaker 2:So I kind of find there's some irony there, like it made me happy. They may be a separate country, but these bastards are still British. That is what I think they were saying. So, with some family members being back home like nope, we're going to show the world how to treat criminal behavior with kindness and respect. Boom reforms at Eastern State. At the turn of the century, eastern State took those Irish Reformation ideas and put more of them into practice with the introduction of parole in 1909, which was seen as a big change in the Reformation approach.
Speaker 3:As growth continued at the prison around 1908, the prison added workshops, hospitals and more cell blocks, all done with prison labor.
Speaker 2:It was this time, around 1908, that the concept of solitary confinement went from a form of penance and reformation to what they're being used, for which I think and when you look at this from like a criminal justice standpoint which is where we come from, not just a true crime, which is one of the reasons, like we're doing episodes like this is to talk about how we got where we are in the system where we are in the system. Even back then they were telling the Enlightenment and the reformists were telling prison systems and this utilitarian that solitary confinement is damn dangerous. It's harmful physically, it's harmful mentally. You're probably creating more angry prisoners that, when they get out, are not going to be reformed, they're going to be hateful. So even now, though, we're still utilizing this and we know how horrific it is and we'll talk about that in a minute. It's just. This is solitary confinement is one of those angry points for me.
Speaker 2:So reformations continued at the prison and in the 1920s there was a major flaw that was exposed with these new reforms giving prisons more freedom. That had been adopted, and that was the Eastern state was not designed for prisoners to be free, roaming or outside of their cells. This made supervision of inmates difficult and deadly Provision of inmates difficult and deadly. What made this more of an issue for the system was that the facilities were now surrounded by a city and they had nowhere to expand outside the walls. When the building was originally made in the 1820s in Philadelphia, there was nothing really outside. This was on the fringe kind of that, not in my-my-backyard concept put it as far out from the city. But now in the 1920s, philadelphia is massively expanded and if you look at pictures of city planning even from 1920, it is surrounded by neighborhoods so there's nowhere else to really go. So in 1923,.
Speaker 3:An investigation into the prison found systemic issues with abuses of power, inmate drug use, gang cultures and many more highly dangerous problems creating a horrific prison environment. This has to be a part of the Eastern's. This has to be a part of Eastern's history. That just makes people with knowledge of the criminal justice system shake their heads. The prison implemented a form of inmate self-governance that was led by a self-appointed inmate community that became known as the Four Horsemen, and it all went to shit pretty fast. This led to inmate deaths, drug and alcohol dealers, gambling and faction warfare. They were bringing in or manufacturing guns and other weapons as well. Just an utter failure of the concepts that had appeared to work at other facilities just blew up in their faces.
Speaker 2:This becomes this section of time at Eastern State. It didn't last long, but I don't know why, when you look at Eastern and every time they try to do a reform, it just becomes this nightmare. Even this kind of idea of self-governance worked at other prisons, giving inmates a voice in the kind of some changes we made, and they would be able to speak up a little bit. You know, not a lot of power, but at least be able to say like we think we need better food or more yard time. And this is how and this is what we'll give you if eva's that not at eastern, like they take this place over, the guards are scared to go to work. There's people being killed just in open cell blocks. It's horrific.
Speaker 2:And if you look at some of the pictures from that time period where they show just bodies laying from being jumped and shanked to death, and now you've got them bringing in guns, making guns, and heroin was a drug of choice at this time. And when the government moved in to take back control of the facility they found eight whiskey distilleries. Oh my gosh, which I am betting. They blamed on the Irish. I'm sure Of course they did, pretty sure they were like the heroin. That could have been any of y'all, but the whiskey is definitely the Irish.
Speaker 2:And they called them the Four Horsemen, like again. I think they're calling the Irish out here just a little bit too much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just a bit.
Speaker 2:But like this just goes to hell and it doesn't last very long, but it creates such a violent situation and it's also ironic that the prison became a gangster paradise in 1923, with these guys taking over in the four horsemen, because it was almost six years before Al Capone would get there. He spent almost a year in Eastern State, from May 1929 to March 1930. And if you don't know who Al Capone is A you don't know anything about gangster America in 1910 to 1940. But he was arrested on one weapons charge for carrying a unlicensed gun. Seems like he would have done well at Eastern State in 1923, but it's 1930.
Speaker 2:Though the stories say that during his time at Eastern State he was not in solitary cell for reform, but rather that he had a very nice plush cell that had paintings and a rug, a radio. He got better food in his cell. In my words, I guess it's good to be the underworld king. But in the words of another inmate from that time period he said you know, here we are starving, beaten, treated horribly. If I would have known I just had to be a gangster like Al Capone, I would have gotten special treatment. So it wasn't like everybody was treated like this and, to a point, 1930s. We talked about Dillinger in the past and again you kind of go. When Dillinger was arrested at Crown Point and how they took pictures with him, they treated great, because oh, there's this connection of how amazing he is. Here we're hearing the same thing in a different prison with Al Capone. Because of he's rich, he's powerful, he's treated very different in prison.
Speaker 3:So, after decades of abuse and humanitarian tortures that we're not going to talk about in detail, women were moved out of Eastern State to another, more secure facility in 1923. State to another more secure facility in 1923. In 1929, a new prison was finished that took over 800 inmates from Eastern State, which was turned into a prison for maximum security prisoners and added a new cell block. Warden Drome took the facility in a militaristic design, replacing traditional guards with prior military, adding more bars and gates and introducing guard towers staffed with armed guards supplied with rifles, creating a more strict facility, with these policies being continued by the next warden.
Speaker 2:And these real, more restrictive crackdowns and almost militaristic prison camp feel which would again Eastern state's going to set the bar for what you start seeing in prison yards in modern era. But again it didn't change what was happening on the insides. It did not create a safer area but actually created a more rebellious prison population, partially because overcrowding was still a major issue at Eastern and they had problems with escape attempts, hunger strikes, prison riots and attacks on guards.
Speaker 3:Tunnels became a favored way of attempting to escape from eastern, with over 30 tunnels being discovered during later renovations. Once such tunneling escape saw 22 prisoners escape, though most were recaptured pretty quickly. One of those escapees was a notorious bank robber named willie sutton, which this guy is such an interesting criminal that we will not discuss it here because he deserves his own episode, which we are making. Ten never made it out and the rest quickly caught and all back within weeks.
Speaker 2:This was supposed to be an inescapable prison and, like I said, we said we're not going to touch on Willie Sutton now, but I will say this guy escaped from three inescapable prisons. I didn't know who this guy was before. I read a lot about Easter State. This guy is amazing. We will do an episode on him. But, moving forward, this facility in 1944 was over 115 years old. The facility in 1944 was over 115 years old and even the government at the time, the governor at the time of Pennsylvania, edward Martin, said the prison was horrible and not safe for human habitation.
Speaker 2:Yet they kept trying to repair and update the facility for more decades to come. They even attempted to make it seem better by changing the name in 1954 to the state correctional facility at Philadelphia. This kills me that, oh, if we change the name suddenly, people won't be like isn't that the violent, overpopulated shit show? It has pretty much been from its foundation. Like, is there a comparison like that we can make about how this is just a bad idea? Like, oh, the brothel down the street called like pick them up is now jezebel strip club. Like you put a new name, it's, it's still. It's still the brothel that was there. So they changed the name, thinking this is great.
Speaker 2:One thing I do appreciate about the name change was they were trying to advance now with developments in psychology and social work and counseling. So during the reforms of this prison I appreciate that they added mental health counselors to the prison for inmates to get psychological help, so they embedded them inside the jail. Psychological help so they embedded them inside the jail. But in the same breath, you have to say, they also added a death row to the prison around the same time. So there was no actual executions that happened there.
Speaker 2:But if you were put on death row you were moved to Eastern State Penitentiary until it was time for you to be moved for your actual execution. Which makes me kind of think of this like welcome to new prison, the state correction facility at philadelphia. On the left you will see where we have worked to help inmates get mental health treatment so their concerns with psychological therapy and counseling can be dealt with. On the right you'll see our death row people that we're gonna fry in a chair. The stark contrast is so extreme it's like it just goes south so fast. But in the 1970s the last inmates left Eastern State, with it being officially closed in 1971.
Speaker 3:Because of bad records, histrionics and time, their number of deaths at Eastern State is not well documented, but believed to number into the hundreds, with a wide range of causes of death being anywhere from illness to natural causes to torture and murder and there's a lot like that.
Speaker 2:We know happened um of torture of all men, women. We know that women were sexually assaulted, we know so they didn't keep records. I mean, why would you? You don't want to have it come out? What was going on there? But just from the very beginning sanitary conditions, all the way up to these prison rights and stuff that happened in the late period of the prison. I think it's sad that we don't know how many people really died there, but they do know it was in the hundreds. And again, I understand you're going to have some medical stuff, but we shouldn't be able to look back on any facility Because even though these are prisoners and criminals, it is still our responsibility when we incarcerate them.
Speaker 2:In my eyes, and even in the eyes of the designers of this prison, it was to reform them, not punish them. So this facility failed and it's sad that it took till 1971 to shut the doors on this place, especially when you believe, roughly 30 years before, that the governor is like this place, no human should live here. It just, I think it's a standing temple. Now to where we have failed on the corrections side of the criminal justice program. Yet we're still using some of the worst parts of that experiment.
Speaker 3:I think those are very good observations and I also find it interesting how much of this we haven't learned from as far. As you mentioned the Machiavelli quote about power corrupts and absolute power corrupts. Absolutely Same idea. When people aren't allowed to go in and have access to the prisoners to ask the prisoners what are what's going on, go in and have access to the prisoners to ask the prisoners what are what's going on. How do you know what's happening when the police are policing themselves and you know it's the warden is keeping track of what the warden does. Who's to say what should and shouldn't be happening? Because there's nobody there to say, well, this is what happened. No, it didn't. That didn't happen, and I'm the one who wrote the report, so that's not what happened at all.
Speaker 2:And the good cop, bad cop thing. Well, good guard, bad guard, these aren't cops or guards, but I'll beat you, I'll torture you, I'll sexually assault you, but I'll also bring you candy or I'll bring you drugs. So, yeah, I may be horrible but I'm also good. So it declines to like well, I'm not going to report them because, yeah, they put me through bad stuff, but if I report them then I'm not going to get this other stuff as well. So that's one of the problems. And even in the prison system today and I think corrections officers have one of the hardest jobs in the criminal justice system but at the same time, it is some guards and some administrators that are making these prisons more dangerous by taking advantage of these prisoners by bringing in drugs.
Speaker 2:We know sexual assaults happen, especially in women's prisons and men's prisons as well. And why covering Eastern state, like this criminal justice and true crime podcast, is important is because we can see it's not a new issue. There is a history, just in the United States, of this one prison over 200 years. We can look back and say we know there are problems with abuse of power, of torturing inmates, of sexual assaults, of drug dealing. 200 years ago drug dealing was an issue in prisons like it's, and we haven't been able to fix it yet.
Speaker 2:So if we're going to talk about like true crime, we're going to talk about the criminal justice system. I hope that people listening you know older people like me that have been in the system for a while, but hopefully we can get young students that are coming into this field as college students or new criminal corrections guards or police officers if they hear this and say you know what? I want to help change this system, like I want to see what we can do differently, and that if there are politicians listening can say private prison ownership is a fucking disgrace to this country and no prison should profit of how many beds they keep filled. It's unjust in my eyes and unethical as hell that you use your citizen population, criminal or not, as a way of profiting for the ultra rich Soapbox done there.
Speaker 3:I mean, if anything, then they should be measuring it in a different way. How many people reoffend? How many people go through your facility, leave and don't come back, don't reoffend, don't get in trouble again? And if you're going to try to monetize it some way, that should be the way you monetize it. How many people have you actually helped, actually integrated back into society, where they now have a job and the things that make being in a society for an individual good?
Speaker 2:Well in with Eastern State in this facility, like in its beginning it was kind of set up because we saw people that were being held for to a point like shitty things, like you're a debtor but you owe money to people, so you're going to stay in this jail or prison until you pay off your debts. And even eastern saw some of that in the beginning and we try to tell ourselves now we're so much more modern, we've advanced. No, now people are being held in jails and prisons because they're mentally sick and because of Nixon and Reagan and failed political pressure of deinstitutionalization and shutting down all these mental health hospitals and facilities and failing to provide the promise of community mental health that was supposed to come out of deinstitutionalization so these people could go back to their families but get the mental health treatment they needed. Pr prisons and jails are now our mental institutions. The only problem they don't have the fucking trained mental health people there to give the services that are needed.
Speaker 2:So inmates and guards and prison administrators are having to try and figure out how do I take somebody that has schizophrenia? I'm not trained how to handle that. I just see somebody that's violent and causing a problem and we don't have the mental health social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists that are in there that can give medications, that can get them the therapy they need and say, no, this person is not a violent threat if we give them the services they need. But in over 200 years in this experiment, it is failed. And of anything we can say in our democracy, that is great and this isn't a political speech and this isn't coming from a political place but everything's a work in progress. We're always trying to make it a better union and everything. But in my view and you can retaliate and feedback on this from your view where we have failed the most is the mentally ill and the utilizations of prisons. Soapbox set it over here.
Speaker 3:That and substance abuse. You left that part out too.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. And I add that to mental health because where I come from as a social worker, a lot of substance use is directly tied to mental health. Come from as a social worker, a lot of substance use is directly tied to mental health. Self-medicating for either an actual disorder like I may just put that the wrong way, dm me, I'll fix it um. But things like schizophrenia, depression, where they can't get normal medications like they, because they're just not out there, there's no facilities go to, especially in more rural areas, or if you don't have the money to get therapy, or because of physical pain, you've been taking opioids and stuff and now you've got addicted to those opioids to fill.
Speaker 2:And we won't even get into the kind of the concept of the Netflix amazing series Follow the House, usher Not just a Maia Poe fan, but I am a holding opioid people responsible for what they did to this. But the opioid crisis and how it created a lot of addiction issues. That now is affecting our prisons and I'm going to stop that soapbox because I could go off on that but we haven't fixed it. But we haven't fixed it. An eastern state going back to the original look at this is a perfect example of 200 years of failed policy that only hurt those in need and benefited those with money.
Speaker 3:So I think, if you're looking at what we've learned from the system and from our failures, I think that, looking forward one, we need to have more mental health treatment facilities of some kind, whether it be an inpatient or outpatient basis, more substance abuse assistance and what people refer to as dual diagnosis. I don't know how much you had to deal with that in law enforcement, but on our side we had a lot of difficulties because when I would work with public defenders, the public defenders would be the ones who directly worked on those areas. But they would come back to me and say I can't get them into substance abuse treatment because the substance abuse treatment facility won't take them because they have a mental health issue. And when I go to the mental health treatment facility, they won't take them because they have a substance abuse issue. And there were very, very few dual diagnosis facilities who would take somebody who, as you're referring to, maybe had a mental health issue and they were self-medicating with illegal substances, and you end up not having any way to do anything to help those people, so you're just warehousing them, waiting until their time is up, and then they'll go back out, re-offend and we'll put them right back in and we just stay in that cycle until the end of their days and then that person is no longer a problem to society and we just move on to the next group of people who are stuck in those cycles and I think the thing more than anything else is I wish that they had more resources to try to help people get out of those cycles and, especially if you could help them earlier, more people like when you're talking about county court misdemeanor level offenses.
Speaker 3:I spent a lot of time in county court because I felt like those were the people that I could help the most. By the time you saw people who had committed multiple felonies and things of that nature, it was too late. You needed to find the person who. They were just starting down that path and just needed a little bit of help, a little bit of nudge. You know, maybe some domestic violence counseling or anger management classes or something along those lines to get them back on the straight path. And if anything, talking about these things, I hope that that gets people thinking about what resources we could bring to the table. There's more options with things like Teladoc and telehealth providers. Maybe we could try to connect more people who need services through those means. But something has to change.
Speaker 2:And I think one, and we saw this in southern Indiana during the. It was a few years ago I can't remember the exact date but I was working in HIV services at the time and we saw a huge outbreak of HIV directly linked to substance use intravenous substance use and the jail in that county was the only place that you could get mental health treatment. There were no treatment facilities for substance use or mental illness, like you said, those co-diagnoses so the jail and the sheriff and I gave a lot of respect to the sheriff at the time that he was trying to learn those things but jails should not be having to learn that the government and the health departments should be the ones that are trying to help, should be the ones that are trying to help and, like Eastern State I know it's not what people want to think, but you could hollow that, blow the inside of that up, get rid of what was there, leave that beautiful outside and create a holistic mental health facility that no, they're not the nasty, disgusting things Geraldo exposed that led to deinstitutionalization, but they're better facilities to get people the treatment and help they need. Really went off on a tangent there, so I'm going to kind of bring it back in the end. So the facility of Eastern State is now a historic site and it is ran by the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site and it is ran by the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site. They do all types of tours for normal tours on the prison grounds, going through the cells. They also do ghost tours and have special Halloween events. As a true crime podcast, we're not going to cover any of the supposed supernatural parts of Eastern State's story or any of the supposed supernatural parts of Eastern States story, but if that interests you, you can probably find 10,000 of them on YouTube and anything that says history or travel channel.
Speaker 2:Overall, in my view, this is a failed experiment in reformation and punishment. This started from the utilitarian and Quaker views as an offender needing to reform and find God, and almost 200 years of horrific effects on our criminal justice system. We still have not figured out what works, though called different things. Now solitary confinement is still being utilized to this day in our prison systems. Solitary confinement is still being utilized to this day in our prison systems. They may call it different stuff, like isolation, protective custody, but it is still solitary confinement. That practice needs to stop. We need to find better access to systems, and we need to always keep places like Eastern State as monuments, not to our success, but to our failure. Your thoughts I agree.
Speaker 3:I think you said it perfectly.
Speaker 2:I will preach to the day I am told I have to shut the fuck up. So I want to thank everybody for really kind of listening to this episode but also understanding that these historical episodes, or the episodes where we talk about laws, specifically in the cases criminal or civil that led to those laws, is about bringing a bigger understanding to the criminal justice system. That is herent to what allows us to look at the true crime and those specific criminal cases that happened. That we don't want to just be a podcast that says here's a murder, ooh, this happened. Let's look at crimes, how they happened and maybe what led to murders that did happen big robberies, bank robberies we seem to be hitting on quite a few of those lately but from a modern and historic standpoint, to bring you our experiences, our knowledge, our love of this topic and hope that you see that as a journey that you want to be on.
Speaker 2:I want to thank you all so much for listening to our little podcast. This is created with love and passion for criminal justice and true crime. So if you're enjoying the podcast, please follow us, like or rate us on whatever system you're listening to us on, subscribe to our podcast and download episodes. Downloads are important for our growth, as is growing our listeners. So if you wouldn't mind, take the time to ask your friends, family, co-workers, tell them about us through word of mouth, social media. I don't care if you even scream at strangers on the streets. To help us kind of get out there who we are.
Speaker 2:If you're interested in learning more, you could visit our website at wwwdeviantcriminologycom. There you'll find some stuff about our backgrounds, references, show notes for each episode. You can also follow us on our Facebook page at Deviant Criminology. We also have an Instagram page, which is Deviant underscore Criminology. Or find me at Dr Richard Weaver on Instagram, and as we grow, we hope to develop a community that will grow with us. So again, thank you for taking the time to listen and have a good week.
