Perhaps the most important failure of the Youth Authority in California is its failure to understand and deal with the motivation of the young people it was established to help. A report on the effectiveness of the Authority's operation by the Community Service Society of New York highlights this inability of the Authority to deal with the real motivation of most juvenile crime and the consequences of this failure:
"Observing the board in action...leaves the observer...with the impression that this is an experience which, by and large, is not constructive for the boy or girl and which seems to emphasize values and a philosophy not consistent with the Authority program. There is, for instance, the constant preaching to the youngster about the necessity for good behavior which carries with it the erroneous assumption that good behavior is simply a matter of choice and the offender who makes up his mind to behave can behave. This sort of preaching from the bench seems to be a disease readily acquired by judges and others who sit in judgment. It has done no good--it probably can do no good...it sets the stage for the same old tread-mill. This impression is bolstered by the use of threats, actual and implied, all relating to the time to be served...There are also promises extracted.'
Despite all of its innovative programs, the California Youth Authority operates on the same core assumptions that are the foundation of the philosophy of the "treat 'em rough" school: that the individual offender exclusively bears the guilt for his crime and that the sole goal of the state's incarceration of him is to force him to recognize this and correct the aberrant part of his psyche that caused him to commit a crime.
Prison would become a personal purgatory for George Jackson, but such was not the case in his first incarceration at Paso Robles. After partially recovering from the initial shock of capture, he learned how to feign the capitulation which the authorities were attempting to elicit and was released shortly before Christmas, 1957.
His next contact with the law enforcement system of California was in August of 1958 when he was arrested in Bakersfield for allegedly threatening his employer's life and damaging some of his property. A month later, he was picked up in Bakersfield for a service station robbery that had netted $105. There is a disparity between the superficials of this case and what Jackson claimed was the complete situation. In Soledad Brother, he said that he and two black friends found themselves locked up in Kern County Jail on suspicion of a number of thefts. "Since the opposition cleans up the books when they find the right type of victim, they accused us of a number of robberies we knew nothing about. Since they had already identified me for one, I copped out on another and cleared Mat and Obe on that count. They 'allowed' Obe to plead guilty to one robbery instead of the three others they threatened him with."
Although forced into what he felt was a frame-up, Jackson had no intention of being sent down river without showing some resistance. Employing what he later came to view as a "Very significant thing for our struggle here in the U.S: (that) all blacks do look alike to certain types of white people" to its best advantage, Jackson tied up a black who was scheduled to be released from the jail the next day, and left the following morning in his place. Jackson remained free for less than a month before being recaptured in Harrisburg, Ill. Upon being returned to Bakersfield, Jackson escaped a second time, but was quickly recaptured.
Jackson was recommitted to the Youth Authority, and served in its institutions until he was granted parole in June, 1960. Three months later, he was arrested again in Los Angeles and charged with a $70 service station stick-up. Although at no time denying having been involved to some degree in the caper, Jackson's reported versions of the story maintain his legal innocence. However, this was never tested in court because Jackson and the other black accused of the crime pleaded guilty. In Soledad Brother, Jackson explains why; "I accepted a deal--I agreed to confess and spare country court costs in return for a light county jail sentence. I confessed but when time came for sentencing, they tossed me into the penitentiary with one to life."
Whether George Jackson's confession to a $70 stick-up was elicited this way or not is perhaps an open question. All that is certain is that he did confess. Perhaps he did so because he knew that he was guilty or knew that the state had enough evidence to convince a jury that he was, and, as many men faced with conviction have, hoped to barter a confession for some personal gain. Such is often the case when someone under suspicion or indictment turns state's evidence and trades his fingering of others for a grant of immunity from prosecution. However, such a hope would have been improbably in Jackson's case. A small-time booster, Jackson had no information of interest to offer the state However, he did have his body to offer, or more precisely, his rights to his body. Court costs in the state of California average over $1,000 a week. By abdicating his rights to a trial by jury, Jackson would be saving Los Angeles County $2,000 - $3,000.
Such a deal between a defendent and the prosecuting county or state occurs regularly in America. In recent years, confessions, traditionally induced through the third degree treatment, have been obtained by less physical means. Men like Jackson, Danny Escobedo, and Ernest Miranda have been deceived into trading their rights of constitutional and legal protection for the promise of a deal that rarely materializes, or have had their ignorance of those rights, their poverty, race, and-or previous records used against them.
Jackson could hold little hope that by confessing he might deter the county from prosecuting him. Moreover, he belonged to a subculture and subscribed to its code that deems fingering for the cops only slightly less offensive than being a cop. In his autobiography in Soledad Brother, Jackson explains proudly how his charging of the policeman he claims fired at him and his confessing to crimes he had not committed took the heat off his partners and friends. Thus, it would seem highly improbable that Jackson confessed in hopes of receiving a state's evidence immunity.
His own explanation of the motivation of his confession seems more plausible. Either on his own initiative or, more probably, in response to an offer by the county, Jackson confessed hoping or with the understanding that he would be sent to the county house of correction. In effect, Jackson was selling his body, or more precisely, the $3,000 the county would save by his absence from the courtroom. What Jackson was not aware of was that the county had nothing to give to him in return. California law stipulates that three-time losers automatically receive indeterminate one to life sentences.
A two-time loser at the time, Jackson had nothing to gain by his guilty plea. Allowing for inflation, Jackson's $3,000 price tag was less than he--19 years old, 6 feet, and a solid two hundred pounds--would have been worth on the slave blocks of Charleston, Savannah, or Richmond.
VI
And so George Jackson entered the barred world. His life and crimes up until this point were representative of those of most of the men serving time in California and throughout the country. Lower caste criminals as they had been lower caste citizens, Jackson and the majority of inmates in American institutions never gain a great amount of financial success as a result of their criminal involvement. But for George Jackson economics was never the prime motivation. Crime was a preliminary exercise in self-determination. It was the only medium through which he could broadcast the message: so long as the only alternatives offered are for me to be poor on my own terms or to be poor on your terms, "I won't be a good boy ever.