Essentially then, the indeterminate sentence uses two means to attempt the reform of the convict. First, it removes the power or responsibility of sentencing from the courts and invests it in the penal system. Second, it attempts to use the flexibility derived from that shift as a means of inducing the convict to make "some indication of amended character."

Whether or not a man has amended his character is ultimately a judgment call, and any decision concerning that depends as much, if not more, upon the nature of those who sit in judgment, as upon the actions and attitudes of the judged. If a convicted rapist frees the warden's daughter's cat from a tree is he ready for release back to society? An improbably example to be sure--few convicted rapists serve their time in joints that have any trees--yet perhaps it does illustrate the degree to which the prejudices--moral, racial, or otherwise--of the keepers define the futures of the caught under the system of indeterminate sentencing.

Most of the early advocates of the indeterminate sentence, like other reformers of the period, were men of pronounced prejudices. They prefered Christ to anti-Christ, and for that matter, Christ to Buddha. They found industrial pollution more excusable than prostitution. Most importantly, they prefered Adam Smith to Karl Marx, and believed that ultimately the criminal bore personal guilt for his crimes.

It is these last two prejudices that lie at the core of the passage quoted above. It is the criminal's "misconduct" that "compels us to send" him to an institution for personal correction. The criminal, now a convict, is to be interred in the institution until he displays a willingness to accept the profit motive and the work ethic in personal practice. In effect, regardless of his acceptance of society's complicity in crime as a theory, the author of this passage rejected the notion in practice. He was and is not alone.

First applied in America as early as 1825 to children committed to Houses of Refuge, the indeterminate sentence, in vivo, did not adhere to the procedure outlined in the passage above. However, it did retain the spirit of that passage. Children, though they were not required to earn a fixed sum while in the Houses of Refuge, did have to demonstrate not only their acceptance of the laws and abstract principles of American society but also, if only by mime, their genuflection to the dictates of a Christian God and of capitalism.

In 1867, Michigan became the first state to use the indeterminate sentencing concept on adult offenders by passing a law changing the procedure of the penal disposition of convicted prostitutes. Under the new law, hookers were sentenced to a maximum of three years in the Detroit House of Correction but could be released earlier at the discretion of the institution's board of managers.

Four characteristics of the nature and history of the indeterminate sentence in America bear significantly on the life of George Jackson. The first is that in theory and practice the indeterminate sentence is a janus-faced weapon. Although it offers the con the hope of being released prior to the time that he would have had to have served under a fixed sentence, it also threatens him with the possibility of indefinite incarceration if he does not display "orderly, decent, and submissive behavior" to the satisfaction of his captors. This other more threatening side of the indeterminate sentence did not figure into its earliest applications nor does it in the current universal use of the indeterminate sentence in American reform schools; because in each of these cases a maximum time of incarceration is prescribed by law. However, this threatening edge does play a prominent part in California's three-time losers law; simply because the sentence has no practical maximum.

The second relevant characteristic is that the indeterminate concept was originally applied only to the poorest and most powerless classes of offenders, juveniles and prostitutes. People with no reliable leverage on the outside, they were committed to indefinite imprisonment without having legal or practical methods to protect themselves from any abuses the detention officials might make of their absolute power. That the indeterminate sentence concept was not widely applied to other classes of convicts in America until after 1935 is perhaps more due to the efforts of the organized crime lobby than to those of the "treat 'em rough" school of penology.

Thirdly, as Clemenceau noted, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Because lower-class women and children, particularly those who have done time, rarely publish autobiographies, the extent to which prison authorities have in general abused the absolute power granted them under indeterminate sentencing is difficult to establish. Clearly, though, the potential for abuse is there, as it is whenever men are granted access to total control over others. According to many observers, that potential is being realized. Among those who feel that the absolute power is being abused is Ramsey Clark. Clark, a supporter of the indeterminate sentence in theory, says that the abuse occurs because, "No correctional system in the United States is yet staffed to make effective use of the indeterminate sentence."

Finally, because California's three-time losers law sets the maximum of the indeterminate sentence at life, George Jackson faced a life in which he would always have something to lose--his chance for release from prison or his life--but in which there would always be something he could not gain--total self-determination. Although it is often argued that no one is or should be totally free, to be deprived of the freedom of movement and association as one is in prison and on parole tends to obscure the distinctions between relative and absolute freedom and also those between relative and absolute captivity. Freedom is seen in its purest, most desirable form, and captivity, to any degree, becomes contemptible. Yet, there are always checks or brakes on this train of thought. Men are not meant to ride it to the desperate state of mind that is its terminus. There are always checks--almost always.

The prison and governmental officials of California have argued that to George Jackson the checks did not apply. They have portrayed him as a man driven so deep into irrationality as to be able to explode into violence for the sake of revenge or in the hope of escape. According to their depiction of him, he was not merely a man of extremes but one possessed and perverted by absolutes. To substantiate their charge, they cite Jackson's records as a criminal and as a con. The authorities note that he was a three-time loser and accumulated 45 charges against himself while he was an inmate--including the charge of murder.

However, just as there seems to be substantial evidence for a vastly different interpretation of Jackson's life on the outside, so is there much justification for taking a view of his prison career that runs counter to the exegesis that has been made by the California authorities