why come the black boys don't run off

like the white boys do?'

I lowered my jaw and scratched my head

and said (innocently, I think), 'Well, suh,

I ain't for sure, but I reckon it's cause

we ain't got no wheres to run to."'

Though this factor applies almost universally to black inmates, it also applies to the poor whites who make up the majority of America's inmate population.

However, simply to maintain physical custody over the inmate is to be no closer to having him under total control than was holding a slave the enslaving of the man. The uncontrolled inmate, though he may be safely in his cell today, tomorrow could be over the wall, just as the smiling and quaintly intelligent darkie of yesterday turned out to be Nat Turner.

When Nat Turners unleash their rage or when cons go over the wall, the system that failed to hold them invariably comes under attack. Although much of the attacks call for the further application of existing mechanisms of control, some advocate employing the opposite tack or even the abolition of the system. In any case, such criticisms threaten the system as it stands, and in so doing threaten the standing of the men who operate and directly profit from the system.

Thus, just as it was imperative for slave drivers to devise mechanisms for the total control of their slaves, so it is for the men who operate the prison systems.

In the California system, as it is in the federal and those of other states, the primary mechanism is the rules of the prison. Numerous, vague, often petty, and in all cases independently formulated for each of the state's 13 institutions, the rules give the prison authorities a triple leverage. First, they allow the officials to keep the behavior of the majority of inmates under control. Second, they allow them to identify early prisoners who are developing the consciousness of resistance. Finally, they provide a means of arresting this process before the con can convert evolving consciousness into embarassing action.

George Jackson spent a year in Soledad. In his first four months, he was accused of seven violations of prison rules. When he came up for parole after the expiration of his minimum sentence, his prison record classified him as "surly and intractable." A bad nigger who "flatly refused to obey orders." Parole was denied and con A-63837 was transferred to San Quentin.

In denying Jackson parole and transferring him to San Quentin, the state officials essentially were trying to impress upon him the power that was at their disposal. Soledad, a medium security prison, is by no means a pleasant environment in which to spend your twenty-first year on earth, but Q has long been notorious as the roughest joint in the state. By exhibiting their ability not only to deny him release but also to worsen the conditions of his confinement, the authorities hoped to drive defiance from Jackson by intimately acquainting him with the cost of such resistance.

For many, particularly young cons with long sentences, simply seeing San Quentin is enough. To see its walls and buildings, some of which are over 100 years old, is to regard a place that radiates control. Control enforced by any means necessary.

Seeing San Quentin was practically all the authorities let Jackson do. After a brief stay, he was transferred to Tracy. Having let him see the whip, they gave him the carrot.