Thirty-Two Years After Attica 

PETER WAGNER & ROSE HEYER / AlterNet 25sep03

[Attica Timeline Below]

In September 1971, thousands of prisoners at Attica prison in rural New York State rebelled, taking control of D-yard. Sixty-three percent of the prisoners were black or Latino, but at that time there were no blacks and only one Latino serving as guards. Seventy percent of the prisoners were urban, mostly from New York City, but 80 percent of the guards were from rural New York.

The disparity between the keepers and the kept increased tensions at the prison by inserting a cultural gulf between guards and prisoners, and by giving black and Latino prisoners painful evidence that their fate was, in part, determined by race.

After four days of negotiations, Governor Rockefeller ordered an assault on the prison, turning what was then the largest prison rebellion into the bloodiest. Thirty-two prisoners and 11 guard hostages died, almost all in the retaking of the prison.

Attica and the investigation into its causes caused a fundamental reexamination of correctional policy throughout America. While food, mail policies and rehabilitative programs were improved, the demand for more black and Latino staff proved to be among the easiest to support and the most difficult to implement. Writing in 1973 about "modern" correctional facilities, leading scholar William Nagel well summarized the response and the dilemma: "To avoid a federal Attica, the Federal Bureau of Prisons is now feverishly attempting to recruit black staff, but its task is complicated by the remoteness of its facilities."

By 1995, the latest year with complete data, the prisoner population at Attica had increased to 80 percent black and Latino. But out of a total staff of 854, the number of blacks had only risen to 21 and the Latino staff to 7. Attica's staff remains 96.7 percent white because Attica itself has not moved. It remains in a rural, overwhelmingly white region in New York State.

While prisons themselves are impossible to move, this lesson of Attica about the dangers of prisoner-staff disparities has been lost in the rush of the late 1980s and 1990s to build more prisons. Speculative ideas about rural economic development have trumped safe and rehabilitative correctional policy. Two-thirds of new prisons have been built in rural areas despite the experience at Attica and despite the research showing that incarcerating a prisoner close to home aids family visits and helps reduce the odds a prisoner will re-offend and be returned to prison.

Prior to 1980, 36 percent of prisons were in rural areas, although only 20% of the country is rural. But by the early 1990s the trend was going the wrong way, with 60 percent of new prisons being built in rural areas.

Senior federal officials explained the results to Nagel in 1973: "In the rural areas you get the very best type of white, mid-American line staff; but it is admittedly more difficult to recruit blacks and professional staff which are available in the cities."

Has the federal Bureau of Prisons or state departments of correction succeeded in overcoming the difficulties in attracting black staff to rural prisons? According to our analysis of prison staffing at each prison operating in 1995, the answer is no.

In 1995, there were 889 federal and state prisons with at least 100 black prisoners. After excluding a handful that did not provide the race of prisoners or staff, we were able to identify only 64 prisons where the percentage of staff that were black was at least as high as the percentage of the prisoners that were black. Of those prisons, not one was outside of the south or the urban cities of the north.

Half of the prison cells in this country are filled with black citizens, but only 20 percent of the prison jobs are held by black employees. In the eyes of the American justice system, it appears every race still has its separate place.

Peter Wagner is a Soros Justice Fellow at the Prison Reform Advocacy Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rose Heyer is an independent researcher in Massachusetts.

Peter Wagner is a Soros Justice Fellow at the Prison Reform Advocacy Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rose Heyer is an independent researcher in Massachusetts.

source: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16830 29sep03 updated source: email from Peter Wagner 3oct03

Attica Timeline

From In-Depth Report CourtTV.com 29sep03

1971

Conditions in Attica where such that prisoners were rationed only one role of toilet paper per month per man, were allowed only one shower per week, and received your newspaper subscriptions with entire sections cut out.

2 July 1971

And can make group sends Corrections Commissioner Russel G. Oswald what has come to be known as the "July Manifesto." For Special Commission on Attica later claims "the entire package was a strikingly reasonable and civil approach...centered largely on improvement of the conditions of their president, not the end of the imprisonment itself."

22 August 1971

It makes organized a fast in memory of George Jackson, the black radical imprisoned in San Quentin, who had been shot to death by prison guards.

2 September 1971

Commissioner Oswald, who had been asked by prisoners to visit Attica to discuss prison conditions and reforms, visits the facility and meets with prison officials; but does not meet with inmates. Instead, he leaves behind a tape recording that is played over the public address system claiming that he had to depart because his wife is ill.

The following section of his timeline is taken from The Official Report of the New York State Special Commission on Attica. September 1972.

8 September 1971

3:45 PM

Intimate horseplay in the A Yard leads to a confrontation between officers and inmates. A guard is punished by an intimate.

5:30 PM

To inmates identified as involved in the A Yard incident are removed to HBZ (solitary confinement, referred to as the "box") amidst angry reaction from fellow inmates. A corrections officer is struck ahead by a full soup can throne by an intimate from 5 Company.

10 September 1971

8:20 AM

Intimate who threw soup can is released from "key block" by fellow 5 Company inmates during lineup for breakfast. Entire company proceeds to breakfast.

8:50 AM

A lieutenant approaches 5 Company in A Tunnel to talk with them as they return for breakfast. He is struck and knocked to the floor by inmates.

9:05 AM

"Times Square" date is broken down by inmates. Officer on duty is knocked unconscious. It makes now have access to all four main cellblocks.

9:15 AM

Prison alarm is sounded.

10:30 AM

1,281 inmates and 43 hostages assembled in D Yard. It makes are now in control of all cellblocks and six other buildings.

Afternoon

Correctional personnel re-establish control of areas that the belly inmates have deserted. It makes control B and D Blocks, the exercise yards, tolls and catwalks.

2:00 PM

Commissioner Oswald arrives at Attica.

3:00 PM

University of Buffalo professor of Law, Herman Schwartz and black assemblyman Arthur O. Eve of Buffalo enter D Yard to speak with inmates.

4:25 p.m.

Eve and Schwartz re-enter D Yard with Commissioner Oswald. Oswalt speaks with inmates for almost at our end agrees to their demands for food and water and presence of citizen observers.

5:45 PM

Oswald, Eve and Schwartz returned to yard accompanied by reporters. Inmates present Oswalt with "Practical Proposals." They talk for an hour.

10 September 1971

1:00 PM

Inmates in D Yard hold elections for spokesman to participate in negotiations.

7:00 PM

33 observers arrived at Attica and pay a brief visit to D Yard.

11:30 PM

Observers' committee returns to D Yard to learn inmates' demands.

11 September 1971

Afternoon

Executive committee of observers negotiates with Oswald. 28 "Proposals Acceptable to Commissioner Oswald" results. Officer William Quinn, who had been severely beaten during the rye, dies. Now that prisoners' demand for amnesty is, in the minds of officials, no longer an option.

8:30 PM

Black Panther leader Bobby Seale enter his Attica.

9:00 PM

Observers enter D Yard with 28 Proposals. Seale makes noncommittal remarks and leaves. Some observers remain for several hours to discuss points with inmates.

11:30 PM

Inmates reject a settlement based on 28 Proposals.

12 September 1971

11:00 AM

Observers' committee issues public appeal to Gov. Rockefeller to come to Attica.

1:20 PM

Observers, including York Times columnist Tom Wicker, telephoned Gov. Rockefeller asking him to speak with them at Attica.

2:10 PM

Commissioner Oswald issues statement to inmates urging acceptance of 28 Proposals, requesting release of hostages and proposing negotiations on neutral ground.

9:30 PM

Oswald telephones Rockefeller and asks him to come to Attica. Rockefeller reaffirms earlier decision not to come.

13 September 1971

7:40 AM

Commissioner Oswald's ultimatum is read to inmates in D Yard.

9:00 AM

A blindfolded hostages are brought up to A and B Catwalks. Inmate "executioners" hold the highest at the hostages' throats.

9:30 AM

Inmates reject ultimatum.

9:46 AM

Assault on D Yard begins with a gas dropped from a helicopter.

9:50 AM

State police in helicopter demand surrender of inmates.

9:52 AM

Firing stops. 10 hostages and 29 inmates are dead or dying.

Source: transcribed from http://www.courttv.com/onair/shows/mugshots/indepth/attica/ 29sep03