“An inmate is there as punishment, not for punishment.”

Robin Washington
The Marshall Project
Aug. 22, 2018

This week, a prison strike has been called for inmates at 17 facilities nationwide in response to an April riot at South Carolina’s Lee Correctional Institution, where seven inmates were killed while prison staff failed to immediately respond.

Among 10 demands stated by the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, one of several groups endorsing the strike, are improvements in prison conditions, prevailing wages for incarcerated workers, voting rights for all confined citizens and an end to the racial overcharging, over-sentencing and parole denials to people of color. The strike is planned to continue until Sept. 9, the 47th anniversary of the Attica prison uprising.

For a view into the nature of prison strikes and how authorities respond to them, The Marshall Project spoke with Cameron Lindsay, a retired warden of three federal facilities: the Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, California, the U.S. Penitentiary in Canaan, Pennsylvania, and the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. Lindsay also ran privatized institutions in Philipsburg and Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, and has taught at several colleges. He now serves as a consultant and an expert witness in corrections cases. He spoke with Interim Commentary Editor Robin Washington. The views expressed are his own, and this interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Q: Have you experienced any strikes, hunger strikes, work strikes or other organized prisoner actions?

A: I’ve seen pretty much all of that over the course of 29 years. The most widespread strike that I ever saw that comes close to what I’m hearing about this week was in federal prisons in October of 1995. It was mostly African American inmates. They were protesting the vast disparity of sentencing laws between powder cocaine and crack cocaine.

It was the first and only time in history that (the federal prison system) announced a nationwide lockdown. The lockdown of a facility is something to be taken very, very seriously. It’s complicated and fraught with all kinds of problems. It’s not a decision to be made lightly.

I can promise you if these inmates do engage in some kind of systematic strikes that wardens will lock down the facilities.

Q: What have you experienced specifically?

In 1995, I worked at the Federal Correctional Institution, McKean, in Bradford, Pennsylvania. It started as a work strike. The first inmate called to duty is at 4 a.m. What we experienced on Oct. 24, 1995, was the inmate crew refused to go to work. There were some that wanted to but they didn’t because they feared retaliation. I have had others on a less severe scale. We had a very brief food strike at the (U.S. Penitentiary) in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. It was small and isolated.

There are food strikes, work strikes, then all-out disturbances and/or riots, depending on the severity. You might have food service inmates who are upset about wages or the way they are being treated by staff. A work strike is the most common way — inappropriate, I might add — that inmates will demonstrate in an attempt to get the attention of the staff. Typically when it happens, the warden will lock down the facility until they have a chance to gauge what really is going on. They’ll gather intelligence, talk to informants, listen to telephone calls, until they can figure out what is going on out there. They may even reach out to certain inmate leaders. Usually, the next thing they do is remove the quote-unquote “agitators” from the general population and put them in isolation. Then they interview every single inmate so that nobody feels singled out.

Q: Does a strike ever work? From the inmate point of view?

In the short term, no. They don’t work because the ringleaders tend to get locked up, and after they are isolated they’re transferred to other facilities.

In the long term, they may be able to effect some change because they do get some media and political attention. In 1987 in Oakdale, Louisiana, and Atlanta, there were simultaneous riots. There was a specific cadre of Cuban inmates from the Mariel boatlift. Our government decided to repatriate them to Cuba. They did not want to go, so they raised hell in their facility. In the long term, their actions did lead to some changes.