Essay of the Day
Essay of the Day features selected essays from my separate, non-public online journals.
This essay originally appeared with more photographs in MarcPerspective.
Prisoner
Background
Before I relocated to New York City, I worked for a corporation in downtown Chicago as staff photographer. I was a young man of twenty-two but I had been seriously involved in photography since I was in high school. My responsibilities at the company including running audio-visual equipment for board meetings and management training sessions in the Midwest, taking publicity photographs at annual shareholders meetings, creating images for advertising and management projects, contributing photo essays to the company newsletter and photographing 300 or more headquarters employees for the staff directory.
Purpose
At one point I accompanied a group of businessmen and company representatives on a visit to Cook County Jail in Chicago. The purpose was to examine ways to reduce the high rate of incarceration of inner city men and to provide assistance to those in jail. My role was to photograph what I saw, which mostly involved meetings of executives and leaders of urban organizations.
My Brother's Experience
I had never been inside a prison before although my older brother, who was a Vietnam Veteran (U.S. Marines) had spent time in that very same jail on false charges of attempted murder of a Chicago policeman. It is a different and horrific story which I have described and documented in another web journal. To summarize what happened, my brother was taken to Cook County Jail and beaten, kicked in his groin and lied about in an effort to make him confess to a crime he didn't commit. The goal was to cover-up massive wrongdoings by off-duty, white Chicago cops in a racist fight they had started.
My brother’s friend was killed in the incident, which took place at a bar on the West Side of the city. Eventually all charges were dropped against my brother but not without a long ordeal including my mother hiring a lawyer at great expense. Nevertheless, Chicago cops wanted my brother to take the fall for their actions and they intended to catch him again to cause him bodily harm or kill him. The police used to circle our block in squad cars to follow up on their threats. I witnessed squad cars rolling slowly by our apartment building, multiple times, looking for my brother.
Ironically, despite his extreme and justified anger that could have led to more negative events, my brother overcame all that had happened to him and eventually became a cop himself in another city. But my family was left with a connection to Cook County Jail that was never to be forgotten.
June 1975
My sole visit to Cook County Jail with the aforementioned business group occurred on one cool morning in June 1975. After our arrival, I began recording on black and white film a meeting where issues, statistics and needs were discussed. Later a tour was conducted. There were no opportunities to take more significant pictures until we entered a few rooms where inmates were spending time in an area dedicated to training in skills that might lead to work after their release. We didn’t stay very long in these rooms at all. I had to decide quickly what to photograph and I was only able to capture a little less than a dozen shots of inmates themselves.
After asking if I could take their picture, I photographed a male alone and two groups of men. It was fleeting and there was no chance to deal with lighting, ask additional questions or shoot several rolls of film with different angles to ensure useful images. I was aware that even the noise made by the click of my camera shutter was intrusive to the statements and discussions between the tour guide and visiting executives. The businessmen spent maybe three minutes in rooms with prisoners before the tour moved on. There were no significant conversations at all between the businessmen and the prisoners.
Encounters with the Police
Since that visit to Cook County Jail, people in my life have been on both sides of the criminal just system. My younger brother also became a cop for several years in suburban Chicago. At the request of his mother, I financed bail for a nephew, also in suburban Chicago. A friend of mine from Brooklyn was in Rikers Island in New York City more than once. I also had brief but negative encounters with police in New York City. There is a great deal more involved in each encounter.
Rights and Wrongs
I have been supportive beyond words when cops lost their lives. Some people have committed devastating crimes for which they should never be let out of prison. But many, many people are wrongly arrested, beaten and imprisoned with lasting financial, physical and psychological scars, and they punished disproportionately to their crimes, if not simply killed by the police. Race is almost always a factor, either covertly or overtly.
As a black male, I can easily be accused of any crime and I am well aware that I will be immediately presumed guilty by many because of stereotypes and prejudice. Just the accusation would be enough to wreck my life almost beyond repair.
It is also possible that, since I live in the inner city, harm or death could come to me at the hands of a policeman or another black man. During my life I have seen and experienced enough to reflect in personal ways on all aspects of the criminal justice system.
But pictures from that day at Cook County Jail, which are fractions of otherwise forgotten seconds, are lasting moments in my own education about crime and jail.