On the Violence of Prison

• Date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/10439862221096738
• Author: Kenneth E. Hartman
• Published date: 01 May 2022

https://doi.org/10.1177/10439862221096738

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2022, Vol. 38(2) 245 –247

© The Author(s) 2022

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/10439862221096738

journals.sagepub.com/home/ccj

Essay

On the Violence of Prison

Kenneth E. Hartman

I sat on the concrete benches outside of the counselor’s offices, on a terrace 15 feet up

on the second floor of a building looking out over the prison. It was my first day off of

Fish Row, my first chance to be out of my cell since the statewide bus had dropped me

off the week before. I was marveling at the goings on of the fabled big yard at Folsom

State Prison — more than two thousand men moving around, interacting, carrying on

the business of their lives constrained within the granite walls. Suddenly, I noticed a

distinct shifting of the traffic patterns, as a gaping hole in the crowd of men opened up

around one spot to the side of One Building.

A phalanx of guards came rushing out of the Yard Shack and formed a circle around

someone on the ground, blowing whistles, while a couple of them grabbed a gurney.

In a few minutes they came running by, pushing a white cart with the gurney on top,

an inert man bouncing along in it, the liquid crimson of blood shining in the sun.

As soon as the cart disappeared through the gate into Five Building, shouts of “clear

the way” echoing into the sanctum sanctorum of the bullet-riddled granite blocks built

in the 19th century, the public address system announced, “Play Ball.” And with that

all the previous movement resumed, as if nothing had happened, as if a human being

had not been murdered on the yard minutes before.

I was 20 years old then, sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, trying to

figure out how I was going to survive the infamous “Pit” that was Folsom. The mes-

sage I received that day couldn’t have been any clearer — violence is always around

the corner, always ready to dispatch you into that bloody gurney, and no one will lose

a moment’s sleep. In the five years I was imprisoned there, more than 1,000 men were

stabbed and more than a hundred died. They left nothing much behind beyond that

momentary break in the action before the call to “Play Ball” echoed across the yard.

Ultimately, I would serve 38 years inside of California’s prison system, and

throughout all of that time violence never disappeared. The structure of the society

inside that existed then and exists still rests on a foundation of incipient violence wait-

ing to unravel and swallow up whoever happens to be in the way. It is so intimately

entwined with prison as to be indistinguishable from the bars and the slamming metal

doors, and no less omnipresent.

While I was in Los Angeles County Jail awaiting trial, I was in a dozen violent

encounters that were nothing out of the ordinary for that place at that time. In about

half of them I was the attacker, in the other half I was attacked. There really weren’t

1096738CCJXXX10.1177/10439862221096738Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeHartman

other2022