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Text File | 1993-04-08 | 13KB | 247 lines

                                                                                PROFILE, Page 60

Bringing Decency Into Hell


Relying on little more than decency and fairness, JOHN WHITLEY
has turned around one of the nation's toughest prisons

By JILL SMOLOWE/ANGOLA


    When John Whitley wanders into the courtyard of Camp H, he
is not just any visitor. He is the warden. The Man. Yet his
presence stirs hardly a ripple. He inspects a flower bed, points
to some asbestos dangling from a pipe. Mostly he just loiters,
signaling that he is open for business. Slowly, as if they have
all the time in the world (which, of course, many of them do),
half a dozen inmates drift his way. One complains about missing
laundry; another asks that recreational time be extended. All
are polite, but none display the eagerness of someone anxious
to please. Whitley, 48, listens intently, asking occasional
questions in a gravelly twang. Nothing in his courteous demeanor
suggests, I am the keeper, you are the kept. "You understand
that even if it's a small problem, it may be the biggest problem
they have," he says later. "You don't just blow anyone off."

    Conditions were not always so relaxed and congenial at the
Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. Just three years ago,
the main prison and five out camps at the 18,000-acre
maximum-security prison farm -- physically the largest lockup in
the country -- were rocking with murders, suicides and escape
attempts. The mood was so tense that a federal judge declared a
state of emergency, which included a state investigation and
tightened federal oversight. Discontent among the 5,186 inmates
could be summed up in a word: hopelessness. Prisoners, the vast
majority of them lifers in a state where a life term means
life, blamed their despair on tough parole laws and a dearth of
gubernatorial pardons. At risk was a reprise of the chaos that
in the early '70s earned Angola the dubious distinction of
being the nation's bloodiest prison.

    Enter John Whitley, a quiet-spoken Louisiana native with a
lazy smile, whose cowboy hats and elephant-hide boots make more
of an impression than his low-key manner. In just 32 months, he
has turned Angola around, relying on little more than his sense
of decency and fairness. The number of stabbings, hangings and
escape attempts has dropped dramatically. The malaise has
lifted. Security officers say Whitley has improved
communications between the prisoners and the 1,545-member
staff. Inmates credit Whitley with providing new educational
and recreational programs. Most important, inmates feel they
have an advocate in Whitley at a time when the courts and the
Louisiana legislature seem bent on locking up felons and
throwing away the key. "He's made a lot of difference," says
Nathan Arnold, who is serving a life sentence for murder.
"People have started feeling like people again."

    The way inmates and security guards tell it, Whitley sounds
like the hero of a Frank Capra movie. He is open-minded,
impartial, considerate. In a closed society where everyone
constantly scrutinizes everyone else, he merits the highest
compliment: he is straight up. "With Whitley, what you see is
what you get," says veteran inmate Wilbert Rideau, who edits
the prison's hard-hitting magazine, the Angolite. "He's the
best warden we've ever had." Whitley earns praise even from
those who know he may preside over their execution. "The
warden's pretty cool people," says Curtis Kyles, one of 35
inmates on death row. "He sees people as individuals, not
throwaways."

    To illustrate, prisoners usually start with July 22, 1991.
At 12:10 a.m. on that date, Whitley presided over Louisiana's
final execution by electric chair. Later the same day, orders
reached the prison metal shop to construct the gurney that
would henceforth be used for lethal injections. Two inmate
welders balked; then 375 convicts joined their "work buck."
Confronted by every warden's worst nightmare -- a prisoner
rebellion -- Whitley did the unthinkable: he backed down. He
publicly called the idea a bad one and said a private contractor
would build the table instead. "He admitted he was wrong," says
lifer Patrick DeVille. "Wardens just don't do that."

    Initially, some prisoners interpreted Whitley's reversal as
a sign of weakness. But many changed their mind a few months
later. After the state legislature imposed a strict October
1991 deadline for inmates to challenge their convictions,
Whitley, alone of Louisiana's 12 prison wardens, helped inmates
beat the cutoff. He authorized the prison printshop to run off
5,000 appeal applications. He instructed the prison radio
station to hold a question-and-answer program, brought in a
lawyer to field questions, then ordered all inmates to listen.
He also made sure that illiterate inmates -- fully 70% of the
prison population -- got help filling out the forms. "The spirit
of cooperation that developed between inmates, and between
inmates and security, was unheard-of in the long history of
Angola," noted the Angolite. Editor Rideau still marvels. "He
chose to help inmates. That's not in his job description."

    Whitley thinks otherwise. "They need to feel an advocate
within the system," he says, "and that's the warden." To
burnish Angola's image, Whitley started up a touring rock band
and theater group. To help prisoners make better use of their
free time, he added basic reading and college-level computer
and paralegal courses. To encourage good conduct, he offered
concrete rewards: increased visitation, telephone and TV
privileges.

    Whitley also proved an ally on the issue of greatest
concern to lifers: parole eligibility. Inmates are lobbying
Baton Rouge for laws that would grant lifers the opportunity
for a supervised release, a practice common in most states.
"Others saw us as subversive," says Norris Henderson, who heads
the inmate effort. "This warden agrees with the things we're
doing." Whitley maintains that his interest is practical.
Currently two-thirds of Angola's inmates are serving life terms;
in another 15 years, the prison will be filled with people who
can never leave. "Put someone in prison for life with no hope
of getting out, and you've got a problem," he says. "Even
Charles Manson gets a parole hearing."

    That's not the sort of thinking that wins friends in the
state that has taken the lead in tough sentencing laws and
boasts the country's highest incarceration rate. "I don't think
if you killed somebody you have the right to be back out in
society," says Margot Blalock of the Baton Rouge-based Parents
of Murdered Children. Whitley's response is neither indifferent
nor apologetic. "I understand how families of victims feel. But I
can't run my prison with all those negative feelings toward
inmates."

    Still, the security staff doesn't feel Whitley favors or
coddles prisoners. "With him you'll get the closest thing to a
fair shake," says Michael Gun nells, the assistant warden in
charge of security. A year ago, for instance, at Camp J -- home
to Angola's incorrigibles -- staff morale had bottomed out in a
storm of hurled food, spit and excrement. Whitley responded with
a strict set of disincentives. Curse a guard, forfeit canteen
privileges. Throw a meal tray, lose your radio. "The burden is
on prisoners," says Captain Davy Kelone. "It drives them crazy."
That it does. Camp J inmate Virgil Smith likens his living
conditions to a "concentration camp" and his punishment meals
to "dog food."

    Beyond routine complaints about disciplinary penalties, it
is hard to find a Whitley detractor. Inmates, of course, may
tell a stranger what they think The Man wants to hear. But they
have no reason to lie to Keith Nordyke, the attorney appointed
by a federal judge to look out for the interests of the state's
20,795 prisoners. Over the past year, Nordyke says, inmate
complaint mail has dwindled from 50 letters a month to fewer
than 10. At this point, even he is impressed by Whitley. "His
attitude is, `If you see anything wrong, let