Lady Justice Can't Break the Glass Ceiling

Lady Justice Can't Break the Glass Ceiling

Tina Wong

December 10, 2010

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There is little sociological disagreement that women and racial minorities continue to face serious barriers in advancement up professional ladders and in business at all levels. The Glass Ceiling Commission, formed by the Doles among others, offered this insight in 1995: “Minorities and women are still consistently underrepresented and under utilized at the highest levels of corporate America. For example, 97 percent of the senior managers of Fortune 1000 Industrial and Fortune 500 companies are white,and 95 to 97 percent are male; in the Fortune 2000 industrial and service companies, only 5 percent of senior managers are women, and almost all of them are white; African American men with professional degrees earn 21 percent less than their white counterparts holding the same degrees in the same job categories. But women and African Americans are not the only ones kept down by the glass ceiling. Only 0.4 percent of managers are Hispanic, although Hispanics make up eight percent of America’s workforce. Asian and Pacific Islander Americans earn less than whites in comparable positions and receive fewer promotions, despite more formal education than other groups”. The Economist put it succinctly when they stated that, in fifteen years, all that has changed is “the mindset of... businessmen” (2009). Worse, while in some areas there have been serious improvements, in others there have been declines: “One survey found that women executives in the United States were earning an even lower percentage of their male counterparts’ remuneration in 2000 than they were in 1995” (The Economist, 2009; Glass Ceiling Commission, 1995). It is possible that had to do more with growth in male CEO wages rather than a decline in women's incomes per se, but nonetheless, the problem is serious. However, questions remain: Why is this consistent barrier to promotion and equal pay still around? What could be done to solve the problem? Explanations range from the “mommy track” depriving women, rightly or wrongly, of promotion opportunities due to expectation that they will not stick around; a simple generational problem, wherein the first generation of highly-trained female executives have yet to come into their own; lack of role models; to the pernicious effect of “old boy's networks” and sexist discrimination. In the legal industry, the reasons for the continued existence and effect of the glass ceiling for women is a lack of role models, sexist perceptions about what lawyers should be and are, the old boy's network, sexism's role in causing inaccurate estimations of the skill of women, lower status of women in general, and similar effects of patriarchy and sexism.

The evidence of sexism in the legal profession is rampant. Women are the majority of law school graduates and applicants (Wingert, 2010; McLeod, 2008; CNN Justice, 2008). But women are underrepresented both versus their share of the general population and their share of law school graduates in law firms and in the legal industry: “Despite more diversity initiatives, as well as maternity-leave and part-time policies that are generally viewed as female-friendly, women remain dramatically underrepresented in law firms leadership ranks, according to a new study from the National Association of Women Lawyers. In the average law firm, for instance, just one or two women are among the members of the firm’s highest governing committee, and very few firms place women in the role of overall managing partner. Women account for just 15% of equity partners—a level that hasn’t budged in the past five years. Overall, women comprised 34.4% of all lawyers in 2008, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics” (O'Connell, 2009; Law360, 2009). Women make 85 cents on the dollar to their male counterparts. Minority women are doubly disadvantaged (Jezebel).

While engaging in comparative analysis between countries is obviously a deeply thorny problem, evidence indicates that the problem is just as profound in other industrialized nations. In Japan, traditional sexist notions about womens' role are found everywhere (The Economist, 2009). Similarly, in Australia, women have been graduating from law schools at as high a rate as 60% of their graduating classes yet female solicitors are one-quarter as likely to be partners as men and are only 18% of barristers practicing law (McLeod, 2008)! Britain certainly has its own legal glass ceiling (Benning-Prince, 2010). This provides yet more indication that a major contributing factor to the discrepancies in status and success is sexism itself and entrenched Western notions of the proper role of women that fifty years of feminism have combated. After all, if it was something about the market structure or politics of America, the same signs would not be seen elsewhere, and yet it is.

Is a representation of below 50-51% of women in any industry a sign of sexism per se? Yes and no. Unless one subscribes to clearly false sexist notions of a fundamental, genetically-based differences in the capabilities of men and women as regards the legal profession, it is obvious that, in a just society, women would approximate within noise level variation their representation in the population: Roughly 50-51%. However, it is fair to argue that perhaps women are underrepresented only because there are less qualified women, for whatever reason. But the evidence indicates otherwise: Plenty of qualified female legal professionals face wage and employment discrimination. In any respect, one would then have to ask why women were not being trained to the same degree. Women might be getting less social approval for their ambitions to enter the legal profession and might be being subtly guided away by teachers, guidance counselors and peers; similarly, women might be “ghettoized” into academic tracks that will not lead to legal success, or into alternate legal-like careers and studies.

Take the fact that 48% of summer associates and 44% of first-year associates are women but only 16% of firms' equity partners in the most prestigious firms are women (Bruno, 2007). Women have only a “fraction” of the success of men in the legal industry. The statistics for associates are themselves illustrative, as more like 50-60% of women are graduating from law school. As The Economist argues, the glass ceiling is not found at one location. At each new threshold, more and more women are lost. Women who are interested in law get shunted into other majors and professions; pre-law women are shunted out of law; law school graduates find less options at the entry-level; and at each step up the ladder, more and more women are lost vis-a-vis men, prevented from advancing. For example: While “women are well represented on law reviews in the lower ranks, making up 44 percent of law review staffers and 46 percent of those in leadership...only 33 percent of editors-in-chief are female” (Weiss, 2010).

The problem begins right at law school (Harvard Working Group on Student Experiences, 2004). Women participate less due to their ideas being ignored or given too little attention, if not being mocked. Men receive higher grades even with prior success controlled, but different subject matters prove more hospitable to women as did different professors and teaching styles. This suggests that educational reform and teaching instructors and professors how to be more effective at teaching women and proactively promoting female participation must be part of the solution.

The generational argument, that the first generations of female law students and law classes that were majority female, seems compelling on its face, but it unfortunately has been proven wrong over time (McLeod, 2008). A substantial number of quality graduates and professionals have been a part of the industry for almost thirty years now, yet we are not seeing signs of inequality budge. But a modified version of the argument could be accurate. It may not just be the number of female professionals that matters, but also the acceptance of those professionals and the slow disappearance of the older generation not used to women being found at all ranks of the legal industry. However, there is another problem with this hypothesis. First: It seems to be trivial, conceding the sexist factors against women rather than denying them or explaining them. Second: It assumes that social change is automatic. It could easily be the case that change will not happen simply because of generational changes but will have to occur on legislative, economic and cultural levels through conscious activism.

Similarly, the “mommy track” is an uncompelling reason for the gap for several reasons. For one thing, the average time that most people stay at businesses has declined subtantially (Fraser, 2008). Many employment specialists don't recommend staying on at a job for more than five years, and many job hunters are bouncing from position to position within a year! The idea that women need to show that they are willing to stay for years flies in the face of the shape of the modern economy.

Further, the idea that women want to have children and take time off while men don't is itself based on an “assumption of male breadwinning” (Wise, 2008). After all, men might also want to take time off to raise children, yet this option is not legally nor socially protected. To then “blame” women's decisions rather than sexism itself is galling. As Tim Wise puts it, “And so long as the society is a male-dominated one, in which men express a preference not to rear children, no matter what women might prefer, they will have little choice but to do the child-rearing and homemaking. Given a choice between that, and not becoming a mother at all, most women will choose to sacrifice a few years of their career. But we can hardly assume that such a choice is rooted in some biological or deeply-ingrained feminine set of values” (2008).

The impact of pregnancy is also often exaggerated. Many women find that they are threatened with demotion or termination based on taking sick days for their children, despite the fact that they didn't take any more sick days than others (Collins, 2009). “[T]he 'mommy penalty' may be a result of employers’ perception that mothers are a liability or the employers’ unwillingness to offer mothers the flexibility needed for success” (Collins, 2009). Similar flakiness on the part of men is tolerated. In fact, law firms have started using part-time contract lawyers for repetitive or low-priority tasks, another decision they have made that denies women equal opportunities (O'Connell, 2009).

Finally, why must women be fired if they leave to raise children? Why can't they simply return to the position? In the legal profession, partners often take long vacations or sabbaticals, prepare for long defenses with many other people participating and collaborating, leave to teach, and so on. The fact that institutions are not designed to accommodate pregnancy is a sign of sexism, not an explanation that disproves it. The fact that “fathers tend to receive a “daddy bonus” in the form of higher salaries when they have a child” indicates that institutions have chosen a solution which penalizes women and rewards men; why not adopt the opposite (Collins, 2009)?

The old boys' network is a particularly big problem in the legal industry (Glass Ceiling Commission, 1995). Since partnerships are the key way to get ahead, as well as editorial positions, and since seniority is such a key part of the legal industry both in the public and private sectors, the fact that the existing elite is largely old white males is a substantial deterrent for women. Women can be just as qualified or more qualified than men, but without knowing the people who give them the positions and the chances, they can't advance.

Some argue that women have the advantage of beauty and can deploy their sexual wiles to advance. Not only is this a sexist argument buying into the mythology of women using their sexuality on helpless males, it also concedes the point that men control the options for promotion and so women must use such tactics to advance. But in any case, beauty and sexuality might gain some initial benefits in advancement, but eventually lead to expectations of women being less intelligent or hard-working irrespective of their actual behavior: “Beauty can be its own glass ceiling” (Dokoupil, 2010).

As in so many other areas, women face a “double trap” or a dilemma posed by sexism. They can be viewed as weak, too willing to roll over and negotiate instead of sticking things out, not persistent, too nurturing, not tough enough, etc. Or they can be viewed as cold, soulless witches. The Glenn Close character in Damages is a good example of this archetype, and contributes to the role model problem (Kanter, 1977). It is unimaginably difficult to navigate between this Scylla and Charybdis, and this stress gives women in law yet another problem to manage that their male cohorts do not. Studies show that this problem explains why women are often not as aggressive in pushing for raises, status in the company and promotion. When men push for promotion and raises, they are viewed as ambitious, hard-working, studious and diligent. When women do, they are viewed as “less nice”, backstabbing, too ambitious, and less cooperative (Wise, 2008). Thus, it is clear that womens' behavior is not to blame for their unequal treatment in the legal industry.

Lorelie Masters notes that this subtle mistreatment is particularly stressful, since it is so subtle and yet is a constant assault on the self-esteem and worth of the women participating in the industries (Bruno, 2007).

Female doctors repeatedly report being assumed to be less effective or trustworthy, or being confused for nurses; similarly, black doctors repeatedly report being assumed to be less effective than the archetypal white male doctor. The same problem shows up in the legal industry. Women are perceived as less professional than men, less likely to be effective lawyers, and are far more likely to be thought not to be a lawyer or thought to be lower rank than they are (Liberman, 2007).

Television portrayals of lawyers help in amplifying the association of law with masculinity. Whether it be Jack McCoy or Matlock, the archetypal lawyer is male. While shows like Law and Order: SVU have tried to focus on female ADAs, even this tends to promote “ghettoization”, the idea that women should stick to rape cases or divorce or whatever other field rather than playing with the big boys. While it is fair to note that this is realistic and these shows attempt some degree of fidelity, that reasoning prevents there from ever being good role models.

These factors have led to a reduction of women interested in law school and careers (Jones, 2007). “Since 2002, the percentage of women in law schools has declined each year, according to the American Bar Association. Five years ago, women made up 49 percent of law school enrollment. This year, 46.9 percent of law school students are women. And while the number of applicants overall has dropped in the past two years, the percentage decline in the number of women has been greater”. Part of the issue is that the economy has made people more likely to consider working immediately rather than going back into school. A vicious cycle emerges: Law firms have a publically known reputation for not promoting women and treating them equally, causing women to eschew the profession, making the firms even more male dominated. What could be the solution?

Educational changes to train women to deal with the pressures of being women in the law industry could be part of the solution (Bruno, 2007). Lorelie Masters argues that women are often taught erroneous ideas of meritocracy, that they simply have to work as hard as male partners to advance. In fact, they must work harder and be very strategic as to what work they do and how to present themselves. Teaching them this and preparing for it could combat frustration and prevent women from leaving their course of study and career advancement early. Programs like the National Constitution Center's “What Glass Ceiling” are part of this initiative.

Similarly, the role model problem can only be bridged by role models and mentoring work (Bruno, 2007). Firms have to provide mentoring programs of successful women. Colleges similarly need to reach out to successful female lawyers and make them a resource, featuring them prominently to energize their female students. Television shows need to promote female lawyers more effectively and not play to traditional stereotypes.

A major part of the solution will just have to be educational initiatives. “Rather, this emphasis is important because privileged women often have the greatest resources and incentives to challenge such inequality. Making those who occupy positions of influence more aware of unintentional biases and subtle sexism is a necessary step in the creation of a just society. We are still a considerable distance from that goal. We see women so frequently in positions of power and in non-traditional occupations that we lose track of where they are absent as well as the dynamics that might explain why” (Rhode, 2007).

Feminist jurisprudential theory is also a key way to emphasize womens' interests. If women feel that they are using a theory that emphasizes their unique concerns and allows them to defend the interests of other women, they are more likely to be involved (Weisberg, 1996).

Ironically, one of the solutions could be the legal system itself. Kende has advanced an argument for a method of using litigation against partners that discriminate against women. The beauty of this approach is that not only does it leverage existing civil rights legislation, but it also is terrible public relations for these firms and exposes their old boys' networks. Legislators can assist this process by expanding existing civil rights enforcement and legislation.

A constellation of factors cause glass ceilings to prevent women from rising at every level. Women's legal contributions are underrated, men's overrated. Schools are not comfortable for women and too comfortable for men. Law firms have decided to promote mens' prerogatives over women and buy into antiquated sexual relations. Conservative scholars erroneously blame the “mommy track” and womens' lack of ambition and ability instead of sexism. Women face discrimination in hiring, promotion and raises, as subtle sexism causes their superiors and colleagues to ignore or revile their contributions. Role models are so rare that their mistakes are amplified, their very tokenism itself becoming a problem (Carli, 2001). But what is clear is that women do not find it easy to climb the ladder of the legal industry. Proactive reforms, cultural and economic change, and activism will be necessary, not just waiting for change to happen. Sociologists and anthropologists will be a key part of this process.

Bibliography

Benning-Prince, Sharon. “Women and the Glass Ceiling – the Debate Continues”. http://womeninlaw.com/WIL/?p=654

Boxer, Sonya. “Opinion: Social mobility is a glass ceiling that’s yet to be smashed”. The Lawyer. February 9, 2009.http://www.thelawyer.com/opinion-social-mobility-is-a-glass-ceiling-that %E2%80%99s-yet-to-be-smashed/136633.article

Bruno, Debra. “Fighting the Subtler Side of Sexism”. Legal Times. December 13, 2007. http://www.law.com/jsp/llf/PubArticleLLF.jsp? id=1197496447626

Carli, Linda L. “Gender and Social Influence”. The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. 2001.

CNN Justice. “More women than men apply to law school”. August 23, 2000. http://articles.cnn.com/2000-08-23/justice/lawschool.women_1_applicants-law-school- admission-council-number?_s=PM:LAW

Collins, Anna T. “The 'Mommy Penalty' in the Legal Profession”. The Glass Hammer. January 19,2009. http://www.theglasshammer.com/news/2009/01/19/the-%E2%80%9Cmommy-penalty %E2%80%9D-in-the-legal-profession/

Dokoupil, Tony. “Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful”. Newsweek. July 19, 2010. http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/19/don-t-hate-me-because-i-m-beautiful.html

Fraser, Jane E. “How long should you stay in your job?” The Big Chair. August 29, 2008. http://thebigchair.com.au/news/career-couch/when-to-move-on

Glass Ceiling Commission. “A Solid Investment : Making Full Use of the Nation's Human Capital”.

Jezebel. “Minority Women Underrepresented in Law Firms”. http://jezebel.com/5064118/minority- women-partners-underrepresented-in-law-firms--aussie-state-decriminalizes-abortion

Kende, Mark S. “A TRIBUTE TO HONORABLE RAYMOND L. SULLIVAN: ARTICLE: Shattering the Glass Ceiling: A Legal Theory for Attacking Discrimination Against Women Partners”. Hastings College Journal. https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app? action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=46+Hastings+L.J. +17&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=0acd93757fa7e0ef328234836fa32279

Law360. “Women Underrepresented in Partner Ranks”. August 19, 2008. http://www.law360.com/legalindustry/articles/66631

Liberman, Benjamin. Stereotypes: The Impact of Prescriptions on Workers’ Experiences (2007). October 2007. Sloan Work and Family Research Foundation. http://wfnetwork.bc.edu/encyclopedia_entry.php?id=6330&area=All

National Constitution Center. http://www.constitutionconferences.com/16W/0

O'Connell. “Where Have All the Women Lawyers Gone?” November 9, 2010. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/11/09/study-where-have-all-the-women-lawyers-gone/

Rhode, Deborah. “The subtle side of sexism”. Columbia Journal of Gender and Law. Fall 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb1412/is_3_16/ai_n29398466/

The Economist. The glass ceiling. May 5, 2009.

Weisberg, D. Kelly. Applications of feminist legal theory to women's lives: sex, violence, work, and reproduction. Temple University Press. 1996.

Weiss, Debra C. Women Underrepresented in Ranks of Top Law Review Editors. ABA Journal. August 24, 2010.http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/women_

underrepresented_in_ranks_of_top_law_review_editors/

Wise, Tim. “The Tyranny of Not-So-Independent Variables: 
Racism, Sexism and the Deceptive Social Science of the Far Right”. AlterNet.May 25, 2008. http://www.timwise.org/2008/05/the- tyranny-of-not-so-independent-variables-

Sing-Sing Prison: Cross-Section of American Criminology

Sing Sing Prison: Cross-Section of American Criminology

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I wrote in, asked the warder, why they call the jail "Sing Sing",

I wrote in, asked the warder, why they call the jail "Sing Sing",

He said, "Stand here by this rock pile and listen to them hammering" – Porter Granger, Bessie Smith & Freddie Johnson, “Sing Sing Prison Blues”

In archeology and geology, it is possible to take a layer of rock or material and look at it vertically, examining the changes over time and making determinations as to the general environment around it using that sample. A well-chosen cross-section throughout history can tell one a lot about the past even beyond that sample. Criminology has gone through many stages: From phrenology and eugenic thinking to sociological thinking like Merton to a resurgence of conservative social and criminological ideology, the way that Americans and the world have conceptualized, imagined, and proposed solutions to criminals and to the problem of crime has changed tremendously over a mere century. Sing Sing Prison is a unique cross-section, the equivalent to the slice of bedrock, for understanding 19^th, 20^th and 21^st century criminology.

19^th century criminology focused on an admixture of punishment and rehabilitation efforts, but the rehabilitation efforts were not psychiatric; rather, they tended towards Puritanical norms (Gado, 2011). 19^thcentury criminology tended towards trying to find a “single cause of crime”, while realizing the ultimate futility of this effort (Cote, 2002, xvii). This was also the period of philosophers like Jeremy Bentham, who would end up designing the panopticon as a method to humanely control prisoners without needing any force or even any cages (Cote, 2002, xvii-xviii). According to French post-modern philosopher Michel Foucault, whose work focused on disciplinary power, this was the period where a sharp gap between the criminal or the mentally ill and the general population emerged, borrowing from earlier conceptions (1969; 1975). “A distinctive feature of modern power (disciplinary control) is its concern with what people have not done (nonobservence), with, that is, a person's failure to reach required standards. This concern illustrates the primary function of modern disciplinary systems: to correct deviant behavior. The goal is not revenge (as in the case of the tortures of premodern punishment) but reform, where, of course, reform means coming to live by society's standards or norms. Discipline through imposing precise norms (“normalization”) is quite different from the older system of judicial punishment, which merely judges each action as allowed by the law or not allowed by the law and does not say that those judged are “normal” or “abnormal”. This idea of normalization is pervasive in our society: e.g., national standards for educational programs, for medical practice, for industrial processes and products” (Gutting, 2008). Similarly, in early colonial America, particularly the Puritanical states to the North, crimes were punished harshly, but the idea of prison, of taking people out of the social fabric, was inexcusable: The harsh punishments, including public shaming, were designed to deter and to rehabilitate, not for revenge. “For all the crimes the colonists committed, there were plenty of punishments to choose from. Most of the punishments were public, where heavy use of shame and shaming was included. Through the method of shaming, the criminal justice system meant more to teach a lesson than simply punish the offender. The “criminal” was almost always male. However, punishment for such crimes as witchcraft, infanticide, and adultery fell heavily on the women...Imprisonment was uncommon in colonial America since the budding colonies did not have people to spare to keep the community in order. Every person was valuable for their working ability, and losing even one worker to lawkeeping was neither reasonable nor an efficient use of resources. In addition, colonial communities rarely had enough extra money to build a prison and feed prisoners” (Padhy, 2006). It was only in the nineteenth century that conceptions changed from returning the temporarily wayward citizen back to the fold if possible to segregating them from society. Mumia Abu-Jamal, among others, has argued that the timing of this change was due in no small part to the need to exact disciplinary control on newly freed blacks (2009). The same logic applied then and now to restrictions of voting rights upon convicts: “No they [restrictions of voting rights to felons] did not and do not just apply to black felons, but because blacks are overcharged with felonies (especially for drug crimes, which they do not commit more often than whites), they end up bearing a [disproportional cost, and this was the plan from the start. If you follow the legislative history of the states that did this with exfelons who have paid their dues, you will see that they had blatantly racist reasons for doing it: they knew that blacks would get charged more often with felonies, no matter who did the most crime. So it’s racist, much as literacy clauses for voting were. They applied to “everyone” in theory, but everyone knew that in practice, the people to whom it would be applied were black, because of the unequal application of the law” (Wise, 2010). Race and racism were thus always part of the history of 19^th and 20^th century criminological practice.

All of these forces can be observed clearly in the creation of Sing Sing prison, in its conceptualization and design from the very beginning. Elam Lynds, then-head of Auburn Prison, decreed in 1824 that “They [convicts] are not to exchange a word with each other under any pretense whatever; not to communicate in writing. They must not sing, whistle, dance, run, jump, or do anything that has a tendency in the least degree to disturb the harmony...or regulations of the prison” (Gado, 2011). “Such was the guiding wisdom of 19th century penologists who were convinced that the "silent system" was the path to righteousness and a return to normal life” (Gado, 2011). This stemmed from ideas present at the time in criminology: The belief that the prisoner needed to be taken away from toxic environments that created their criminality. “Only after an inmate confronted his criminal past and acknowledged his guilt could a convict rebuild his shattered life. One penologist of the era said that this separation from society had to be so complete, that a prisoner had "to be literally buried from the world!” (Gado, 2011). This is why Sing Sing Prison's walls were so foreboding, and where many modern prisons' design came from. However, the idea was never to lock them away and throw away the key. The modern super-prison is the lineal descendant of Sing Sing, but for very different reasons: There, the goal was a complete break from society for the benefit of the prisoner; now, the goal is to completely shut away the convict from society, no matter the known harms to the prisoner, for the benefit of citizens (who are presumed innocent in this ideology).

These concepts came to a head and achieved their practical apotheosis when Lynds was asked to build a prison in line with the contemporary notions of criminological practice in 1825. “Lynds spent months investigating possible locations for the facility including Staten Island, the Bronx and an area called Mt. Pleasant on the shores of the Hudson River. He also visited New Hampshire where a prison was successfully constructed by inmate labor using stone that was available on site. For this reason, Lynds selected Mt. Pleasant, located near a small village in Westchester County with the unlikely name of Sing Sing” (Gado, 2011). The name came from “Sint Sinks”, local Indian words meaning “stone upon stone”, referring to the notion that the imposing walls would be a protective barrier against the outside world built brick by brick. The initial design was of marble stones produced by 19^th century inmates (Gado, 2011). However, convicts ended up explaining the name very differently, from the ominous songs that workers would try to sing in defiance of Lynds' rules to Granger, Smith and Johnson's song, “Sing Sing Prison Blues”, imagining the name came from the sound of hammers at work. The prison was completed in 1828, with eight hundred cells (Lienhard, 1997).

Prisons prior to Sing Sing were a failed attempt at complete isolation not only from society but from other convicts; and, of course, there were the small and iconic jails in sheriff's offices and small towns across the country, immortalized by the Western cliché of the bad guy behind bars a mere few feet from the sheriff busily working. Sing Sing was trying something new: “[P]risoners doing hard labor together in silence” (Lienhard, 1997).

Sing Sing was one of the first places to use Edison's electric chair, which was in part an attempt to discredit Tesla: Tesla had backed alternating current while Edison had chosen direct current, and Edison's design (ironically a faulty one) used AC (Bellis, 2011). Six hundred fourteen people died in the chair before the state of New York chose to use lethal injection instead (Lienhard, 1997). Because of the increasing association of Sing Sing with imprisonment and death, the nearby town sharing the same named changed it to Ossining, which is its current name (Lienhard, 1997).

The design of cells was spartan. “The 1828 prison was a stark gray stone box -- no trace of ornamentation. The cells were 7 feet high, 6½ feet long, and 3¼ feet wide. They were equipped with a new device invented by an inmate. It was the lever locking mechanism -- a 150-foot-long bar that locked or unlocked 50 cells at once” (Lienhard, 1997).

Eventually, Sing Sing would ascend to the same presence in the American consciousness as Attica, Alcatraz, the Devil's Island, the Tower of London and Leavenworth in terms of recognizability and importance (Lienhard, 1997). “When I was a child, Sing Sing meant prison the way Gillette meant razor blade” (Lienhard, 1997). Even as late as the 1930s, the conception of the prison was still rooted in reform and in returning the fundamental humanity back to the convicts. Lewis Lawes, warden of Sing Sing, wrote his 1932 book Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing and dedicated it to “those tens of thousands of my former wards who have justified my faith in human nature” (Lienhard, 1997). The prison became the source of numerous phrases popular in American culture even into the 21^st century, such as “up the river”, referring to being sent up the Hudson to Sing Sing (Associated Press, 2011).

Lawes' tenure is particularly fascinating for the student of criminology, as Lawes introduced many innovations that were more in tune with a gentler treatment of prisoners that was being advocated by many in the 1930s. “Warden Lawes took charge of Sing Sing in 1920. He appears, for a while, to have made the old hellhole into a model prison with a band, sports teams, educational programs, and more. It even had a little brick aviary on the grounds. Lawes's book detailed his penal philosophy. Reform was clearly his first priority, and he viewed the death penalty as a useless deterrent” (Lienhard, 1997). The 1920s and 1930s included horrible crimes against blacks, the rise of the KKK, the Great Depression... and yet, in criminology at least, there seemed to be an honest and authentic hope about the ability to improve people (Lienhard, 1997). Even more interesting, the hope that Lawes expressed and his seemingly authentic desire to

But it was not just leadership that beatified and beautified the prison: Inmates like Charles E. Chapin, the legendary “Rose Man”, also made the prison a better and more human place to live. Chapin confessed to murder, a former New York City newspaper editor and a sixty-year-old man by the time of his conviction (Cheli, 2003). Lawes met Chapin first in 1919, then again in 1920, this time on what looked to be Chapin's deathbed (Cheli, 2003, 105). Lawes gave Chapin editorship of the prison newspaper, and soon the newspaper became “one of the best prison newspapers in the country”; however, it “was eventually discontinued because of administrative circumstances” (Cheli, 2003, 105). Yet Chapin under Lawes' influence was tenacious. He asked to be allowed to take over the lawn. Before he began his work, it was a sand pit. Chapin and Lawes agreed that the lawn needed to be made beautiful, Chapin himself insisting on roses. Chapin, now known throughout the prison as the Rose Man, and the men working under him cleared refuse, brought in and turned in topsoil, working from dawn to sunset, Chapin himself seeming to have a “new lease on life” (Cheli, 2003, 105). Chapin studied horticulture books and became an accomplished botanist himself. A gardener from a nearby town visited the garden and, impressed, shared tips with Chapin, bringing in “truckloads” worth of flowers and other plants (Cheli, 2003, 105). Almost as if a karmic adjustment had occurred to the entire prison, birds began to come by 1926, roosting in the flowers and trees Chapin and his men had planted, and Chapin became the master of the aviary. Chapin's story, among many others in the prison, illustrates that it was not just idealistic reformers puffing up their chest or exaggerating their accomplishments; rather, there was a real transformation at work for many prisoners, and real opportunities being given.

But the winds of change blew to the modern “tough on crime” approach. The Willie Horton scandal, “three strikes”, California having built nearly two dozen prisons and only one new university... these elements have made modern treatment of prisoners and the conception of them in the public very different from the reform-oriented notions of the 19^th and 20^th centuries (Education not Incarceration, 2004). Again, the “tough on crime” concept can be traced in part to underlying race relations dynamics: With the end of segregation and the ascension of civil rights, it was necessary to have mechanisms to control the black population. Presently, in Sing Sing, 89% of prisoners are Black or Hispanic (Moller, 2004). This is despite the fact that the underlying crime rate has not changed that markedly, and in fact crime in most indices has declined (Wise, 2010). “By '94, and still today, about two-thirds are people of color and a third are white. That's not because people of color went on a crime spree and white folks, as my mama might have said, shaped up and flew right. It was because the resources of the justice system were deployed in a disparate way, and so some things have gotten better, some things have stayed similar, and some things have even gotten worse” (Wise, 2010). There is simply a war being waged on the underclass and black (Wise, 2010; Leighton and Reiman, 2009; Chomsky, 1995).

Similarly, there is also a class and economic dynamic. Leighton and Reiman make clear in their The rich get richer and the poor get prison that the change towards a “tough on crime” position is riddled with class concepts that are absurd: They outline how corporate malfeasance, industrial accidents, and many other actions either not imagined as crimes or given such ludicrously low punishments (indeed, often no jail time) are far more dangerous to the economy and to people, yet these crimes are overwhelmingly committed by the upper-middle class and rich (and therefore overwhelmingly white and disproportionately male). Social critic Noam Chomsky connects this phenomenon to the issues of race and imperialism thusly: “The surplus population has to be kept in ignorance, but also controlled. The problem is faced directly in the Third World domains that have long been dominated by the West and therefore reflect the guiding values of the masters most clearly: here favored devices include death squads, "social cleansing," torture, and other techniques of proven effectiveness. At home, more civilized methods are (still) required. The superfluous population is to be cooped up within urban slums that increasingly resemble concentration camps, or if that fails, sent to prisons, the counterpart in a richer society to the death squads we train and support in our domains” (1995). The horrible conditions of slums, the neo-liberal changes to the economy that have denied industrial jobs to the poor in America while hyper-exploiting the poor abroad, the need to exact disciplinary power upon a much-feared black and poor populace... race, class and empire intersect at Sing Sing today (Chomsky, 1995).

There has also been a change in the level of quality of treatment of prisoners. Human Rights Watch has documented a horrific history of widespread rape and sexual abuse and victimization among American prisons (2007). “4.5 percent of the state and federal prisoners surveyed reported sexual victimization in the past 12 months. Given a national prison population of 1,570,861, the BJS findings suggest that in one year alone more than 70,000 prisoners were sexually abused” (Human Rights Watch, 2007). Torture is also widespread (AFSC, 2005). Bonnie Kerness of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker human rights and peace organization, finds that she “receive[s] testimonies of brutality, humiliation, physical and sexual abuse from men, women and children in prisons...We receive reports from people being forced to live in prolonged isolation for ten, even twenty years, being abused with devices of torture such as stun belts or restraint chairs... We hear from women being forced to engage in sexual acts. We hear from children as young as 12 being placed in isolation, saying that 'if they don't beat you physically then they mentally abuse you” (AFSC, 2005). One California inmate had thirty percent of his skin boiled off in a too-hot bath; others have seen chain gangs (AFSC, 2005). The United Nations Committee on Torture has declared the US a violator of standards for torture (AFSC, 2005).

Sing Sing in the modern era is thus unsurprisingly drab, and often brutal.”Today, the aviary is gone. Sing Sing is as grim as ever” (Lienhard, 1997). It is easy to forget Lawes' moving words when looking at the depravity that characterizes the prison now: “We may never produce a world with "Men like gods," but we can at least implant a social consciousness that shall make each of us in truth and in fact his brother's keeper” (Lawes, 1932; Lienhard, 1997). The brutality stems in no small part from unpreparedness and fear on the part of the guards. Ted Conover in Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing examined Sing Sing from the perspective of a guard, finding that inmates were treated horribly but that guards themselves faced danger and apathy. “Conover sought out a work assignment that would maximize his opportunity to observe prison life. Most of his time at Sing Sing was spent in close contact with the inmates, in dining halls and housing galleries, doing strip searches, searching cells, writing disciplinary infraction reports, and confiscating inmate contraband. Because they live in an enforced state of near helplessness, responding to inmates who required assistance with an apparently endless array of personal problems filled much of Conover’s time... [V]irtually all serious, firsthand accounts of correctional work describe a gap between the training and the reality of the job, official policies and procedures that require routine circumvention, poor relations between line officers and administrators, and the corrosive influence of stress on professional conduct and personal life” (Riley, 2000; Conover, 2000). It is unsurprising that untrained, ill-equipped, overstressed guards express sentiments like the notion that they “wouldn't piss them if they were on fire” and reminesce over the “good old days” when they could “beat the shit out of” inmates (Riley, 2000; Conover, 2000). Violations of prison rules against contraband are constant, and Conover found himself not only bringing in cigarettes but finding a gleaning of comfort in the beating of an inmate. Sing Sing is like most other prisons in America now: Brutal, with widespread rape and abuse.

Changing social norms have also enacted forcefields upon the prison: Homosexuality, openly transsexual and transvestite inmates, and other non-traditional gender norms have been reported (Conover, 2000; Riley, 2000).

Today, Sing Sing faces deep political unpopularity, particularly in Ossining. “Several politicians representing the area around Sing Sing are asking the governor to close the famous old prison...[S]tate, county, town and village officials say the Sing Sing Correctional Facility is unwanted in Ossining. They say it contributes little to the local economy... [and that] selling the riverfront site could make a profit for the state and bring tax revenue to Ossining”(Associated Press, 2011). Hugh Carey, former Governor of New York, pledged in 1975 to close the prison (Scott, 2011). The current plan is to turn it into condos. Already, aging guards such as Richard Plaskett live in Sing Sing proper, renting for $100 (Furman, 2010). The building could be repurposed or simply demolished.

Sing Sing is again a barometer for much of the rest of the country, where prison shrinkage or closing in response to crisis-level conditions and a growing anti-prison movement that argues that prison expenditures are far less effective than investments into rehab, education and other more socially liberal methods (Melzer, 2011; Education Not Incarceration, 2004). The Michigan governor, for example, is trying to close a prison by releasing eight thousand prisoners who have served minimum sentences on parole (Melzer, 2011). Unfortunately, it seems that these efforts are motivated more by cost-saving and political calculation than honest concern for inmates. Without authentic support programs, it is very likely that these felons are likely to relapse (Office of the Legislative Auditor, 1997). Devah Pager's famous sutdy found that felons find it immensely difficult to get a job, though white felons (a minority of the present prison population) find it easier to get a job than black non-felons (Pager, Western and Bonikowski, 2009). Without educational support, job development support, protection for former felons against employment discrimination, housing support, etc. a wave of crime and relapse into now-even-more crowded prisons seems inevitable.

In any respect, whatever Sing Sing's ultimate fate, as one of America's most important prisons it remains a fascinating case study for understanding American criminological development. It seems that America could do worse than to return to Lawes' conception of a prison as a place to ennoble the human spirit and attempt to return goodness and decency to people, rather than as a concentration camp in a war against the poor and black.

Works Cited

Abu-Jamal, Mumia. Jailhouse Laywers. City Lights: San Francisco, CA. 2009.

American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). “Widespread Torture Exists in US Prisons”. November 15, 2005.

Associated Press. “Local politicians around New York's Sing Sing prison suggest shutting it down”. April 5, 2011.

Bellis, Mary. “Death, Money, and the History of the Electric Chair”. About. 2011.

Cheli, Guy. Sing Sing Prison. Arcadia Publishing: Charleston, SC. 2003.

Chomsky, Noam. “Rollback Part II”. Z Magazine. January-May 1995.

Conover, Ted. Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing. New York: Random House. 2000.

Cote, Suzette. Criminological theories: bridging the past to the future. SAGE: Thousand Oaks, California. 2002.

Education Not Incarceration.”Education Not Incarceration”. 2004.

Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge, translated by A. Sheridan Smith, New York: Harper and Row, 1972.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish, translated by Alan Sheridan, New York: Pantheon, 1977.

Furman, Phyllis. “Sing Sing correction officer lives at the prison to save money for retirement”. New York Daily News. August 2, 2010.

Gado, Mark. “Stone Upon Stone: Sing Sing Prison”. TruTV. 2011.

Gutting, Gary. “Michel Foucault”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.

Human Rights Watch. “US: Federal Statistics Show Widespread Prison Rape”. December 15, 2007.

Lawes, L., Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing. New York: A.L. Burt Company, 1932.

Lienhard, John. “Sing Sing Prison”. Engines of Our Ingenuity. No. 1034. University of Houston.

Melzer, Eartha Jane. “Michigan governor seeks to close prison and save the state millions”. The American Independent. February 18, 2011.

Moller, Lorraine. “PRISON WITHIN A PRISON:

A BURKEAN ANALYSIS OF THE SING SING STAGE PRODUCTION OF "SLAM".

Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture. 10(3): 181-198. 2004.

Office of the Legislative Auditor for the State of Minnesota. “Recidivism of Adult Felons”. Report #97-01. January 1997.

Padhy, Prafulla. Crime and Criminology. 2006.

Pager, Devah, Western, Bruce and Bonikowski, Bart. Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment. Am Sociol Rev. 2009 October 1; 74(5): 777–799.

Panetta, R., The Design and Construction of Sing Sing Prison, 1825-1828. The Westchester Historian, Vol. 62, No. 2, Spring 1986, pp. 35-55.

Reiman, Jeffrey and Leighton, Paul. The rich get richer and the poor get prison: ideology, class, and criminal justice. Allyn & Bacon. 2009.

Riley, J. “Newjack: Beyond the Stereotype of the Brutal Guard”. Alaska Justice Forum 17(3): 3– 4. Fall 2000.

Scott, Brendan. “'Up the river' views: Sing Sing condos”. New York Post. April 6, 2011.

Wise, Tim. “Tim Wise”. Tavis Smiley. June 28, 2010.

Wise, Tim. “Faux-pression: Racism and the Cult of White Victimhood”. July 20, 2010.

Writing Samples

Readers: One of the purposes of this blog is to demonstrate some of my writing samples.