PRISON HOBBYCRAFT

Every prison has a laundry. Next to the “dining hall,” it is the most important operation in the institution. N5 inmates were assigned to work in the David Wade Correctional Center laundry. I was housed at that penal facility and in that particular living unit between December 1994 and March 2004.

N5 was a special protection unit created shortly after DWCC was opened in 1980. At the time the Louisiana prison system was experiencing a prison building boom, forced into hiring any and every kind of prison guard. Many of these guards, for a host of different criminal reasons, became convicted felons committed to the same prison system they were hired to protect. N5 was the special unit created to protect them as inmates. The unit over the years expanded it protection purpose to include convicted former law enforcement officers, pedophile priests, juveniles tried as adults, and high profile informants/government witnesses.

I fell into the latter category.

There were several reasons why protection inmates worked the laundry.

First, the protection unit had a small, confined work force. It was convenient from an administrative point of view to utilize this work force in such a critical area. Second, N5 inmates didn’t steal other inmates clothing as was a major security problem when general population inmates had been assigned to the laundry. Finally, N5 inmates worked harder and more diligently to make sure the clothes were properly cleaned and dried—something the general population inmates didn’t have an affinity for.

I was assigned to the laundry in 1996. I had spent the previous 18 months working on a 12-man N5 farm line crew. The laundry was considered a “privileged” assignment. That privilege given to me by then Warden Kelly Ward, but only after my wife had threatened to sue him should anything happen to me “in the fields.” The prison’s medical staff had become increasingly concerned about my elevated blood pressure and a heart murmur. Ward opted remove me from the field crew and put me in the laundry to cover his ass. Concern for his ass was more important than his dislike for me.

The laundry had a “special projects” program that had been created before my arrival at DWCC. This special projects program was initially set up for skilled inmates—especially woodcraftsmen and sign painters—but was ultimately transformed under the tutelage of pedophile priest into a “sex harem” for the juvenile lifers (as was documented in a 1997 Houston Chronicle piece about the corrupt relationship between the priest, a federal judge, and the corrections secretary).

The pedophile priest eventually turned the project into a profitable hobbycraft venue for inmates associated with the priest.

Illicit narcotics trafficking once were the main source of revenue for inmates in the Louisiana prison system. That changed in the 1980s as the prison system expanded. Inmate hobbycraft became the main fuel for the inmate economy in most of the state’s penal facilities.

Hobbycraft is a sprawling program, sanctioned by the prison administrators for its “rehabilitation” value. The program allows inmates to make hundreds, even thousands, of tax-free dollars each year. The program works something like this: the institution provides a designated work area where inmates can work on various kinds of hobbycraft – wood, leather, jewelry, arts, etc., with wood and leather being the most lucrative.

Skilled inmates are allowed to secure a “hobbycraft” box by placing their name on a waiting list. Hobbycraft openings become available when an inmate in the program is released, transferred to another institution, or removed from the program for disciplinary reasons. Participating inmates are allowed to purchase, and maintain, an inventory of personal tools and supplies in their hobbycraft boxes (or assigned areas). Prison officials infrequently conduct “hobbycraft inventory” checks to make sure that all the tools and supplies in the boxes match the inmate’s official property list. An inmate with tools or supplies in his box not on the inventory list forfeits his box.

Inmates have several commercial outlets in which to market their hobbycraft. They send items out of the institution on visiting day through family members after securing administrative approval. Family members either keep the hobbycraft for personal use or sell it to free world “arts and crafts” dealers. Inmates can also place a limited amount of hobbycraft in a designated area in the prison’s visiting room where it can be purchased by visitors. The funds are deposited in the inmate’s account.

These two commercial outlets are generally used by the small-time operators – some of whom don’t even make enough profit to cover the costs of their tools and supplies. They “work hobbycraft” as a way of passing time. It keeps many of them out of trouble. “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop” signs hang in many prison hobby shops.

But the big time operators - the hogs of the industry - not only use these commercial venues but dominate the remaining revenue-producing outlets: prison sanctioned Arts and Crafts Festivals (generally staged in the spring and fall at each state penal facility); prison rodeos where thousands of spectators are allowed to purchase hobbycraft; and sales to prison officials.

All three of these outlets are rife with official corruption.

The first Arts and Crafts Festival (as it became known) began as part of the Angola Prison Rodeo in the late 1960s. Virtually every penal facility in the state now hosts either annual or bi-annual festivals of some sort in some venue. These festivals are promoted by the prison. The booths are manned by “volunteer” prison staff who sells the inmates’ hobbycraft. Each sale generates a small percentage for the institution’s Inmate Welfare Fund. IWF funds are used to purchase inmate recreational items like televisions, board games, and sports equipment like basketballs and footballs.

Big time hobbycraft operators generally have job assignments that give them access to state resources, especially wood. These assignments are in the carpenter shops, maintenance shops, and “special projects” programs like the one at DWCC. These jobs usually give inmates unlimited access to state resources that can be utilized to subsidize hobbycraft endeavors. The supervisors over these jobs - and other higher ranking prison officials - look the other way because they are the beneficiaries of “free” hobbycraft when they need it.

This corrupt practice goes beyond petty pilfering of a state coffer. It amounts to wholesale theft of state property. It is so widespread that the big time operators can easily afford the “graft” of free hobbycraft to prison officials. They make up for it with sales at the festivals and prison rodeos.

During my 20-year stay at Angola prison, I became aware of one security colonel who furnished a new $250,000 home (purchased with prison drug and protection-racket money) through the prison’s hobbycraft program. This colonel occasionally brought a prostitute into the prison to satisfy the inmate he had assigned to his home-furnishing project. The colonel let the inmate “take care of business” with the prostitute in one of the rooms at the prison’s Bachelor Quarters.

Some skilled inmate woodcraftsmen used their talents not only to make lots of money but to buy their way out of prison as well.

For example, two murderers with special hobbycraft skills were taken care of by Gov. Edwards before he left office in 1996.

One of the murderers was given a “special project” at the State Police Barracks to make an elaborate gun rack and a huge desk for Edwards’ chief of staff. This special assignment gave the murderer approved unrestricted access to call the governor’s office anytime he needed speak with the governor’s chief of staff. The special assignment became his fulltime job assignment.

There was a definite quid pro quo arrangement in place. In exchange for a “well-done job, the inmate was assured that his life sentence would be commuted by Edwards and that he would be released on parole. And that’s exactly what happened.

But this case even became even more flagrant than a mere quid pro quo arrangement.

This inmate got State Police officials to assign a close friend, contract killer, to help him with the “special project.” Making the desk and gun rack per specifications of the governor’s chief of staff had proven to be a mammoth undertaking. Since the contract killer had certain woodworking skills the murderer lacked, the murderer convinced the governor’s chief of staff that he needed contract killer’s help. State police officials approved the dual collaboration on the special project.

Of course, this arrangement meant that the contract killer had to receive executive clemency relief as well. Edwards had no problem with that. He had a long history of granting pardons as special favors. He commuted the contract killer’s life sentence to parole eligibility and both men walked out of prison, and the chief of staff took the gun rack and desk to his personal residence.

The same scenario played out in the case with a double-murderer.

In 1975, this individual walked into a barroom where his estranged girlfriend sat with three companions. After being rebuffed by the girlfriend, he retrieved an automatic shotgun from his vehicle, returned to the barroom, opened fire on the table, killed two of his ex-girlfriend’s companions, and seriously wounded her and the other companion. He pled guilty to the two murders and received two life sentences.

He became a prized inmate at DWCC because of his woodcraftsman’s skills. After the DWCC warden was named corrections secretary in 1992, he had double murderer transferred from DWCC to the State Police Barracks and assigned him to work at corrections headquarters. Through this position, “Tex” - as he was fondly known - had daily access to pardon and parole board members. He used that access to ply these board members with free hobbycraft (specialized birdhouses). Those birdhouses produced enough “goodwill” that the Edwards pardon board recommended that his life sentences be commuted to 75 years. Gov. Edwards signed the recommendation in the waning days of his administration in 1995.

A little more than three years later Tex was released on parole by the parole board under Republican Gov. Mike Foster. The double-murderer had secured the good graces of this “crime victims friendly” board after he plied its members with “specialized” birdhouses, including one or more to arch-conservative chairperson Peggy Landry, aka “Pistol Packin’ Peggy”.

Put simply, these three killers bartered hobbycraft in exchange for release from prison.

“It’s the power of hobbycraft,” Johnny McIntyre, an N5 inmate lifer, once said to me.

Prison hobbycraft is indeed a power – one that corrupts security and administrative decision-making at every level throughout the Louisiana prison system, especially at DWCC and the Barracks. It’s like a cancer that invades a healthy body and ravages it.

While most small-time hobbycraft operators follow the “rules” when selling their craft to prison officials, the big boys use “free” hobbycraft to curry official favor and preferential treatment just as the three Barracks murderers did.

I’ve been out of the Louisiana prison for two decades, but I doubt if much has changed. Corruption is systemic in any prison system at every level.