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Supreme Court Debates Segregation In Prisons....

Thread ID: 15532 | Posts: 9 | Started: 2004-11-02

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xmetalhead [OP]

2004-11-02 21:05 | User Profile

[I]....and not a damn word about Black on White RAPE??? WTF? You see, keeping the Black man down in prison deprives him of his booty calls. Keeping the prisons somewhat safe is bad for the Black man's feelings, yo. I don't have the words to express my overwhelming disgust at what I reading here.....[/I]

[SIZE=3][B]Justices Debate Segregation in Prisons[/B][/SIZE]

50 minutes ago

By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court took up a racial segregation case Tuesday that asks if black California inmates are being unconstitutionally bunked together for months at a time, in the name of keeping prisons safe.

The Bush administration has sided with a black convicted killer who claims he has been humiliated by forced prison segregation.

Fifty years after the Supreme Court declared racial segregation unconstitutional in public schools, said acting Solicitor General Paul Clement, the court must make clear that governments cannot separate people based on skin color in other places without the strongest of reasons.

Clement reminded the court of America's "uniquely pernicious history" of racial discrimination in prisons, evoking images of chain gangs and prison farms in the Deep South.

The case poses an interesting conflict for the high court. Since the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the court has repeatedly held that racial segregation is unacceptable, including a 1968 decision barring blanket segregation in prisons.

But justices have also given prison officials a generally free hand in managing their facilities, to control violence and protect inmates and those who guard them.

"California is ground zero for race-based prison and street gangs," Frances Grunder, the state's senior assistant attorney general, told the court as she defended temporary segregation of inmates.

At issue is an unwritten California policy, dating back more than 25 years, requiring officials to assign newly arrived black prisoners to bunk only with other black prisoners for two months or more. Inmates are separated again by race when they transfer to a new facility.

Grunder said similar inmate segregation is also used in Texas and Oklahoma. California has more than 165,000 inmates and violence can erupt if white and black gang members are mixed, she said.

If the Supreme Court clears California's policy, other states will feel free to copy it. Eight states side with California in the case: Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Utah.

The inmate who challenged the practice is Garrison Johnson, who has been in prison since 1987 for murder, robbery and assault. He contends the policy violates his constitutional right to equal treatment.

Johnson's attorney, Bert Deixler of Los Angeles, told justices the Supreme Court has helped "march this country away from the road of segregation, and there should be no turning back."

Johnson, who is not a gang member, has been forced into segregation with each transfer — five so far and a sixth coming soon, the attorney said.

The high court's only black member, Clarence Thomas (news - web sites), was silent during the argument, in keeping with his usual practice. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist is expected to vote although he missed the argument because he is receiving radiation and chemotherapy for thyroid cancer.

The other justices had a lively debate about the Crips, Bloods and the Aryan Brotherhood.

Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) said prison officials are smart not to put white and black tattooed gang members in the same cell until officials have had time to assess how dangerous they are. Prisoners lose many rights, Scalia said. "That's one of the consequences of committing a crime and being sent to prison."

But Justice Steven Breyer, echoing concerns raised by opponents of prison segregation, said, "With racial discrimination, it's a terrible symbol ... divisive to the whole society."

The court's last major race case was last year when justices upheld limited affirmative action in college admissions.

The case is Johnson v. California, 03-636.

[url]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=6&u=/ap/20041102/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_prison_segregation[/url]

Happy Hacker

2004-11-02 21:38 | User Profile

Showing concern for whites would be racist, don't you know. Even if 100% of interracial prison rape were black and white, you still would not be allowed to use that as a defense for segregating prisoners.

Murder, robbery, assault... and this black thug is worried that being segregated is humiliating? Why hasn't he been executed?

wild_bill

2004-11-04 09:19 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]Showing concern for whites would be racist, don't you know. Even if 100% of interracial prison rape were black and white, you still would not be allowed to use that as a defense for segregating prisoners.

Murder, robbery, assault... and this black thug is worried that being segregated is humiliating? Why hasn't he been executed?[/QUOTE]

The most annoying thing is the George W. Bush is backing the black prisoner.

il ragno

2004-11-04 11:12 | User Profile

[QUOTE]The Bush administration has sided with a black convicted killer who claims he has been humiliated by forced prison segregation.[/QUOTE]

He was just re-elected, and already he's paying dividends. FOUR MORE YEARS!

Though, in fairness, a Kerry administration would have pressed for immediate seminars for white prisoners, teaching them how to correctly dab grape Kool-Aid on their eyelids to make them more alluring.

Doncha love the way anytime the subject is prisons, the default setting for prison population is always "killers and rapists"? Like nobody's in there for passing bad checks. Especially now, when there are so many blasted laws on the books you have to look both ways for cops before you dare light up a cigarette or double-park.

Well, by the time you can get sent away for questioning the Holocaust or the Project For A New American Century (which will be soon), maybe the default setting will be expanded to "killers, rapists and terrorists". If only Thomas Paine were alive today, he'd be the first man fu**ed in the ass for the sake of [I]Common Sense[/I].

Samuel

2004-11-09 17:48 | User Profile

The below article called "Hard Time" is a real eye opener. It can be found at

[url]http://www.amren.com/0204issue/0204issue.html#article1[/url]

This is what awaits a white man that goes to prison!

Hard Time

Cruel and unusual punishment in American prisons.

reviewed by Jared Taylor

Joanne Mariner

No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons

Human Rights Watch, 2001, $25.00, (softcover), 378 pp.

here are probably more men than women raped in the United States every year—most of them in prison. Best estimates put the annual number of prison rapes at about 140,000, which is 50,000 more than the 90,000 or so rapes of women reported to police. Gang rape of the most brutal kind is common, and weaker prisoners often seek protection from a “daddy” who fights off other predators in exchange for total submission and sex on demand. There is an ugly racial dimension to prison rape: Blacks and Mexicans deliberately seek out white victims, and black-on-white rape is probably more common than any other kind. Prison rape is an appalling secret in a country that prides itself on human rights.

One reason there is so much prison rape is that Americans refuse even to think about it. The sheer brutality of it and the racial hatred that so often drives it are too gruesome to face. To its immense credit, a lefty organization called Human Rights Watch has done a serious prison-rape study and has published its findings in a book-length report called No Escape. Human Rights Watch ordinarily specializes in trendy causes: opposition to landmines, the death penalty, and alleged violence against homosexuals in American schools. In this case, it has taken on the most untrendy of subjects, and describes inmate rape—and hatred for whites—in unflinching detail. It solicited accounts of rape by advertising in Prison Legal News and Prison Life—magazines that have high circulation in prisons—and reaped a wealth of first-hand horror stories.

There is considerable variation from one prison system to another, and among different prisons within the same system, but the general picture that emerges is of a world of constant violence. As one prisoner explains in No Escape:

“When a new inmate enters an open barracks prison it triggers a sort of competition among the convicts as to who will seduce and subjugate that new arrival. . . . Every new arrival is a potential victim. Unless the new arrival is strong, ugly, and efficient at violence, they are subject to get seduced, coerced, or raped . . . . Psychosocially, emotionally, and physically the most dangerous and traumatic place I can conceive of is the open-barracks prison when first viewed by a new inmate.”

The only sure defense against rape is the willingness to fight, and even this may be no protection against gang assault. In many prisons a small, unaggressive white is sure to be raped, probably by blacks or Hispanics. As one prison guard explains, a young white has “almost zero” chance of escaping rape “unless he’s willing to stick someone with a knife and fortunate enough to have one.” Some of the tougher inmates may even fight each other for the chance to rape an effeminate young white.

Rape is so common it has its own terminology. To rape a heterosexual man and turn him into a sexual plaything is to “turn him out,” and the victim is known as a “turnout” or “punk.” If a turnout seeks the protection of another inmate to avoid an endless series of rapes by other prisoners, he is “riding with” his protector. He becomes essentially the property of his protector and is known as his “bitch” or “ho” or “boy.”

One inmate uses the lingo to explain the importance of violence: “If you’re knocked down and don’t get up you’re a ‘ho’; you have to ride.” An essential quality in prison is “heart,” or a man’s willingness to keep fighting long after he is clearly beaten. As inmates explained to Human Rights Watch, a real man “would die before giving up his anal virginity.” A man who will not fight is a “punk” who deserves humiliation and exploitation.

The racial dynamic in prisons puts whites at a tremendous disadvantage. First, whites are often outnumbered by both blacks and Hispanics. But far more important, just as they show no racial solidarity in “the free world,” whites in prison do not band together to protect each other from predators. As No Escape reports, Hispanics sometimes rape Hispanics, and blacks sometimes rape blacks, but neither group permits anyone of another race to rape its own people. If a black tried to “turn out” a Mexican, the Mexicans would riot and try to kill him. Blacks also defend each other from white or Hispanic rapists. It is only whites—unless they are known members of white racialist gangs who do stick together—who are on their own and can be raped with impunity. It would be hard to think of a more cruel consequence of stripping whites of racial consciousness.

Some whites must choose between being the sex slave of one man or facing repeated assault. The stories they told No Escape read like nightmares:

“I had no choice but to submit to being Inmate B’s prison wife. Out of fear for my life, I submitted to sucking his dick, being ****ed in my ass, and performing other duties as a woman, such as making his bed. In all reality, I was his slave . . . . I determined I’d be better off to willingly have sex with one person, than I would be to face violence and rape by multiple people. The most tragic part to this is that the person I chose to ‘be with’ has AIDS.”

A Michigan inmate writes:

“[Another prisoner] claimed me as his property and I didn’t dispute it. I became obedient, telling myself at least I was surviving . . . . He publicly humiliated and degraded me, making sure all the inmates and guards knew that I was a queen and his property. Within a week he was pimping me out to other inmates at $3.00 a man. This state of existence continued for two months until he sold me for $25.00 to another black male who purchased me to be his wife.”

A different inmate describes how he became a black man’s “ho.”

“You will clean the house, he said, have my clothes clean, and when I’m ready to get my ‘freak’ [sex] no arguments or there will be a punishment! I will, he said, let my homeboys have you or I’ll just sale you off. Do we have an understanding? With fear, misery, and confusion inside me . . . I said yes.”

Once a man “owns” another—and it is almost always a black “owning” a white—he is property in every sense. He can be rented out, sold or auctioned, told how to dress and talk, and given a woman’s name. That this can happen is essentially unknown outside the prison world. “It would amaze you (as it did me) to see human beings bought & sold like shoes,” writes a Texan prisoner. “You can buy a kid for 20 or 30 dollars on most wings!!” writes another. “They sell them like cattle.”

“Riding” with a “daddy” may be the only way to avoid the degradation of one Virginia inmate who described what happened when six blacks entered his cell and demanded sex:

Open dormitory in a Texas prison.
“I said to myself, ‘Oh no! I’m in trouble!’ I looked toward the door for an escape route finding it blocked. It was at this time that the floor officer came by on the bottom tier (I was on the top tier), doing or supposedly doing, his rounds. He noticed the inmates in my cell and asked if everything was all right. Too terrified to answer, I just nodded. [The officer] never came to the top tier during his round. I was then dragged back to my bed. . . . [All of them, plus one more] took turns anally and orally raping me at the same time. All of them repeatedly did this. Somewhere in the middle of this, inmate F entered and said “suck this dick you white bitch.”. . . . [One said,] ‘If you snitch on us, we’ll kill you!!’ At that time, I really believed them, and I still think this today.”

As one Indiana prisoner explains, repeated rape takes a staggering physical and psychological toll:

“I’ve been sentenced for a D.U.I. offense. My 3rd one. I’m a tall white male, who unfortunately has a small amount of feminine characteristics. And very shy. These characteristics have got me raped so many times I have no more feelings physically. I have been raped by up to 5 black men at a time. . . . I probably have AIDS now. I have great difficulty raising food to my mouth from shaking after nightmares or thinking so hard on all this. . . . I’ve laid down without a physical fight to be sodomized. To prevent so much damage in struggles, ripping and tearing. Though in not fighting, it caused my heart and spirit to be raped as well. Something I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself for.”

Needless to say, men will do just about anything to avoid this kind of horror. Suicide is the leading cause of death in prisons, and is the only way out for some rape victims. Some break prison rules so they will be locked up in punitive custody. One prisoner even had his family deposit money into bank accounts owned by the black Crips gang in the hope of buying protection. Of course, he was raped anyway.

“I’ve laid down without a fight to be sodomized. To prevent so much damage in struggles, ripping and tearing.”

No Escape recognizes reluctantly that blacks and Hispanics often rape whites out of pure hatred, and relish the chance to degrade whites. As one inmate explains, “Gangs of black and Spanish inmates are very angry at free-world white people for a variety of reasons, and this results in an attitude of vengeance towards white people in prisons.” Blacks reportedly like to say “Y’all may run it out there, but this is our world!” or “Ain’t no fun when the rabbit’s got the gun, is it?”

One white explains that “those two races [blacks and Hispanics] have a lot of people in here and take advantage of us by making the small and weak ones ride or turn them out, and the big ones have to fight all the time.”

Human Rights Watch appears surprised to discover the obvious:

“Certain prison systems seem to have almost no positive social interaction—not even the most trivial—between members of different races.”

“Prisoners’ social relationships are largely determined by race; their gang affiliation, if they have one, is racially defined; and whatever racist beliefs they may have held prior to their imprisonment are likely to be significantly strengthened over the course of their stay in prison.”

Despite what the book tells us about what happens to so many whites, No Escape cannot resist conventional pieties:

“Many white prisoners told Human Rights Watch that they were uncomfortable with blacks and would prefer to live in a racially segregated environment. A few espoused virulently racist views. More so than African American prisoners, many whites asserted that the prison experience had made them racist—or, as they tended to put it, ‘racially aware.’ “

It is hardly astonishing that white prisoners should be “uncomfortable” around blacks. Nor is it surprising that they want to get away from them, whereas blacks are less inclined to be separated from people they can rape, buy and sell, pimp out, and humiliate with impunity. It is true that prison doesn’t teach blacks and Hispanics to hate whites; they hate whites long before they get to prison. Needless to say, this book makes no attempt to understand this hatred, implying that it is normal for victims of a “racist” society. Nor is any black or Hispanic reported to express “virulently racist views,” not even when he tells a white victim, “suck this dick, you white bitch.”

The book is full of recommendations—some good—but the one about race relations is an almost perfect distillation of liberal foolishness:

“Given the element of racial bias in many instances of prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse, steps should be taken to address racial tensions in the inmate population. DOC [Department of Corrections] staff should receive racial sensitivity training. Racial slurs and other forms of harassment—whether from inmates or staff—should not be tolerated.”

As anyone not blinded by orthodoxy knows, the only thing that will “address racial tensions in the inmate population” is segregation. Blacks and Hispanics hate whites because they cannot build the societies and institutions whites can, and because everyone—including whites—tells them whites are to blame for their failures. They also hate whites because whites are weak and refuse to defend each other. “Sensitivity training” for prison guards would affect this as much as it would affect the law of gravity.

Even some of the inmates don’t understand what is happening. “I hate to say this,” [emphasis added] says one, “but if you weren’t racist when you came to prison more than likely you will be when you leave.” Despite what he has seen and suffered, this man still thinks he has to apologize for not wanting to be around blacks and Hispanics.

Why is prison rape so well hidden, and why haven’t prisoners brought huge damages suits against the prisons that permit it? First, the guards appear to be uniformly oblivious to rape. No Escape finds that “raped inmates frequently say that they are treated scornfully by guards who do not bother to hide the fact that they despise prisoners who are so ‘weak’ as to be victimized.” The report quotes one warden who testified at a trial that “it was the prisoners’ own responsibility to fight off sexual abuse—that prisoners had to let the others ‘understand that [they]’re not going to put up with that.’ “

No Escape does not go into this, but prison guards are likely to be a pretty low breed of cattle themselves. Many are likely to be black, and some may be just as happy as the rapists to see whites humiliated. Many victims therefore do not report rapes. Some are afraid that if they “snitch” their tormentors will kill them. Others are so ashamed of what has happened they tell no one.

The book's recommendations on race relations are an almost perfect distillation of liberal foolishness.

There are times when talking might do some good. John King became famous for dragging a black man to death in Jasper, Texas, in 1998. He became a byword for white “racism,” but with some luck and savvy he could have turned the tables and made the case one of black brutality. Before he killed James Byrd, he had just spent 21 months for burglary in one of Texas’ toughest prisons, the Beto Unit. He was 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighed only 140 pounds when he was sentenced, and reportedly had no pronounced racial views. He emerged covered with white-power tattoos. His lawyer said rape by blacks had deeply affected Mr. King, but that he rarely talked about it.

Whites who kill blacks get no mercy, and Mr. King could not have avoided a death sentence no matter how often he was gang-buggered, but a full account of his horrors would have won considerable public sympathy and attracted badly-needed attention to the tortures white prisoners often face. For a country that is ever on the hunt for “root causes” of black deviance, it would have been edifying to know just what it was that made John King hate blacks. Needless to say, the press never let on, and his crime has gone down as yet another example of the unfathomable evil of whites.

Rape is, of course, a crime, whether committed in prison or the “free world.” However, prosecutors do not think of criminals as part of their constituency, and get little credit in the community for charging perpetrators who are already in jail. Also, they prefer to stay on good terms with prison authorities and let them take care of discipline problems. As this report points out, most violence goes unpunished in prisons, and guards often ignore rape or simply lock the victim in protective custody. Prisoners face actual criminal charges in only extreme cases: murder or assault on a guard.

Human Rights Watch has been unable to find a single case in which a prisoner has been charged with rape, though it would be a strong deterrent if rapists got half a dozen more years tacked onto their sentences. There have been a few successful civil suits against prison systems, but No Escape explains why they are hard to win:

“Under the ‘deliberate indifference’ standard that is applicable to legal challenges to prison officials’ failure to protect prisoners from inter-prisoner abuses such as rape, the prisoner must prove to the court that the defendants had actual knowledge of a substantial risk to him, and that they disregarded that risk. As the courts have emphasized, it is not enough for the prisoner to prove that ‘the risk was obvious and a reasonable prison official would have noticed it.’ Instead, if a prison official lacked knowledge of the risk—no matter how obvious it was to anyone else—he cannot be held liable. In other words, rather than trying to ascertain the true dimensions of the problem of prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse, prison officials have good reason to want to remain unaware of it.”

The United States is always lecturing other countries about human rights, yet we do virtually nothing about a scandalous practice we would denounce in the most self-righteous tones were it to come to light in China or Iraq. It is difficult not to conclude that the racial aspect of these horrors has a lot to do with our determination to ignore them. If whites were routinely gang-buggering and enslaving blacks, there would be a high-powered campaign to stop them, with movie stars queuing up to befriend the victims, and senators preening themselves on their virtuous concern. Because whites are the victims, any investigation would run head-on into facts too awful for public consumption: that blacks and Hispanics are the “racists,” and that forced integration is even more of a disaster behind bars than in the free world.

At the same time, it is a testimony to the power of liberal propaganda that it has driven white racial solidarity out of the minds even of convicted felons. One would have expected an elemental tribalism among the lower orders, but even here only a few “white supremacists” are willing to fight for each other.

To those who can see beyond liberal clichés about race, the dynamics of prison rape are perfectly understandable. To those, like the author of this report, who cannot or will not understand what race really means, this book is an incomprehensible horror. Our prisons reflect our society, and as long as whites are official scapegoats and are forbidden to act in their own interests, and as long as we insist on forcing on prisoners a brutal form of integration no one would choose for himself, white prisoners will be pimped, beaten, gang raped, and infected with AIDS. America refuses to face this problem because it refuses to face itself.

The full text of the Human Rights Watch report can be read at [url]http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/prison[/url]

xmetalhead

2004-11-09 18:05 | User Profile

Let it be known that the United States of America engages in torturing it's own people by allowing prison rape to become practice. Just like the US points one finger at Saddam Hussein, three more fingers point back at us.

This abomination taking place within the 'land of the free' is decaying the very soul of America, softening up Whites to accept the coming Police State, a la East Germany.

See ya there.

Quantrill

2004-11-09 20:51 | User Profile

Samuel, That article is one of the most disturbing things I have ever read. I actually became nauseated while reading it. Truly horrific.

Petr

2004-11-10 05:58 | User Profile

A very relevant article here.

Very rarely does a "mainstream" publication deal with matters like these, and this article proves that in such a tight spot, Whites can survive only by sticking together:

[url]http://www.overthrow.com/lsn/news.asp?articleID=1831[/url] [COLOR=Navy]

[SIZE=4]Texas Prisons -- Hardcore Hate [/SIZE]

[SIZE=3]Playboy Magazine[/SIZE]

Dallas, Texas -- Dallas, Texas -- Playboy Magazine March 2001

Hardcore Hate

by John Doe

A major prison riot occurred in west Texas at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Smith Unit in April 2000. [B]It was a race riot, started when a hispanic prisoner confronted a black inmate who was masturbating in front of a female corrections officer (it's a common practice called "killin' dat ho"). [/B] About 300 black and hispanic prisoners squared off, some battling with garden tools. It took 300 guards six hours to bring the conflagration under control. One inmate died from a pickax wound and 34 others were injured, including three guards.

This riot was unusual only because news of it broke into the national media. There are dozens of such riots every year in Texas but rarely do they make the news. There are also thousands of racial incidents and fights that threaten to escalate into riots.

[B]The Texas prison system is a corrupt and dangerous place for guards and prisoners. With an inmate population 45 percent black, 29 percent white and 26 percent hispanic, the system becomes more extremist on the issue of race. Racial agitation, mindless aggression and confrontation are a way of life for prisoners. [/B] Most prisoners eventually get out and rejoin the public. They take their hatred to the streets, which turn into racial hunting and killing grounds for recidivist criminals.

There are many factors involved in this mess. Principal among them i.s the war on drugs, a failed social policy that has filled Texas penitentiaries. Many petty criminals are hardened by their prison experiences and go on to commit more-serious crimes. This monstrous, growing threat to public safety and security was the greatest failing of George W. Bush's governorship, but no one seems willing to talk about it.

[B]Call me John Doe. I'm white, for folks who keep score. I've done 17 years in the Texas prison system, and currently reside in a unit in east Texas. [/B] It's not far from where John King and Lawrence Brewer did time before they paroled out, met up with Shawn Berry, and killed James ByrdJr. outside Jasper, Texas. I have friends and acquaintances who know King and Brewer, and I knew the victim. Byrd, too, was hardcore and convicted under the Texas equivalent of the "three strikes" law as a habitual criminal.

Byrd was beaten and then chained by the ankles to the back of a pickup. The pathologist testified that Byrd was dragged down a country road, sacrificing body parts in a hopeless effort to keep his head above the pavement. The asphalt acted as coarse sandpaper. His knees, buttocks and arms were ground down until his head hit the pavement. Suddenly his head and right arm caught in a culvert and were torn off. His torso was tossed outside a black cemetery. His head and what remained of him were left in a ditch.

We actually do make license plates in prison. Last year we filled an order for vanity plates for a guy who lives in Jasper. They read: drag em. this occurred right before the Aryan Circle held a springtime barbecue in the town square during the murder trials. So much for the media-hyped racial healing in Jasper.

As for life in my unit, we’ve endured gang fights and race riots over the Byrd murder and its subsequent trials. These riots are never officially described as such by Texas prison spokesmen. For example, there was a race riot in March 1999 at the Allred prison in Iowa Park, Texas. Thirteen men were stabbed or otherwise required hospital-ization. The press called it a riot, but state officials did not-not when Governor George W. Bush was planning his run for president.

We paid a lot of attention to the Byrd trials. The racial motivation for Byrd's slaying was not hard to prove against King. A Ku Klux Klan cigarette lighter with King's nickname was found on the road near Byrd's bloodstains. At one point prosecutors introduced as evidence the rusty, heavy-duty chain used to drag Byrd. Rust stains on the bed of the pickup were linked to the chain. Testimony indicated that King had long planned a "big event" to draw attention to the racial tension in Jasper so he could build a militant, pro-white group.

King is a member of the Confederate Knights of America, a North Carolina-based white supremacist group. His body is covered in tattoos of the Klan, Aryan Nations and CKA, including one of a Klansman Woody Woodpecker hanging a black man. According to the families of King and Brewer, the two did not have racist opinions before going to prison. How can it be that someone would sink from an attitude of racial indifference to one of unswerving racial hatred? The answer is complex, but I've had to sort it out, to keep my sanity and to keep me from hunting down and carving out my own pound of flesh.

King and Brewer were friends at the Beto I Unit in Tennessee Colony, Texas. We refer to Beto I as a gladiator farm-a place full of young inmates who square off daily. King and Brewer fought back- to-back in the dayroom against blacks who tried to "hog" them for their commissary purchases (each prisoner in close custody is allowed to spend up to $60 per month). Sometimes they fought blacks for the privilege of watching TV in the dayroom, or for seats in the dayroom. [B]Races and gangs reserve entire tables and benches, so one must fight to win a seat. If someone refuses to fight, he is "beat down" anyway and his property is taken. If that man still refuses to fight, he is "turned out," and the rest of his days in prison are hell. [/B] In this regard things are the same since I came to prison in 1983. But in many other ways things have gotten worse.

It is in the Texas prisons that King and Brewer acquired their tattoos and affiliations with radical pro-white organizations. I say radical pro-white organizations, as opposed to "racist organizations," in order to distinguish them from pro-black and pro-Mexican prison organizations that could also be described as racist. These include his-panic groups such as Raza Unida, the Texas Syndicate, the Mexican Mafia, various Aztlan movement groups and Mexican street gangs and black outfits like the Five Percenters, the Mandingo Warriors, Black Muslims, Nation of Islam, Bloods, Grips and dozens of hometown gangs that also operate inside. [B]White groups include the prison-derived gang Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, as well as branches of groups that do not officially align with prison gangs. These include the Aryan Circle, the Knights Templar (prisoner Freemasons!), various skinhead units, the Klan and the Aryan Nations. [/B]

[B]A black gang leader once told me in an unguarded moment of honesty, "To us you're either a Klansman or a punk."[/B] A punk is a man who has been turned out: forced into sex with other inmates. [B]Race in Texas prisons is a fundamental fact of existence. There is no pride in one's heritage or race in prison that is not stated in the most extreme terms.[/B] If one is to be a "stand-up" white man, it must be on the basis of allegiance to race-not by one's magnanimity (which will get you hurt), not by appeasement (always taken as cowardice), not even by Jesus (unless, of course, your Jesus is white, or black or Mexican).

[SIZE=3]I am not a punk. I am a college graduate. In my other life, many of my friends were black-including my criminal defense attorney, who was a college buddy. Today, because of my prison experiences, I cannot stand being in the presence of black men. I can't even listen to my favorite Motown music anymore. The barbarous blacks in prison have ruined it for me, as have the black guards who compose half the staff and who flaunt the dominance of black culture and give favored treatment to their brothers. They have ruined my tolerance. They have ruined my once-open mind. I have physical, mental and spiritual scars from defending myself against them, though Fin lucky that I haven't been raped or otherwise lost my manhood. [/SIZE]

Aside from the death penalty, one of the issues regarding crime during the presidential campaign involved then-Governor Bush's stance on the rehabilitation of prisoners. At one point, Al Gore's staff announced that Bush had cut back on Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous programs in Texas prisons. Bush's team responded by showing that funding had increased. The problem was that the funding had not translated to growth in operating programs. The actual number ofAA/ NA treatment programs at the various prisons had decreased. In any case, I can personally attest that even in these programs, race is a powerful factor.

A few years back, I lived in a special cell block that was heavy on discipline and long on 12-step programs. Unfortunately, it was also an Aryan Circle stronghold. The walls on the wing were covered with AA and NA slogans and literature, making a strong initial impression on visitors. Special bulletin boards were erected in the large day-room serving the cell block, where inmates posted articles and clippings of interest to them. Telltale bits often showed up on these bulletin boards, discussing, for example, how the deposed Zimbab-wean leader Canaan Banana sodomized his servants and employees. White prisoners got a laugh while complaints were lodged against them by offended black prisoners.

The Aryan Circle's presence on the cell block was revealed when second-shift guards staged a surprise shakedown of the cell block on a Saturday night. On a dayroom table occupied that evening by several Aryan Circle members, a hit list was discovered. It contained the names of several guards- including the black supervisor of the second-shift guards. Many black guards are perceived as taking pride in their reputations, not merely among white gang members but all prisoners, for harassing and threatening whites. There is little doubt their names made the Aryan Circle hit list.

The entire prison was locked down for the remainder of the weekend and all visiting privileges were suspended. Visitors who had made reservations with the warden's office were not contacted, and arrived only to be turned away by prison officials. Throughout Saturday night an investigation was conducted, and many prisoners from the substance abuse program and elsewhere were placed in temporary or permanent administrative segregation.

Blacks and Mexicans on the cell block had long complained about the situation to prison administrators, but their complaints were largely ignored because they were in such a minority. Few prisoners wanted to participate in the disciplined 12-step programs then associated with the cell block. Participation in those programs was mandatory for the now-disbanded wing. Obviously, Aryan Circle members made a concerted commitment for the opportunity to gain control of their own section of the prison.

[B]Back in the general population, black gang members have caught on to the authorities' lip service to racial harmony and have used the system to their advantage. They write unsigned snitch notes to prison officials that name whites as gang members, almost all of whom are not. [/B] The prison members in question are strongly independent and thus have a quiet influence in the way seemingly minor things are run on the cell block, including which television programs are watched and how rude or boisterous inmates may treat others. These prisoners are getting locked up for no reason.

Administrators know about this manipulation, of course, but they cannot afford to ignore the claims because of the number of inmates who may riot or refuse to man the factories. The result is more racial agitation. Some whites escalate their response in prison. Others vow to get a little justice (as they put it) on the streets.

[B]Statewide numbers reveal that more- and younger-minority offenders are being sentenced to long terms, often with no hope of parole. This is the new predator generation. Prison lends itself to the creation of predators among men who were perhaps petty thieves in their free-world incarnation. But the young men coming in now who were predators on the street quickly rise to the top of the ranks.

Though they use the term a lot, the new predators have no concept of respect, which used to be sacrosanct. [SIZE=3]The predators consider your very existence as disrespectful of them-unless you are a Klansman. They respect a racial man because they know where he stands and what to expect from him. [/SIZE] All others are punks and hos and bitches to be turned out, ****ed, robbed and pimped-another way to get a seat in the dayroom. [/B]

[B]For the new predators, prison is a rite of passage, something to be proud of. In 1999 a quarter of all black Texan males over 18 were in Jail or prison or on probation or parole. (For black men between the ages of 21 and 29, the figure is 29 percent.) It won't be long before prison culture is fully identifiable in African American culture-evidence of its existence is already plentiful. [/B] [B]Rosa Parks' bus seat has been replaced by the bench in the prison dayroom as a symbol of black progress. [/B] Even prison guards fear the predators and let them get away with all sorts of rules violations: rape, protection rackets, sodomy, indecent exposure, public masturbation, stealing and general disturbances.

Is the issue of race in Texas different from that in Texas prisons? Not if the difficult circumstances of prison reveal a man for what he really is-and not if the management of the prisons reflects public opinion and policy. At the current rate of incarceration (49,000 prisoners in 1990, 146,000 in 1999) ideology on race as practiced in prison is destined to have an impact on the world at large. During the next 10 years, about 300,000 prisoners will be released onto the streets.

Criminal justice is a confused affair in Texas, a destructive situation with which few people are pleased. For example, most black people in Texas have traditionally and adamantly opposed the death penalty as racist. Like the execution of Gary Graham (a black man convicted of murder thanks mostly to the testimony of a single witness), high-profile death row cases have drawn the attention of anti-death-penalty organizations and Hollywood celebrities. It is safe to say that this won't happen with John King. He's not going to be the subject of a neo-Eastwood movie about a death row mistake. Despite the national outcry over executions, most Texans endorse a tough stance on criminals-and have for de-* cades. Treatment of convicts was so abu-; sive in the past that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice lost control of the system to the feds in a Seventies class * action suit called Ruiz vs. Estelle, commonly referred to as Ruiz.

One of the issues litigated was prison overcrowding. (At one point, there was only one doctor assigned to the whole system. Prisoners even operated on one another.) The state could not defy the population limits mandated by the court. Slow to build new facilities, administrators looked to ease parole requirements. The Texas legislature passed a new law to be exercised at times of overcrowding called the Prison Management Act, allowing prisoners-many of them violent offenders- to receive a mandatory discharge after earning credit awards for good behavior.

This new law meant that parole was no longer discretionary for prisoners whose good time credits earned plus time actually served equaled 100 percent of their original sentences.

Another response to the population pressures on the Texas system resulted in the current politicized science of plea bargaining. By avoiding trial and the law and the Constitution and all that extraneous stuff, a criminal can simply "go along to get along" with prosecutors, judges and prison officials working in concert. He can simply plead guilty and receive a relative slap on the wrist.

Non-plea-bargaining criminal defendants who use up the resources of the system and actually go to trial are penalized for doing so. If found guilty they receive sentences that are typically many times worse than what the plea bargainer is awarded. Moreover, most plea bargainers are guilty of multiple charges and counts of crimes, while defendants using the trial system typically have just one or two charges. The plea bargainers are usually career criminals who have simply been caught doing their multiple crimes; as they often brag to their cellmates, they are usually guilty of several other offenses for which they have not been convicted.

The plea bargaining and parole consideration mechanisms combined to create a revolving door in the TDCJ for career criminals. By the mid-Eighties, criminologtsts said fear of prison had lost its effect as a deterrent. The system still views criminals as offenders and clients, many of whom are fully expected to remain a part of the system for the rest of their lives. Trial and prison officials know that most of these criminals are recidivists. They are violent and they are stupid. A significant percentage of them have IQs less than 85. Since there is no other official remedy to their 42 plight, they are loyal clients. These active recidivists are routed in and out of prisons, which is much like putting them on a bus on the road for a while (something Texas prisons actually have done in order to alleviate space problems during the federal court litigation). In effect, trial and prison officials have used the free world as an off-the-count prison for recidivists, the worst and most dangerous criminals of all.

As crime in the streets escalated nationwide in the Eighties, money became available for new facilities. State taxpayers recognized that the ignoring of overcrowded prisons comes with a price. Federal funds for fighting the drug war came pouring in-but they came with harsher sentences and higher rates of incarceration. The new prisons would be filled to capacity, conditions inside were more violent than ever and crime remained a problem. Still, there was money to be made.

Criminal justice in Texas has always suffered from an incestuous relationship with politics and politicians. There is no effective separation of the three branches of government in Texas-state and federal constitutional guarantees for a republican form of government notwithstanding. The Texas legislature is made up mostly of lawyers, and their brethren judges in Texas are likewise elected to office (except when unexpected vacancies are filled by the governor's personal appointees). In this way the executive, judicial and legislative branches tend to blend together, at least when it comes to administering the TDCJ. There are presently more than 100 state prison facilities holding some 146,000 prisoners in Texas, making it one of the world's largest penal systems. It has a budget in the billions, and some of the prison payrolls number in the millions. It is a kingdom for power- and money- hungry politicians, law enforcement officers and prison officials.

Even while under the supervision of federal courts for more than a generation, the TDCJ system is used as a political tool for bolstering politicians' careers and as a lucrative stopover for political friends, boosters and appointees. Former prison executive director James "Andy" Collins resigned under pressure on Dec. 31, 1995. He immediately took a $1000-a-day consulting job with VitaPro, a Canadian firm that had a contract to provide meat substitutes for prisoners. Collins, who was indicted in federal court, also used lax state law to negotiate no-bid contracts with preferred vendors for security fences. The corruption has gone on throughout the decades: sweetheart prison construction deals, use of prison dairy farms for personal profit, writing off "stolen" trucks, tractors, bulldozers, parts, construction and medical equipment-even pork and sides of beef by the truckload. Prisoners thrown into the TDCJ sys- tem are pawns in a sprawling empire. In no way does this fact justify or rationalize the crimes of the prisoners. Punishment is due. However, the system breeds cynicism and rebellion among some prisoners and their families.

Take its approach toward the education of prisoners. Windham School District operates schools only inside the prisons. In the Nineties, State Comptroller John Sharp audited the Texas prison system. He questioned the efficacy of the Windham School District. Prison officials reportedly broke into Sharp's office and went through his trash in an effort to find out what he knew and to try to maintain damage control. The biggest joke is that most of the grown men in these Romper Room classes never complete a high school education nor are in a position to pass the general equivalen-cy degree test, even after years spent in the program.

State and federal funds for school and other so-called rehabilitative programs continue to roll in. Texas prisons enforce attendance once a prisoner is enrolled, in order to meet the statutory requirements. That keeps the money coming in. Many prisons have ignored security threats (in order to avoid total lock-down) so they can meet the minimum requirements of prisoner attendance for winning state and federal funds.

The problems caused by administrative malfeasance, however, are nothing compared to the hatred generated by the official manipulation of the races.

By 1983 Texas prison officials had conceded several issues to the Ruiz prisoner plaintiffs. One of these issues was the use of prisoners as building tenders who turn keys, hold certain jobs and discipline inmates. BTs were nearly all white, and you can imagine how they handled their fellow white prisoners. Building tenders were often chosen not because they were model prisoners, but because they were violent and brutal. They held keys to open doors and were armed with baseball bats and knives. There were so many abuses in the building-tender system that the federal court made Texas do away with it. When the BTs disappeared, Texas did not hire enough prison guards to take their place. This proved disastrous because an earlier ruling from another federal class-action suit called Lamar vs. Coffield had forced Texas to desegregate its system. But while other states' courts were upholding many aspects of racial separation as necessary to maintain safety and security in the prisons, Texas went far beyond federal court requirements and racially integrated all phases of prisoner life, housing and work.

Texas officials pitted the two courts against each other and blindly began to implement the consent decrees in these two cases without concern for security. When the BTs disappeared and the orders came down to integrate cells, all hell broke loose. White prisoners, who had long been in the minority but had taken advantage of life under BTs, were thrown into cells with sworn enemies. With no guards around, ad hoc gangs arose to take advantage of weak or neutral prisoners. These gangs were usually based on race. Gang members protected one another from-and helped commit -unheard-of sexual violence. One man was so distraught from being repeatedly raped, he asked doctors if there was a way to sew his rectum closed. The widespread rape and gang activity continue to this day, with no sign of resolution. Most cell blocks and wings had no official (or unofficial) supervision, and a killing spree erupted in Texas prisons that lasted for two years.

At the end of each day we'd gather around the radio to listen to the body counts from various prisons. One magazine declared America's most dangerous prison to be the Coffield Unit in Tennessee Colony, where I once was assigned. Newsweek said the Eastham Unit in Lovelady was the most dangerous. Others included Darrington, Retrieve and Ramsey. Turning up each day to work, to shower, to mail call and to chow were mad adventures. Virtually every man had his own shank and was willing to use it. Courts were giving minimal sentences for killing other prisoners. Most cases did not go that far: an inmate might do some time in solitary, or if the attack was approved by officials, he got a job promotion.

Public pressure mounted for officials to do something about the violence they had hastened to create. They began hiring guards and prison counselors to oversee prison classification, but the ranks of counselors were reduced by the budget-conscious Governor Bush. During the first two years of desegregation following the Lamar court order, the new counselors interviewed inmates to discover racial biases and to record incidents of ractally motivated violence. Based on that information, many prisoners involved in such incidents were deemed racially restricted in their housing assignments to prevent further violence and thus preserve the safety and security of the staff, prisoners and the institutions.

New staffing requirements mandated a ratio of one guard for every six prisoners. Texas has always had trouble maintaining this ratio. When the counselors were fired or moved to guard jobs, teletype orders (of which I saw a copy) came down from headquarters to Texas prisons commanding the destruction of all the early Lamar interviews and records.

Texas prison officials then began to re-classify all prisoners previously involved in racial violence. Most of the racial re-strictions for same-race- only housing were removed. I know of prisoners who were told by administrators that if they wanted to keep their racially restricted status they would have to commit some act of racially motivated violence at least once every 90 days. The official presumption was that staffing was now adequate to deal with any violence.

Many of these reclassified prisoners attempted to contact their court- appointed lawyers, only to be told they had been removed from the case long ago. The prisoners filed motions charging that Texas prison officials were hell-bent on reinitiating racial violence in the prisons by forcing those with known bias histories into the same cells. After all, many men had built their lives around racial pride and racial prejudices as a matter of survival. They had joined racial cultures and marked their bodies with racial tattoos. They contacted like-minded groups and secured racial literature, and in the close confines of an integrated cell, these things can prove to be deadly liabilities. Still, the judge overseeing the case eventually issued an abrasive order in the mid-Nineties that declared he would not entertain in his court the motions of any known bigots.

Many of the prisoners who could not abide by the system and by the rulings of the federal judge who abandoned them have been administratively segregated. Special housing wings were created for the most dangerous men. But there are only so many ad seg cells, leaving the most dangerous prisoners to flow in and out of ad seg and the prisons' general population. Ad seg has become a temporary, after-the-fact buffer to punish those who are violent.

The widespread racial antagonism that is the real cause of the violence is never addressed because it is fundamental to prison life and useful to manipulative officials. Racial integration in prison simply is not like racial integration in a public school classroom. In the aftermath of the Byrd murder, I read one commentator's opinion in which he expressed disappointment that ex- cons could come out of prison with unresolved racial problems "despite the racial integration of the prisons." Despite? How about because of racial integration? Prison life is about race.

And so it goes. In February 2000 National Public Radio reported that some prison guards have resorted to paying protection to prison gangs to avoid being harmed. The corruption has extended to the point where race, gangs and violence manipulate not just the prisoners in the Texas prison kingdom but the employees, too. This latest development occurs at a time when budgets and salaries have exploded during the past few years in an effort to quell the violence and increase security. Just the opposite has occurred. It is a powder keg.[/COLOR]

Petr

2004-11-10 06:30 | User Profile

Other very relevant story, but this one has a happy ending - an Irish chef is thrown into a Brooklynese prison, but is saved by White Italian solidarity! :thumbsup:

[url]http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/story/0,9950,1013288,00.html[/url]

[COLOR=Navy][SIZE=4]Cooking for the mafia [/SIZE]

[B]When Ireland's top chef found himself in a New York jail with notorious Mafia hoodlums he survived the only way he knew how - by making them a supper they couldn't refuse. Euan Ferguson talks to Conrad Gallagher about doing porridge ... followed by pan-seared porcini with shaved butternut squash. [/B]

Sunday August 10, 2003

The Observer

Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, there was pretty much no one who could, or would, tell Conrad Gallagher what to do. Not the women. Not the stars, the likes of Bill Clinton and Bono and Bruce Willis, who would come to his restaurants and be given what he thought they should be given, and then write swift letters of admiration and gratitude. Not the Irish press, and certainly not the food critics, whom he would flick from the premises at the hint of a bad review. Not his sous-chefs, or suppliers, or maîtres, or waiters. He may have listened, a little, to his customers: and he listened closely when the calls came to tell him about the Michelin stars. He certainly didn't listen to warnings about the flyaway Irish economy; he had grabbed the tail of the Celtic Tiger so firmly, so blindly, that he was probably the last man in all Ireland to be surprised to find himself covered in such a blizzard of tiger shit.

It was instructive, then, to hear him talking about how, only a few months ago, he was doing exactly what he was told. He shaved on time, he got up early, he stayed clean and ironed, he looked smart, because he was told. He cooked well, because he was told. This wasn't a prison thing, although he was in prison, and a fairly nasty one at that; it's no coincidence that you seldom hear the phrase 'as pretty as a New York prison'. But it wasn't a prison thing. It was a Mafia thing. [B] 'They looked after me, kept me safe, and in return you do what they say,' said the man once known as Ireland's most famous chef, now known as [B]Ireland's most famous failed chef, and for a while earlier this year known as Prisoner 61685053 at the Brooklyn Detention Centre. [/B] 'Up when they say, bed when they say, and you keep some dignity because they say so, and you are, for a while, one of them. It seemed important to them to win these little victories, to show they were different.' [/B]

[B]Vinnie, Tony, Little Dominic, Charlie, and the big man himself, the capo, Frankie Pero, who was awaiting trial for triple murder ... they didn't quite become firm friends, though he has written to them since his return to Ireland. They changed his life, however; they quite possibly saved it. And all because he could cook. [/B]

Just a few years ago, hardly more than a goodly number of months ago, Conrad Gallagher, now 32, was the highest flier in the gaudy firmament of New Ireland. A Michelin star at the age of 26, and a swank restaurant, called Peacock Alley, which was a magnet for all that seemed brightest and best for this new European country at the turn of the millennium. Rock stars, politicians, models, writers flowed through his doors and marvelled at what he was doing to Irish cooking, and at the beautiful flowers and glass and linen, and at the fact their country now had a superchef. He had been working up to 20 hours a day to make it happen, and he loved the success. Porsches, women and famous friends abounded, and he soon found himself spending more time, and more money, trying to expand the empire, which swiftly grew to a total of six restaurants. Twenty flights to France to hand-pick three new sommeliers and four captains. Twelve different types of fresh bread every day, and 75 cheeses. He was doing TV, working on his second cookbook, getting increasing attention in the UK, hosting the MTV awards.

'There had been good restaurants in Dublin,' he says of the time, 'but they were comfortable, like old Mercs: I was the flash Porsche, the dearest bottle of wine.' For a while, he could hardly put a foot wrong.

He wasn't exactly beloved by his staff - he is by his own admission a control freak, and his charm can go from full heat to cold silence as swiftly as a gas ring - but they rubbed along and shared in the glory, and when Conrad installed an open kitchen so the guests could peer in he had to stop berating them in quite such a wild fashion ('I would nip them instead,' he tells me). A second Michelin star followed. Dublin didn't quite love him - he can be an arrogant sod, and the papers were always swift to knock down what they had built up - but it certainly loved the idea of him.

And then, a couple of years ago - you've guessed this bit already - it all started to go wrong. 'I don't think you need to be a great businessman to run two restaurants,' he says now, searching slowly for exactly the right words to explain what began to happen. 'With four or five it's completely different. You have to be a genius at business and I am patently not. In fact I am, as I know now, simply a terrible businessman.

'In the 24 hours in any day I did not have the time to get round the restaurants and do what I wanted to do, and keep the money stuff right at the same time. I was a terrible delegator. I couldn't leave the restaurants for one day to concentrate on what was happening to the business: I'd try, and then break off to race round and find out what was happening to the chocolate fondant, and find it had been cooked for six rather than six-and-a-half minutes.' Rents were soaring, and he was beginning to struggle to cover them: 'Even if I'd run a McDonald's, with millions of people coming through every day, it wouldn't have been enough to pay the rent. You've got your big enough bills for staff, taxes, food and drink, and then a huge rent above that - and I'd been crap, I'd got my figures all wrong.'

His critics in Ireland, and there were plenty, are fast to point as well to murky borrowings and overweening ambition: but whatever the precise financial details, and believe me life's too short to get into this debate, the fact remains that he began to fail, not because of the food but because of the money. His premises began to close, one by one, overextended and underfunded and overdependent on a couple of good nights at the end of one month to pay the next month's rent. Tips began to be used to pay staff salaries. Conrad did what any other bad businessman would do: he upped and went to London, to make his name there.

He teamed up with Mean Fiddler boss Vince Power to open the Conrad Gallagher restaurant in Shaftesbury Avenue. It launched, inauspiciously enough, on September 12 2001, the night after New York's tragedy. Sting was at the launch party; later, Bill Clinton, Bono and Ronan Keating went on the same night. It still didn't work: Conrad's views on what should be spent on peripherals, such as flowers, and the opposing view of what should be coming in in terms of money, led to what could be described as differences. He says, now, 'I had gone from the frying pan to the fire.' I suspect one failing, incidentally, was overblown pomposity; the men's rooms used to play, instead of muzak, a loop-tape of Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream...'

And it was back to Dublin, to find his restaurants failing faster than ever, and to find he was unable to pay the rent even on Peacock Alley, where he had made his name. 'And I could see it coming,' he said. 'It wasn't just that we were having to save money by ironing the linen ourselves, but way more serious. I had asset-stripped myself. And when you're that high-profile, and your business starts to collapse, it gets written about, and collapses faster. It was devastating. My main worry was trying to get other jobs for staff. And then one day I knew I couldn't come up with the rent, and I said, "God, I'm done, I'm finished".

'They changed the locks in the middle of the night. Everything I owned, gone. I called the staff and said "stay home boys, it's over". We had 150 people booked for dinner that night. I called them all to apologise.' It wasn't the happiest day of his life. He was also fighting testicular cancer; he had beaten it once but it had recurred, and he had learnt he needed another lengthy course of chemotherapy.

The ongoing rent battle with the owners of the Fitzwilliam Hotel, where Peacock Alley was based - of whom the chef now says 'There was no love lost. I hated them, they hated me' - was later to have terribly serious consequences, but for the moment Conrad could only think of getting out. 'The day I went broke I owed 12 suppliers. I've tried to clear debts, but I still hope they're not too bitter; my business had brought them small fortunes down the years.' The mood was ugly, however. Peacock Alley closed down on 16 March; he was in New York two days later.

The idea was to use his name, in a land where a Michelin-starred reputation still counted more than rumours of unpaid fishmongers in a distant land, to start again; but to use it in a quieter, less ambitious way. He had, earlier, found a 'shambles of an old cigar bar' in Manhattan which he had offered to rework and renovate in exchange for being allowed to run it rent-free, and the offer was accepted.

Traffic, a classily minimalist lounge bar with food, ice-white windows etched with nude silhouettes and candles flickering on low tables, was a success - but one where Conrad was able to relax and do some normal things, such as meeting Jennifer Harrison, now his wife, and think about the business rather than spending every second in the kitchen. 'I saw it as a fresh start. And it was the first business I'd ever had where I didn't need to slave. And, honestly, you wouldn't believe how well it was doing.' Until the night of 10 April.

Back in Ireland, the Fitzwilliam's owners had worked out, apparently, that Conrad's debts weren't clear. There were three paintings, by the Irish modernist Felim Egan, which he had apparently sold, for £9,000, to clear debts, when they weren't his to sell; the hotel argued that it had already bought them from him. An extradition order was won. Conrad says, now, 'It was a civil matter, it should never have gone to police and extradition orders, and I blame them for the whole thing.' That's as may be, but at the time Conrad Gallagher, fairly crazily, ignored it.

On Thursday, 10 April, he was outside talking to Traffic's doorman when he saw seven men walking up. He asked the bouncer to refuse them; it was too big a group. But they walked straight past the queue, jumped on Conrad, pinned him to the ground, pulled him into a waiting truck and handcuffed him. They were US marshals. Conrad Gallagher was most, definitely, under arrest.

[B]The Brooklyn Detention Centre, he remembers, stank of bleach, and of fear. He remembers the little ducts on the walls of every cell, ready to spray tear gas at the slightest opportunity. He remembers the bright white lights, and the rats, and the hisses of 'culo mio' ('your ass is mine) as he passed the first Hispanics on the block.

[SIZE=3]'The tribalism, and the racism, were intense. The groups would never mix, never sit together. Blacks, Latinos, Dominicans, the few whites, all separate; and you just made sure, as far as possible, never to make eye contact. [/SIZE] Yes, I was terrified. I didn't know what was going to happen in the shower, every morning, whether I was going to be cut, or whatever.' The first crunch came about three days in, when he was passing a Colombian drug lord; the man suddenly stood and laughed and grabbed Conrad's marmalade hair, forced his head round, forced him to make eye contact, and the fight began, about three of them on him.

'I was left with two cracked ribs and a busted lip. And I just crawled back to my cell. That's all you can do. [SIZE=3]Can't report it, it'll just make things worse. There was racism, bad racism: they hated me because I was white. Most of the guards were black, and they hated me because I was white too; and I'm not being racist about this, because they were the ones with the attitude.' [/SIZE] Apart from the fights, and the threat of rape, the worst other thing he remembers is the food. 'That first lunch. The meatballs were made of breadcrumbs and artificial meat. I never tasted anything worse in my life. It was like dog food. And then I saw the cook - greasy hair, rotten teeth - and just wouldn't eat it. In about a second, there were 10 of them grabbing off my tray.'

[SIZE=3]After five days, he was assigned to another wing, 162, and felt an atmospheric change immediately. There were, basically, white faces, even though he knew they were all probably Mafia. [/SIZE] That night, 74-year-old Frankie Pero asked to see him, having read in the New York Times of Conrad's history. They talked, and fantasised, about food. The mob boss suggested a 'nice veal cutlet with cep mushrooms and a little madeira jus'. The Dubliner countered with 'a nice veal piccatta with a side order of macaroni and a glass of chianti'. [SIZE=3]Pero roared with laughter, and the word went out that 'Irish' was to be kept safe, and for the next five weeks he was. [/B] [/SIZE]

Instead of regulation meals, Jews and Muslims received 'common fare' - raw vegetables with a can of tomato juice and the use of a microwave. Gallagher and the Italians bartered with them for the vegetables, and he would spend hours making stews. 'I would take the blade from my razor and very carefully chop up pieces of broccoli, garlic, potato, cauliflower, carrots. Maybe I'd get an Oxo cube from somebody, or somebody would smuggle a spice from the kitchen. I'd spend as long as I could chopping vegetables as it would kill the time.'

He also gathered recipes from the Italians, and had each man sign his contribution; he's thinking of incorporating them into his next book. And he learnt, he grins, as we sit talking in his car on the banks of the Liffey, that 'You can do a lot with a microwave. If you absolutely have to'.

He's a free man now. Last month, having been flown back to Ireland for the trial, he was unanimously cleared of theft of the paintings. The relief is still palpable. 'I feel as if I've been given a second chance. There is nothing worse than being called a thief if you are not. It has been an unbelievable, a horrible time, but it's over.'

Over, yes, but Conrad Gallagher has still lost his homes, his restaurants, his money and about three stone in weight. He's reviled by Irish columnists, distrusted by the banks, bad-mouthed on talk shows. On the other hand he's beloved by his wife, by his family in Donegal - he was going fishing the next day with his father - and, perhaps one day, by the high-rollers in some other city in some new country. America or South Africa, he says, 'but it won't be me cooking, and risking everything; I'll go in to someone else's place in an advisory capacity. I still know food, I know how to make people happy, I know what works, but I just couldn't stand this kind of business nightmare again.' He looks around his city, and I ask if he's determined to leave Ireland. 'Yes. Completely. At the moment. I love the Irish, the people, but I just don't know if they love me very much.

'But I'm glad I came out all right, in the courts. I never wanted to be remembered as that guy who stole the paintings. Maybe one day, now, they'll look back more kindly, in Dublin, and simply go, 'Do you remember your man the chef?'

...[/COLOR]

Petr