WARDEN ELBERT V. NASH
February 7, 1945 Thomas Whitecotton a former Captain with the Missouri Highway Patrol, accepted the position of Warden of the Missouri State Penitentiary. His mission? “clean up” the penitentiary.
A year later, Missouri formed the Department of Corrections. Whitecotton, became its new Director. Together with Missouri Governor Phil Donnelly, the two set out to take control of Missouri's prisons.
Prisoners at MSP rioted in September of 1954. The Missouri Highway Patrol and local law enforcement entered the prison to quell the riot, before all the buildings were burnt to the ground.
In the aftermath of the disturbance, four inmates lay dead, 29 injured and four guards assaulted. Administrators estimated the damage at over 5 million dollars.
Director Whitecotton resigned as Director and less than a year later, Governor Donnelly appointed James D. Carter as the new Director of Corrections in March of 1956. The Director appointed former Highway Patrolman Elbert V. Nash as the new Warden of the Missouri State Penitentiary.
Nash, a former World War II Veteran, school teacher and Highway Patrolman, eagerly accepted the job. Mr. Nash had every intention of making the penitentiary a safer, more productive and less violent institution.
Warden Nash over-saw the State executions of; Thomas Moore, Sammy Aire Tucker, Ronald Lee Wolfe and Charles H. Odom. I mention these executions because as a Correctional Officer, I have seen my share of death. It goes with the job. Its never easy watching a man die or finding him after hes killed himself.
Warden Nash knew these men personally. He spoke to them, listened to their pleas of mercy and he watched them die in the chamber.
By the 1960s, MSP embraced another rash of violence. To...
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...e party described the Warden's demeanor as “normal” but it was far from normal.
After the party, Elbert Nash shook hands and walked across the street to his home with his wife. Depressed, emotionally distraught, the media crucifying his moral character, Mr. Nash walked to his bedroom, placed a gun to his head, and pulled the trigger. It was over. The media and politicians had finally got their pound of flesh. Warden Nash killed himself. They could do as they pleased.
According to the book “Somewhere In Time” by Laurie A. Stout, a few days later, Representative Peter J. Rabbitt (Yes, Peter Rabbitt) from St. Louis, released a full report stating that Warden E.V. Nash was “wholly lacking in administrate ability.”
Enemies sought to destroy the penitentiary Warden, and in my opinion; they succeeded. If I am right, and I hope I'm not, may God have mercy on their souls.
Gourley, Catherine. The Horrors of Andersonville: Life and Death Inside a Civil War Prison. Minneapolis: Twenty-First Century, 2010.
I feel that this book gives a rough, inspiring and passionate warning that the rush to imprison offenders hurts the guards as well as the guarded. Conover reminds us that when we treat prisoners like the garbage of society, we are bound to treat prison staff as garbage men -- best out of sight, their own dirt surpassed only by the dirt they handle. Conover says in one part of his book, “Eventually admitting that being in a position of power and danger brings out a side of myself I don’t like.” I feel both prisoners and officers deserve better.
The crime he committed was terrible and obviously something that could only be done with someone who lacks any good intentions. His behavior during the his trial also showed the extent of his maliciousness. He half-heartedly attempted to defend himself by claiming the prosecutors were using false evidence and that, according the records of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, “Nobles concludes that he was denied the fundamentally fair and impartial trial guaranteed him by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment”. He put very little effort into defending himself during the trial and was quickly sentenced to death. In the early years of his time in prison he was far from the ideal prisoner. Earle presents how “He once broke away from guards while returning to his cell from the exercise yard and climbed the exposed pipes and bars in the cell block, kicking down television sets suspended outside on the bottom tier.” and on another occasion he cut himself just so he could hit an officer while they were attending to him before he passed out. This kind of behavior was completely eradicated long before he was executed, procuring him the respect of the prison
Lance Lowry began his 20 year career in Texas’s criminal justice as a cadet in 1994 in South Texas’s Police Academy. He worked as a police officer in Alice, TX, a town of about 20,000 starting in 1995. In 2000, Lance left police work to become a TDCJ Correctional Officer. From 2000-2003, Lance worked as Correctional Officer in Ellis Unit in Huntsville, Texas and then transferred to Holliday Unit, also in Huntsville. From the Holliday Unit, Lance worked at James H. Byrd Unit (Huntsville), which was formerly the diagnostic intake unit for DR inmates prior to being transferred to Polunsky. It was at Byrd Unit that Lance was promoted to Sergeant. He went to the Gib Lewis Unit in Woodville, Texas and he was promoted to Lieutenant. After one or two years in Woodville, Lance took a voluntary demotion to be able to return to Huntsville, where he continued his TDCJ career as sergeant. Today, Lance is a Sergeant in the Byrd Unit, in Huntsville, Texas.
... by the end of the book believes the inmates are prone to violence and his sole purpose is to maintain order among a dehumanized group. It is far-fetched to ask someone like Conover to become a convict but I do believe that their perspectives would be insightful.
A. History of Andersonville Prison. Indiantown, Florida: University of Florida Press, 1968. Hillstrom, Kevin. A. American Civil War Biographies. Michigan: The Gale Group, 2000.
Warden Cain uses an unusual system at Angola. He strives on the motive that his inmates will improve themselves at Angola and have a free, fulfilled life post prison as a result. Rather than lock the prisoners up in their cells for hours on end, he has amplified the opportunities for visitors, the use of the library, work on the prison grounds and a variety of special programs. He is able to wake up in the morning and come to work because of the inmates. His desire for their improvement is highly incomparable. Many woul...
There are two different kinds of influences on prison misconduct, there is the combined characteristics of the inmates themselves, and the combined characteristics of the staff in control of them (Camp, Gaes, Langan, Saylor (2003). Prison misconduct has been classified into significant fields related to drug use, violence, property offenses, prison accountability and escapes, security-related offenses, security offenses interfering with daily operations, along with a residual category (Camp, Gaes, Langan, Saylor (2003). Misconduct spoils the effective procedure of the correctional institution, detracting from its capability to present the intentional services to the superior society (Goetting & Howsen (1986).
The prison reform started January 1st 1870 and ended December 31st 1970. This reform bettered the prison system and changed prison and mental institutions not only in America but as well as Europe. Some successes that came from this reform was the widespread establishment of mental institutions, increased attention to prisoner’s rights, redefining prison procedure, and the attempt to cure mental illness although Dorothea Dix’s federal bill did fail. This reform swept the country and it all begin with Dorothea Dix thanks to her the prison system was changed
They find meaning in their lives.Before purpose and survival or redemption and salvation can be discussed, an idea of what Angola is must be produced. The warden of Angola is a large man by the name of Burl Cain. Some believe that he is the reason for Angola being what it is. Bergner believes different:The striking tranquility at Angola—confirmed by the ACLU’s National Prison Project and Louisiana’s own watchdogs—could not be credited to Warden Cain alone. Twenty-one years ago conditions had been so anarchic and murderous a federal judge had ruled that the prison "shocked the conscience" and breached the Eight Amendment’s guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. Reform had begun then.
In Roger Prays essay we see how our prison system has come to where we are at now. He shows how history of prisons worked and how our basis of the prison system came about over the last 200 years.
Dye makes strong points that I agree with completely. I think people often overlook that people on death row could have acted out of passion, mental illness, or while they were intoxicated. A repetition of their crimes can be avoided by medication, therapy, and even just an elongated
Chapman’s research shows evidence of 211 stabbings taking place in three years at one prison in Louisiana. Bloody riots, rape, robberies, and exhortation are just a few of the everyday occurrences that can be expected when entering a penitentiary.
The author’s purpose is to also allow the audience to understand the way the guards and superintendent felt towards the prisoners. We see this when the superintendent is upset because the execution is running late, and says, “For God’s sake hurry up, Francis.” And “The man ought to have been dead by this time.” This allows the reader to see the disrespect the authority has towards the prisoners.
“The history of correctional thought and practice has been marked by enthusiasm for new approaches, disillusionment with these approaches, and then substitution of yet other tactics”(Clear 59). During the mid 1900s, many changes came about for the system of corrections in America. Once a new idea goes sour, a new one replaces it. Prisons shifted their focus from the punishment of offenders to the rehabilitation of offenders, then to the reentry into society, and back to incarceration. As times and the needs of the criminal justice system changed, new prison models were organized in hopes of lowering the crime rates in America. The three major models of prisons that were developed were the medical, model, the community model, and the crime control model.