Eighty years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
The
breakdown
of
criminal
justice
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich.
News Phone: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michiqan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1971
NIGHT EDITOR: LARRY LEMPERT
Controlling recruiting at 'U'
T0MORROW THE Regents will hold an
open hearing with a view toward
formulating a University-wide corporate
recruiting policy.
Students at the hearing should realize
that despite the University's apparent
lack of interest in dissociating itself from
corporate evils, it can nevertheless be
prodded to force the corporations with
which it deals to be more socially re-
sponsive. Through carefully enforced
uniform recruitment guidelines, the Uni-
versity can help sensitize the corporate
conscience.,
Presently in force, and facing regental
disapproval on Friday, is a policy form-
ulated last October by the Office of
Student Services (OSS) Policy Board.
The OSS unit's guidelines, operating with-
out regental authorization, ban from OSS
facilities any corporation having offices
in countries which legally enforce dis-
crimination. Thus far, after they were
informed of the guidelines, five com-
panies with operating units in S o u t h
Africa have agreed not to use the OSS
Placement Service Office (PSO) facilities.
The OSS rules have serious faults, how-
ever. For one thing, enacting the OSS
recruitment policy has so far taken the
form of dispatching to each corporation
using the placement facilities a copy of
the guidelines. Thus the companies sup-
posedly barred from placement service
merely compiled voluntarily with those
new guidelines. What would occur if one
of the participant corporations were re-
luctant to comply with the policy? How
completely would the placement service
reinforce its own guidelines? And, how,
by an exchange of letters, is it possible
really to evaluate a company's policies
With regard to discrimination?
For example, precisely which countries
discriminate legally? Assuredly S o u t h
Africa and Rhodesia fit this description.
But what of Switzerland? Or the Unit-
ed States? To what extent does corpor-
ate operation in such "discriminating"
country disqualify it from using place-
ment office facilities? It seems almost
as if it lies within corporate discretion to
recruit at PSO.
Consider the corporation with branches
in countries which do not, under OSS
definition, legally discriminate. But sup-
pose that this same corporation has
salesmen in a discriminating country,
suppose further that it sells its products
in that country or that it deals in any
way with that country's government.
Should not that corporation too be barred
along with its more overtly discrimina-
tory colleague?
ADMITTEDLY THE OSS guidelines are
vague,,difficult to enforce, not com-
prehensive enough. But the guidelines
apply only to the OSS sponsored PSO
Which serves primarily students in the
literary college and the school of educa-
tion. What of the rest of the University?
The School of Business Administra-
tion, the Law School, the College of En-
gineering, the chemistry department, all
have their own autonomous placement
offices not controlled by OSS. A corpora-
tion which is unable to recruit from PSO,
hence, can easily transfer its recruiting
program to another placement office on
campus.
Clearly the University needs a uniform
policy on corporate recruiting. To main-
tain separate standards for the several
departments is a moral travesty. Is dis-
sible among engineering students, for
crimination considered less reprehensible
among engineering students, for example,
than arliong history students?
Yet the OSS has no authority over the
outside placement offices. Were the
policy board given the power it rightly
reserves, as a truly representative unit,
to set University policy, then it, and not
the Regents, would be able to formulate
the new uniform recruiting policy. '
Since the OSS policy, while a welcome
beginning, is admittedly deficient, a more
comprehensive set of guidelines should be
drafted as the University's official state-
ment on recruiting.
IN BARRING discriminatory corpora-
tions, race cannot be the sole deter-
minant. No company which maintains
sexist hiring practices can be tolerated
on campus. Nor should a company be
granted approval merely because it can
document the lack of positive discrimina-
tion in hiring and its non-operation in
discriminatory countries. Each corpora-
tion should be made to verify that it has
enacted an affirmative action plan to
achieve equitable employment ratios for
minority group members and women.
Corporations should further be made to
attest to their non-participation in eco-
nomic imperialism or in war materials
production or contracting.
But chances are slim that the Regents
will ratify a recruiting police as progres-
sive as that one outlined above. Chances
are almost as slim that they will extend
the OSS guidelins to encompass the en-
tire University community. In fact, the
Regents may well strike down the OSS
guidelines entirely, sources have said.
'wO EXTEND the OSS policy, despite its
weakness, as a University-wide state-
ment on recruiting, makes good sense.
It is ironic that only one portion of the
University now has a conscience. It is
even more ironic that those placement
services accommodating the most dis-
criminatory and imperialistic corpora-
tions are unchecked by any guidelines.
Last year many students reacted in-
dignantly to protests of GE recruiting.
They asked why their fight to be inter-
viewed by GE was being abridged.
Now as then it is true that by allowing
corporations devoid of social responsibil-
ity to recruit on campus, the University
lends its tacit approval to their immoral-
ity.
Assuredly the Regents will not, in one
two-day regular monthly business ses-
sion, reorder entirely the University's
priorities, nor will they make it a socially
responsible institution, but they can help
work towards this goal by approving the
OSS guidelines and then extending them
throughout the University.
-ROSE SUE BERSTEIN
By JOHN C. LYNN
Daily Guest Writer
AM A teacher at the Federal Correc-
tional Institution in Milan, Michigan
and before getting to the heart of this I
would like to relate a story - a true story
told to me by two people not unlike
someone you know. They could tell the
story better than I can because it happen-
ed to them, and they are prisoners and I
am not.
Two two people are in their early twen-
ties, both are juniors at the University
,of Michigan. both come from "good"~
families, both had never been in trouble
with the "law" before, both are friends
and both smoke grass. Essentially then,
both of these men have very similar back-
grounds; please keep this in mind while
reading their story.
Last June, Jeff and Mark decided that
they would take a trip south for the pur-
pose of seeing the sights and for the pur-
pose of picking up some cheap marijuana
for their use back home. It sounded not
only pragmatic but simple and innocent;
who would bother two young college stu-
dents (not hippies mind you) just out to
have some fun and tour the countryside.
Sticking right to the point, Jeff and
Mark decided on the "grass-in-the-gas"
trick and cautiously stashed the goodies in
Mark's car gas tank just in case they ran
across some non-hip dogooders. Jeff had
his car along too and he proceeded to re-
enter the U.S. just outside of Laredo where
he planned to meet Mark. Jeff met Mark
alright, but Jeff and Mark inadvertently
met up with the local police who were very
wise as to what was happening (what
would you think if a college-type kid came
hustling up from Mexico with Michigan
license pates - after all, if you're not from
Texas, you're a foreigner!).
WELL, THE police had no difficulty
finding the prize and quickly busted the
unfortunates on four charges: possession of
smuggled property, conspiracy to smuggle
the smuggled property, smuggling and
violation of the Tax Act (declared uncon-
stitutional by Supreme Court in Timothy
Leary vs United States). Each of the first
three charges carries a 5 to 20 year sen-
tence and the Tax Act carries a 2 to 10
year sentence, thus a total of 17 to 70
years behind bars for transporting mari-
juana across the border.
Jeff and Mark were totally ignorant of
what was happening to them for neither
had been charged with anything before,
so, by means of some neat legal manipula-
tion, they both agreed to plead guilty to
the one charge of Tax Act violation waiv-
-Dail-Jim Judkis
Milan Federal Correctional Institution
ing their 5th Amendment right to keep
their mouths shut. Consequently, the pro-
secutor had an open and shut case in-
volving only minimal court expense and
due process procedures.
Although Jeff and Mark had the same
conviction, the same lawyer and the same
judge, an incredible disparity emerges.
Mark, who owned the car and was driv-
ing it alone when the grass was found,
received six months of imprisonment with
five years on probation while Jeff receiv-
ed six years under the Youth Act (one
can be paroled at any time under the
Youth Act). In other words Mark gets out
after six months while his sidekick, Jeff,
could do the routine 15 to 24 months in
prison and then be on parole for a couple
years. Jeff's one consolation is that a crime
is reduced to a misdemeanor if the sus-
pect is convicted under the Youth Act.
As it turned out, Jeff will be paroled soon
which is highly unusual for six-year sen-
tences.
AFTER THE sentencing, Jeff and Mark
spent a month in the Webb County Jail
waiting to be taken into federal custody.
The conditions under which they lived
were typical of county jails throughout the
country. Eighty men slept in a large cell-
house that had 40 bunks and 27 mattresses.
Food consisted of coffee, beans and
bread everyday. No salt or vitamins were
provided. Colds and other sicknesses were
rampant, but blankets and heat were un-
available. One day there was a plumbing
problem resulting in a flood.
At any one time, there were at least
100 federal prisoners in the jail. For each
one, the .federal government paid the
county $7 per day, or at least $4900 each
week. Whot do you suppose was the cost
of feeding those men with coffee, beans
and bread?
Mark and Jeff were lucky, in a way, for
after a month in Laredo they were in the
protective custody of the federal govern-
ment in Milan F.C.I. There is one hitch.
LIKE MOST SUCH institutions, Milan
F.C.I. has nothing to offer Mark or Jeff
but wasted months. Most of the prisoners
can be "programmed" which means send-
ing the man to school and teaching him
a saleable skill. But Mark and Jeff are
clerks and unless they prefer janitoring
there's nothing else available.
The story of Jeff and Mark only shows
what is happening daily in county jails and
correctional institutions and the inhumanity
of the tradition of treating criminals as so-
cial deviants unworthy of our compassion.
Rehabilitating anyone in the context of a
prison is impossible. How can we change
someone's attitude and life-style by throw-
ing him in a cell with dozens of others who
think the same way he does? The word "re-
habilitate"has no meaning in prisons today.
Consequently, prisons exist primarily to
either punish the offender so he will learn
a "lesson" or to confine the individual so
he will be separated from "good" people.
The punishment function does awaken
some individuals to the awesome power of
the law. However, a short stay of two or
three months is more than adequate to
show these people what kind of life lies
ahead if they continue to break law. Trou-
ble arises when first offenders are incar-
cerated for several years, ending up so
bitter and lonely that they have only learned
how to hate more. Imprisonment means
total segregation from their women for long
periods; depriving young men of sex en-
genders unimaginable perverted behavior
that leaves scars for life on many. Prisons
and reform schools literally make criminals
out of juvenile delinquents who come back
into society with a kindled hatred of it.
REHABILITATION ENCOMPASSES three
things: restoring dignity to the human
psyche, bringing into focus the community
of men and teaching the skills necessary for
self-sufficiency. These things can be brought
about, not by taking the man away from his
society, but by using many, community-
based facilities which allow the man to work
and spend part of his day in society while
returning each night to undergo individualiz-
ed treatment that meets his particular prob-
lems and needs.
I stress the importance of the word "indi-
vidual" which is another word of non-mean-
ing in today's prisons. When a prisoner ar-
rives at a prison anywhere, he is imme-
diately stripped of any individualism and
required to regiment his behavior and re-
press his attitudes just as' if he belonged
in a cavalcade of ants.
Most emphasis in corrections institutions,
especially in prisons is on custody, that is,
keeping track of the bodies. The top jobs in
corrections are political and the top men
demand that the "lid" be kept on and the
"heat" be kept off their particular power
sphere. Therefore almost all institutional
operations are custody-oriented. Treatment
serves only to take up so many bodies each
day and to convince the public that all is
well inside the jailhouse.
Consequently, there is great pressure to
resist implementation of new programs that
could undermine the status quo: the status
quo, in turn, shuns excellence, punishes
failure and fosters the mediocre. Finally,
mediocrity leads to a staff that doesn't know
enough about human behavior to be effec-
tive or care enough to be of any help: too
many rigid life-styles fail to tolerate some-
thing new or untried; too many inane minds
have fallen victims to peer power games
losing sight of the services they should be
providing; and too many have sacrificed
their own creativity for the easy way out.
Prison officials refuse to recognize that
risks must be taken with criminals if they
are ever goingeto become a part of society-
All of this process does a grand job of keep-
ing the public in the dark. There are good
people working for the Bureau of Prisons,
but they live with frustration. The new war-
den at Milan F.C.I. has planned some new
and long-overdue reforms, but unless he can
muster up enough cooperation, he will come
and go like others who couldn't dent tradi-
tion.
PERHAPS THE most striking aberration
in American justice is the law itself and
how it is interpreted. The insensitivity of
the law to changing social values is beyond
excuses. Men are sentenced by judges who
are veritable monarchs holding the fate of
others in their hands.
There are three major problems when
talking about criminal justice in this coun-
try: unresponsive laws, inconsisteht sen-
tencing and inadequate jails-all of these
things work nicely to foster confusion, bit-
terness and disrespect among those who are
firsthand witnesses to an ever decaying
crime problem If these ills could be
cured, we would no doubt alleviate much of
the problem, but this won't happen because
people are ignorant of crime and want to
stay that way; it's much easier to hire more
police equipped with better gius and listen
to no-mind politicians talk about "cracking
down"; but these crude solutions only serve
to enlarge the vicious circle. We can no
longer trust our institutions to solve our
problems because they just don't work,
and it is our responsibility as individuals to
demand those measures necessary to bring
problems like crime and poverty, out of the
Dark Ages. Turn off the television for
awhile, open your eyes and ears to the
many cries for help; cries like this one:
I can't understand why I was turned
down on parole what so ever. I am no
hardened criminal. I never done any-
thing real bad I may need help in a
hospital. But to be locked up in a place
like this is not helping me one bit. And
if you people can't see this by now
seeing I been in rand out almost all my
life and not helping any then must be
something wrong. And I won't find help
in places like this. I'll first get worse
every time I get out. Until I end up
doing something real bad. Then it will
be too late to do anything for me.
,V
,A
-Daily-Jim Judkis
Prison tower overlooks childrens' playground
Letters: Boycotting A &P for fairness
To The Daily:
THIS AFTERNOON at the doors
of the Huron Avenue A&P, two
longhair employes told me that
they and any other store workers
who refused to have their hair
cut short would soon be suspended
or fired. The manager of the store,
Mr. Hartman, claims that this pol-
icy was set at regional level and
that he cannot exempt his em-
ployes from it except at the risk
of his own job..
Since his store employs a lot of
women whose hair looks no less
long, or more tidy, than the men's,
it seems inescapable that the
"health" reasons cited by the com-
pany are no more than evasions
of the real reasons.
In order to bolster A&P's frail
sense of fairness, and to counter-
vail the pressure of death-culture
hostility, I suggest that we spend
our food dollats elsewhere a n d
send plenty of letters to the A&P
regional office. 5470 Hecla St.. De-
demic offices. On the other hand,
there is a serious misunderstand-
ing about another matter, the
amount of teaching a n d cnher
work done by the faculty. I don't
think all the facts were available
to Mr. Kraftowitz t h a t should
have been, and I would like to
give a different perspective here.
The stated "six-to-ten-hour a
week load," to begin with, dogs
not take into account the large
amount of additional teaching
that must be carried on outside
of the formally scheduled meeting
times of the classes.
This becomes particularly -m-
portant with large classes, out of
sheer numbers, and with advanc-
ed graduate courses, including di-
rection of doctoral research. The
actual face-to-face teaching load
may easily be double the amount
quoted. The time required to pre-
pare for a class, especially a large
one, is also large, and from my
own experience I can vouch for
the fact that the time may be
field. This clearly varies with the
discipline, but in many, and cer-
tainly in my own, this is a grcedy
factor indeed, which will consume
as much time as one can spare
and still not consider it enough.
And as the rate of advancement
of knowledge increases, the task
of keeping abreast of it in zn un-
derstanding way, without becom-
ing either superficial, or narrowly
specialized, becomes even more
demanding.
I think it is apparent that there
is not much time remaining in a
normal work week f o r research
(more accurately, we should use
the term "scholarly activity," to
include s u c h things as literary
and musical composition, artistic
creation, etc.).
But we have not yet considered
"administration," under which ru-
bric all manner of demands on
faculty time appear. To use my-
self as an example, I find that I
am putting in six to ten hours a
week on committee w o r k: two
available and approachable, and
in. an unhurried, relaxed -itmos-
phere. This function is more im-
portant today than at any earlier
time in my experience, but I know
that even now, many faculty
members cannot spare the time
for it.
Altogether, these matters plus
occasional public service and pro-
fessional activity add up to a week
of over 50 hours. I do not ,.esent
it; there are non-material rewards
that compensate for the loss of
personal time. So w h a t mould
happen, if, under pressure of a
"budget crisis," I were asked to
teach more classes? The time re-
quired would have to come from
somewhere, and there is no more
to give in personal time if we are
to be fair to our families.
The time will have to come from
keeping up with the field, class
preparation, informal contact with
students, a n d scholarly activity.
The latter, including all research,
is nowhere near enough, and a t
when he wrote that increasing the
teaching loads would "make it all
the easier to separate those who
are devoted to teaching from
those who view it as an obstacle
to overcome," as the m o r e re-
search-oriented professors leave
us for other institutions.
However, it can be viewed dif-
ferently - might not the effect
instead be to lose those with the
enthusiasm for the subject that
motivates research and the quest
for the highest quality in teach-
ing, while keeping those who are
m o r e content in a comfortable
nest that makes no demands on
their creativity, imagination, and
openness of mind? Would you pre-
fer devoted but uninspired teach-
ing of yesterday's knowledge,
training by persons with o n 1 y
second-hand contact with the
sources of new knowledge, com-
pared to what the University now
offers?
A great university. as opposed to
a four-year teaching institution,
- 'I ~ ~