Coed Incarceration

In their leisure time, young couples stroll around a man-made lake, watch movies, listen to quadraphonic stereo, or play pool in the recreation room of their glass and redwood housing complex. At first glance, they could be students at some bright new community college. But campuses are not bounded by barbed wire-topped fences, and students are not kept under scrutiny around the clock.

The relaxed-looking individuals, most of them in their 20s, are serving time at the new Federal Youth Center in Pleasanton, Calif. They have been convicted of stealing cars, holding up banks, committing manslaughter, selling narcotics and other serious offenses. Despite appearances, says Warden Walter Lumpkin, "a prison is a prison." Still, some inmates call Pleasanton a prisoner's paradise. The most novel feature is that it is coed. Since it opened in July, the 40 women and 35 men "residents" (the term "prisoner" is passe) have been eating, working and playing together routinely. Sexual activity is banned. Anyone caught violating the rule may be transferred back to an orthodox prison, but no one is certain that celibacy is total. Says Glen Guyton, a convicted narcotics offender: "Every now and then the little ideas cross your mind. Every man will have them. Where there's a will, there's a way."

Pleasanton is the newest of four coed facilities opened in the past three years by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. The others are at Fort Worth, Morgantown, W. Va., and Lexington, Ky. A fifth, the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Framingham, is operated by the state government. Connecticut plans to open its own mixed prison in 1976.

Commuting Convicts. Despite its growing acceptance, the mixing of sexes in penal facilities is still considered experimental by correction authorities. Making life more pleasant for prisoners is only a side effect. The principal goal is to increase the chance that a prison sentence will reform a criminal rather than alienate him further from society. Explains Robert Vagt, deputy commissioner of community services in Massachusetts: "Our whole thrust is to get incarcerated people into a more normal environment. If it's not coed, then we're preparing them for a situation that they are not going to meet in life."

The change is in line with other concessions to the prisoners' rights movement that are being made at some institutions. More and more inmates are being permitted furloughs as they near the end of their sentences. Programs giving convicts the opportunity to work or study outside the walls are becoming common.

Some changes result from official need. After the federal courts became overburdened with trials stemming from prisoners' complaints, the Bureau of Prisons last spring set up a grievance procedure.

Wardens must now answer all written protests within 15 days. If the prisoner is dissatisfied with the response, he can appeal to the bureau director in Washington.

The coed prisons tend to be on the frontier of permissiveness. Though many of the inmates have committed violent crimes, they are considered minimum-security risks on the basis of their behavior in old-fashioned prisons.

Therefore the coed institutions are surrounded by fences rather than high walls. Guards wear street clothes and carry walkie-talkies rather than guns or clubs. Male inmates stroll about in jeans and T shirts, while many of the women favor colorful halter tops and slacks.

As part of the education program at Framingham, the 62 men and 61 women can take courses in computer programming and basic business skills.

More than half of them commute daily to jobs or schools in the surrounding area. The Federal Correctional Institution at Fort Worth holds Gestalt therapy sessions as well as providing transactional analysis for the 400 male and 100 female residents. To encourage a sense of responsibility, Pleasanton officials give all residents keys to their own rooms. The rooms, however, cannot be locked from the inside.

Though it is too early to judge conclusively, penal experts believe that coed incarceration is a success--at least in improving behavior. Warden Charles Campbell of the Fort Worth prison, which has been coed for nearly three years, reports that "we have not had a drug overdose or the kind of fights characteristic of serious drug trafficking. In fact, we've had little of the violence commonplace in more rigid prisons."

Known homosexual activity has declined drastically both at Fort Worth and at Framingham, which has been coed since 1973. Explains Convicted Murderer Murdoch MacDonald, a Framingham resident: "Just to be around women releases uptight fantasies. It lessens homosexual actions." At the Robert F.

Kennedy Youth Center in Morgantown, there has not been a single case of homosexual rape reported in the three years since the prison became coed.

Quickest Exit. Still, there are drawbacks. Fort Worth had the third highest number of escapes in the federal prison system last year, presumably because of loose security. Most of the runaways returned voluntarily. The prison is also reported to have had nine illegitimate births, though the women may have become pregnant on weekend furloughs or work releases.

Officials say that whatever their problems, coed prisons are clearly far more humane than their predecessors.

Although inmates point out that no prison can be pleasurable, most occupants of the coed facilities prefer them to standard slammers. As Toni Brook Chandler, 18, a Framingham resident, puts it: "When you see a man around and he sees you, you stop and say, 'Wow, I've got a reason for getting out.' " The quickest way out is to stay in line while in prison.

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