Oral History Program Joseph Lavine Interviewed by Don Cavalli 12 August 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Joseph Lavine Interviewed by Don Cavalli 12 August 1971 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Lavine, Joseph, an oral history by Don Cavalli, 12 August 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Joseph Lavine. The interview was conducted on August 12, 1971, by Don Cavalli, at the Weber County Jail. Lavine discusses his experiences while incarcerated and his knowledge of the Utah crime system. DC: Joe, the first question that I usually ask in my interview is to kind of just to lay a ground work for the rest of the questions. Could you perhaps tell me just a little bit about your early childhood— where you were born, the size of the family that you were raised with? JL: I was born in Texas. My family was pretty large. I've got eleven brothers, counting me, and two sisters, and a mother and father. As far as my early life goes it's always been pretty rough for me because I've been in trouble since I was six. The first time that I can remember, I was in DT--detention home. I've been to the State School three times been to prison once. DC: Tell me about the first detention home that you were in. JL: I've only been in one. I was in this one down here on Grant. I guess I got used to it after a while because it really didn't bother me, but when I first went there, it really shook me up. When I was younger, I used to be afraid of ghosts and stuff. They put me off in this room by myself. My younger days weren't really rough. It's these last few weeks, last few years that have been killing me. DC: You were in the Juvenile Detention Home here in Ogden. Was that the first Juvenile Detention Home that you were in? JL: It's the only one that I have been in. 1 DC: You were processed through the Juvenile Court though? JL: Yes. DC: What happened there? JL: I can remember going through Juvenile Court somewhere between ten and fifteen times. The first time that I got sent to the State School, I was twelve years old. At the time, ray mother was fairly sick. All my brothers older than me had been in trouble, so the judge asked her she thought ought to be done with me. She said that the best thing she could think to do with me is to go on and send me to the state school. That's where I went. DC: Have any of your other brothers been sent there before? JL: Yes, Robert was there and Glen was there. When I went out there in 1962, Glen was still there, I went out there on May 29, 1962 and we both got out on May 23, 1963. Glen went back. He's been there two or three times after that and so was I. DC: So how many times have you been back to the State Industrial School? JL: Three times. I was out there in 1962 like I said, I went out there in 1966 and I got out in November of 1966, then I went back in November of 1967 and got out in May of 1968. DC: What do you think of the State Industrial School? Did you enjoy it there? Did they provide you with the kinds of rehabilitation services that you think you needed? JL: No, not really. Like the last time that I was there, my case worker, when I wanted to talk to him it was almost a foot race. Whichever one of us was the fastest got our way. If I was fast enough to catch him, I could talk to him. If not, I just didn't see him. 2 DC: What about the schooling that is available there? Did you take advantage of that? JL: Yeah, I went to school there. To be frank, I don’t think that it is the best in the world. When I first went there, I was in the seventh grade. The work didn't seem like it was seventh grade to me. I got A's and B's out of the whole thing. That's because they really didn't do nothing. Like we would set around out there and just talk to the teacher or if she decided she wanted to teach the class, "Quiet" and then she would teach the class and she would give us a bunch of copper and we made copper pictures. DC: What other experiences did you have out there? You spent a lot of time there. Can you tell me the experiences that you had? JL: Well, one day in 1962, I was only twelve years old. I was the only young person there. Everybody else was seventeen and eighteen. The first day I was out there, I met this dude and I had never met him before in my life. Right off he hated me for some reason. He tried to hurt me every way he could. I had a bunch of guys that I had known before I went there. I had known them in DT and they would stick up for me. I could do anything I wanted to. I could go up and punch somebody in the jaw, and they couldn't do anything to me because if they did the other guys would get after them. I ran from the state school. There was nothing causing me to run. It was just that one day we were setting around and we decided, I wonder if I can run. So we decided, okay, I dare you to run. We even got down on the starting mark and said, "Ready, set, go," I took off running. We got away. About eight o'clock that night, we were down here on Kiesel where the old Paramount Theater used to be. We went in and watched the show. After we watched the show, Grand Central was having a grand opening, I think, so we went over there and one of the dudes that was with me, I still think he was a little crazy, so he 3 stole a bunch of butter knives and they caught him at it. We left him there and we went on. We messed around for a couple of hours and then we turned ourselves back in. I thought it was strange though that he stoled those knives. When the guy asked him why he stoled them, he said, "So if anybody jumped on him, he could kill them." That's about all that happened in the State Industrial School. DC: Well, how come you turned yourself back in? JL: Well, we just wanted to see if we could run and get away with it. DC: So it was kind of a recreational thing for you? JL: Yeah. DC: You weren't worried about a consequence? It wasn't a matter of you disliking it there. It was just a matter of the excitement of running away—a challenge? JL: Yeah, something like that. To prove that we had enough guts to run off. Actually, in 1962, they had me in the youngest groups out there—group C. We were ahead of them all and they treated us just like we were their children and grandchildren. So we weren't doing it to be bad, we were just doing it to see if we could get away with it. When I went there in 1966, I got out there and I was the quiet type. I was small and I don't think that I could whip anybody. I stayed by myself at first and then a bunch of guys came in. I didn't really become partners with them but if I cigarettes and they didn't have any, I would give them one, and If I didn't have any and they did, they would give me one. We got along pretty well like that. I used to be pretty good at writing letters, they would pay me a pack of cigarettes and I would write their old lady a letter for them. The money out here was cigarettes, if you wanted something, you traded a cigarette for it. In 1966, the 4 only thing that had any impression on me is that I got jumped on by two dudes. They really didn't hurt me. It was just that they made me mad because I wasn't the fighting type. I got up and I ran from the state school, but I didn't get as far that time. I got from the state school down to about 13th Street and the police saw me. They started chasing me so I just started running through somebody's yard and I ended up in these peoples back yard and there was an old women back there and she had a fox with her. As soon as she saw me, she said, "Sick him." I turned around and ran into the policeman. Almost knocked him down. They took me on back to the state school and that was the last time I ever ran. They started sending me to school—MOTA. I was studying to be an auto mechanic. I didn't get to finish it though, because I started for them in September and we were supposed to end the next year. Before I could finish it, they sent me out of State School in November. I was still going to class. Like they had an economics class too. They decided that they there going to have a little display like a store. So the guy went around to all these places and got like empty boxes and stuff. He had them all on the shelf and a store and JL: Everything. Somebody lifted a jar of coffee. I don't know who it was, but somebody told him that I did it. He called me in to the principal’s office. I was going to talk to him but he told me to set down so I set down and he started cussing me--told me he was going to slap a fine on me. Instead of telling him I didn't do it, I went on and told him what I thought. The principal told me if I was going to be that was about it, you can just leave. I left and never been back. I went back to Ogden High for three days but by then I was seventeen years old and I was still in the tenth grade, I felt like that every time I walked into a room, somebody was laughing at me or something. After three days, I quit that 5 and I started running around playing crazy and I ended up back in the State School. That time they took me back for assault and battery. Assault and battery, stealing gas, and a bunch of other stuff. I can't remember all that there was. They took me back mainly to get me off the streets because I had been in a lot of fights. I looked like every other night, my mother would open a door and I would be standing out there with policemen. This time I was seventeen years old. I was pretty big then. They put me in a group where three of my partners were—three guys that I had known off the streets. They were pretty big guys too. There was only one other group out there that was bigger than that group was. I was in group S and the only other group bigger than that was group H. You would get a visit out there and like they would bring you cookies, pop, and candy. A person would get a bagful of goodies and we would split it down the middle, we'd have half and he would have half. I'll never forget the time in my life, there was a dude out there, I was trying to catch this young lady. When we first started to dance, they were playing nothing but his records. I said, "Hey man, we've got some records here and we want you to play some." He said that this other dude told him to play all his records or he was going to jump on him. I said "If you don't play ours, I'm going to get you." They started playing ours and halfway through the records while I was talking to this girl, the record just went on. I went over and asked him why and he said, "The dude made me take it off." I told him to take the record off. While he went to take it off, somebody bumped into the table and scratched the record. The dude to who the record belonged to, he came charging over there and he didn't bother to ask what had happened. He just jumped up there and told me he would kick my ass. I said, "Forget it man." This didn't bother me. I went back and got the young lady. After the dance was 6 over, this dude waited until all the girls were outside standing in a line. I was out there. He came out there and starts telling me that he was going to do this and he was going to do that. So I had to keep up a front out there. So I just told him that if it was going to be like that then I was just going to have to kill him. I really meant to kill him for a while. Before we could fight, like every time we would get ready to fight, he would always fix it so when we was getting ready to fight, there would be a supervisor around to stop me. He went around telling all of them that he was going to JL: Kill me if we got in a fight. So they would come to me and told me don't fight him because he will hurt you. I told them to just forget about it. Then one day I was in the Administration building, he came in there and I was getting ready to get him and he said, "We’ll talk this over. I was getting ready to go home and so was he. If I jumped on him, we was both going to stay, so he told me just to wait and when we hit the streets and then we'll call it. I told him then I said, "If I ever seen you on the streets, I'll kill you." At the time I meant it. Like I seen him two months ago and by now my attitude has changed and I just ignored him. About a week after we came to this little truce, I was setting in my group, and the student body came up to me and said, "We are going to send you on a weeklong home." "What for?" and they said, "It's just going to be your home visit." After my week long home visit, I came back and they told me "You're free, we just wanted to see how you could do on the streets." So they let me go--me and another dude. The guy's like my brother now-- he's dead. DC: Where was he killed—in Vietnam? JL: No, he was drowned out there in Willard Bay. DC: Was he with a group of people? 7 JL: His sister and another dude. DC: Out to the State Industrial School, there has been a lot of things said and in a lot of my interviews and like that that I have, they say a lot of interesting things about the State Industrial School out there. One area that I am quite concerned about is the use of drugs out there. Is it a problem out there? JL: No, I wouldn't say so unless they've changed since I left. When I was out there, we got high maybe three times the whole time I was there. That's not very much because like I was there seven months. We was on campus and if we really wanted to we could have got high. I didn't think that it was that much of a problem--not while you are out there. For a while I'd get up in the morning and I was smoking grass. I'd never take it home because my mother wouldn't go for it. I wouldn't eat breakfast, just get up and get myself together and zoom I was gone. I was over to this house smoking every morning. Maybe that's what got me into prison. Because the night that I got in trouble and I went to prison, I was doing the same thing. DC: You were high on marijuana then? JL: Yeah. DC: If you were through at the State Industrial School, then you came back out on the streets and you were running back home etc., then what happened? JL: Someone came up and told me that they were going to have me off the streets, one way or the other before the sun was over. At the time, I was swearing up and down that I had never even seen the inside of a jail. I laughed at him. I had just turned eighteen then and was a smart little thing. I told him that was ridiculous, I just went about my 8 business and like I would stay here a while and then go over to Salt Lake and stay there awhile. First I stayed over to my brother's girlfriend and I was over there for about three weeks. I came back to Ogden for a couple of days and I left and went back over and stayed with my other brother's girlfriend. I stayed over there for a while and then I came back. My partner had drowned so I came back for his funeral. The night that I came back, it was fallen apart because he drowned on June 30 and I didn't get over here until July. They were having a party, so I went over to the party and I met this other little dude. She was my type so we went to bed and I just stayed and stayed and never went back to Salt Lake. So me and Rodney and my younger brother, he's up stairs too, It was me, Rodney, Steve, Jamie, Jimmy Brown and just guys like us, we decided to run together. I thought I was doing all right. I had a girl in Salt Lake, I had one out to Ron Clair, and one down here. We went out one night just messing around and the carnival was in town. One of the dudes that I was with started an argument with one of the youngsters that was running the stand so he reached over the counter and picked up a chair and threw it at the dude. He took off after he threw it at him but then the dude jumped out of the thing and ran down and got his father who happened to be the manager of the whole thing. So he came down and started getting smart with my brother. My brother is younger than me so every time he is in an argument, if I am there, I have to stick up for him. I just pushed my little brother off the side and told him that if he kept running his mouth, he was going to get it on him. I can't remember whether he whistled or waved but it seemed like instantly there was fifty or sixty guys standing up there. I thought that I was going to have to fight them all. It was scaring me. I thought that I would just as soon fight and get it over with so at this time the police car pulls up. 9 That was the first time that I was ever glad to see a police. He arrested me for disturbing the peace and I went to jail—first time that I had ever went to jail. They locked me in that night and the next day I was down to court. The guy wasn't there to press charges so they let me go. After that, it seemed like I spent every night in jail—disturbing the peace, curfew, or something. They were constantly on my back. About the time that we were getting in trouble, Rodney and me decided that we were going to the service. I had enlisted for the Army, but Rodney hadn't enlisted yet. I had a case in the court and I had just beat it, but the judge told me that the only way that he was going to let me completely go was if the Army accepted me. I went over to Salt Lake JL: and took my physical and I was supposed to go in the Army the next day. The dude that was in charge of the station asked me if I had any felonies against me and I said, "Yes, I just got through going to court over it." He said, "We'll have to hold you off for a few days and check on it." I couldn't understand why but it was okay for me. It was only supposed to be a couple of days. I came on back to Ogden, and two days later I went back and he told me he couldn't take me. I asked him why and he said he had called my lawyer and the case was still in court. Part of the deal that we made was that it wasn't in court anymore. I came on back to Ogden and talked to my lawyer and it was a mistake that his secretary had made. After that, I just never made it in the Army. DC: Did you ever try again? JL: No. After that, I just got disgusted, I didn't even want to hear about it. So I just stayed around the streets fighting. I had been going with a girl out to state school. When I got out, she was still there. So I checking around with the others until a friend of mine, I had had a coat full of bear that night. I had been drinking beer and drinking beer. I almost fell 10 off of the bed. I was laying there and I looked up and this girl was standing there. She was running from State School so we just stayed together. We just moved into that house. We were supposed to get married but she went back to the State School because she was pregnant. What happened was that we were engaged to get married then we went to Salt Lake one night and my brother went with us. I decided I was ready to leave because we had been out since six o'clock and here it was one o'clock in the morning. So I grabbed her arm and said, "Let's go." My brother grabbed my arm and jerked me off in the corner and started yelling at me about don't hit her. So I got mad at my brother. If he hadn't been my brother, we would have fought, but being he was my brother and my older brother, I couldn't hit him. We got to arguing and the more we argued, the madder I got. I've got so much respect for him that I won't hit my little brothers for nothing. So instead of hitting him, I grabbed her downstairs and we got to arguing, so I told her, I can't remember exactly what I told her, but it ended up, "If you don't like me, you can get out." So she left. She went back to the house that night and we never did make up. The next morning there was a knock on the door and when she went and opened it up, there was a person that took her back to the state school. I haven't seen her since. DC: How long ago was that? JL: Back in 1968—last part of 1968 in November. DC: You don't know where she is? JL: I know where she is at. She's in Salt Lake somewhere. She won't even come to me. I should have expected that though. After that, one night we were smoking grass. We had this stuff there and there was four of us so we split it four ways—giving us four even 11 shots. I drank mine, my brother drank his and this other dude drank his. The girl that was there, she didn't want hers—she took a taste and didn't like it. She was going to throw it away, I decided that'd be a waste, so I took it and I drank that. That was enough to put me down. They put me on a chair and I was out cold. The dude woke me up at about one o clock in the morning and said, "We're going to go pull this job, do you want to come with us?" Since my little brother was going, I decided I'd go and try to keep an eye on him. I really didn't care but I could use the money so I said, "Yeah," I went back to sleep and they woke me about 1:30 a.m. and we went down to this gas station on 27th and Grant. We broke in there and they were trying to open the safe up and the police came along. They got away and I got caught. DC: This was the first time that you went to prison then. JL: First and only time. DC: What was you charged with? JL: Second-degree burglary. DC: So you were sentenced to how long? What was your term? JL: One to twenty. DC: How long did you stay out there? JL: Two years. Two years and one month exactly. DC: Tell me about the Utah State Prison. What do you think of it and what were some of the things that happened to you out there? 12 JL: If I was in charge of the whole thing, I would never send a person to prison until he was at least twenty-one. When I first walked into the prison, I was eighteen years old and I could see all these other people down at the end of the hall just staring at me. "Oh, my goodness, what have I got myself into? They're going to jump on me." I thought that they were going to kill me or something. They've got a control tower, you've got to go through a gate and you are in this little room and you set off in there. When you first go to prison, they are liable to keep you there anywhere from one to five hours. Then they take you out and take you on down to the prison. They kept me there about an hour and a half. If they would have let me go then, I wouldn't have been in no more trouble because I was scared. I thought that they would kill me. I sat there and the guys were staring at me. After I got processed in and everything, they took me down and got my clothes. They took me up on fish gear—that was the first trouble I got into was up there on fish gear. The dude that was up there, I didn't learn until later, he didn't like black people. I can't remember whether they said that the dude’s dad got shot or some black person done something, he was taking it out on every black person that came up there. One day I was sitting up there watching TV, I was watching a show. The dude that was up there stormed up and changed the channels. I got mad and jumped up and turned it back to my channel. I told him if he touched it, I would break his hands. He didn't care so he just stood there. He was a convict too. We got to arguing and he told me that it was mandatory that if there is sports on and a person wants to watch the sports that that is what channel the TV goes on. So like if there is a whole bunch of people sitting there watching the story and there is a basketball game on and one person comes up and decides he wants to watch basketball that is what we watch. I didn't appreciate it 13 but I went along with that. One day, I was down at the other end and everybody was watching TV--they were watching sports. I tried talking them into watching this show and they wouldn't do it. This guy down at the other end turned the TV off and I went down and turned the TV on. He chased me all over fish gear. I thought he was just joking because I didn't know at the time that he didn't like black people, but he cussed me out. At first I thought he was joking, so I was laughing. Then he started getting a little bit personal. He said if I ever did anything like that again, he was going to jump on me. I told him if he wanted to jump to just go ahead but he left then. A few days later, they were watching TV again and me and this other dude were setting down at the table playing some cards. The dude that I was playing with, he was a loud person. He won a hand and he slammed the cards down on the table and jumped up laughing and yelling and carrying on. The dude that was watching TV, one of them jumped up and turned the TV on louder. We got a little bit hostile. We said, "If you don't like the fact that we are playing cards, why don't you just move us?" The dude came rushing up there and he was the one that really started the whole thing, because he told them if I were you guys, he was talking to the group, I'd take these guys over by the stairs and I would just push them down the stairs. I tried to break that argument up. They kept arguing and everything and I was trying to talk them into quitting. Some dude came up with a snide remark. I didn't mind them talking about me but he didn't have to bring my family into it. So I went over there, I got so mad that I actually broke up the argument, because I got so mad that I called them all on. It was a crazy thing to do because they would have killed me. We cooled down after that. That was why they rushed us off of fish gear because they said that we were causing some trouble up there. So they put me on aid 14 block. The first day, I didn't know anything about it—the rules of aid block. I had been moving my stuff up and down by myself. They put me up on the fourth deck. One at a time, they just got through racking all the doors. My door was still open because I was still moving. This officer didn't know that but he didn't even bother to ask, I came down the stairs empty handed, the first thing he did was jump on me. He didn't like me when I first got there. We were pretty good friends when I left, but at that time he didn't like me. He jumped all over me. I got a little hostile and we was in a fight. I calmed myself down though because I realized that all I had to do was swing one time, I didn't even have to hit him, and I was gone. I never would have seen the light of day again, so I just ignored that. The whole time I was there, he was coming over and talking petty stuff. As soon as I got over that, he didn't like me because I could take it. I would just sit there and stare at him. After that was over with, he put me to work in the kitchen. I was in the kitchen about three weeks and a dude told me, "I want you to serve on the line." I said, "Okay." but there was no one there yet so I took the paper off into the bathroom and was reading it. He crept on me and he yelled at me and he yelled for a while that the paper went all over the place—it scared me. I jumped up and at first wondered what had happened and when I thought of just him, I got mad so I cussed him cat and told him that I was going to knock him under the table. So he wrote me up and I got eight months extra duty. I quit the kitchen. They put me in the plate plant. Now the plant, I did pretty good. When I first went working at the plate plant, they had just changed officers. He only had three people working for him—me, a dude named Kill, and another one named Lundgreen. He made us actually his head men. We got top pay, and we got our pick of the jobs. I didn't know anything about Plate Plant and neither did he. Reed was an old 15 man and where these other guys were showing me up. They were showing me how things worked like the different machines and stuff. I was picking it all up but I don't think Reed had a clear day in his life. I don't think that his mind was ever clear. I learned how to run it and after Kill and Lundgreen got released from Prison, I was the only one that had been there from the beginning—-I could run the whole place by myself. He made me and this other dude his head men. DC: What is a plate plant? JL: They run license plates. I'd be riding around the streets and I say "Hey, there are my plates." DC: Do they do anything else besides license plates? JL: They've got a carpenters shop, and an upholstery shop, a sign shop—you know those signs that they have on the street saying 30 m.p.h. When you go to the Utah State Mental Hospital, the furniture is made out there. It is all state run like one big organization. The State School gets their milk and meat from the prison too. They do just a bunch of different things. DC: Doesn't the prison also send milk out to some of the schools? JL: No. You only get one bowl of milk in the morning. If you take more they write you up. The milk just spoils and I can't understand why they were going on like that. If they had any milk left before they would give you any, they would take it off in the back and stick it in a cooler. Have you ever tasted food that has come out of the big cooler? They put in a bunch of different stuff and it flavors it and then no one wanted it so they had to throw it away. The prison is really kind of lousy. I could never really understand it really. 16 DC: Did they do anything good for you? JL: No. I did for myself. I don't give them credit for anything because I had the same problem out there that I had in the State School when it came to my case worker. They changed my case worker four times I think. I had three people at least. In two years, I seen them two times. And in the whole two years, I seen him two more times. That was when they were getting ready to send me to the halfway house. I got on the stand and I kept sending out requests to see him and I kept walking up and down the hallway. They were about the same as the state school on that. The case workers and the counselors don't give you any help. My whole opinion of the prison and the guards is that I don't think that the guards could get a decent job working anyplace else. This one guard out there, he went through fifty other applications and never got hired. There was one guard out there because it was out in the open. He would come to work out there and he left and that night they picked him up on second south dressed in a wig, mini skirt, stockings and all of this. Those are the kind of people you get. They come in there and they push you as far as you can just because they know they have power and you can't do anything. The only one that was halfway decent to me was Sergeant Lee and Officer Daniels. They were all right. The ones that push their weight around, they are so stupid. This one he came into the kitchen one day. They've got these dogs out here that they hire and they are trained to attack anything that is wearing blue. He comes off into the kitchen and he's got a dog on a chain. He stood up there and started talking to one of the cooks, and he had the chain in his hand and he let it go. The first thing that the dog did was jump on one of the prisoners. He did that guys arm up pretty bad. 17 DC: Is there a drug problem out in the prison? You indicated that the drug problem out to the State Industrial School wasn't too bad when you were there, well what about the prison, was there a problem then? I'd say that there is really not that much of a problem. I even got high out there but I gave it up because I really couldn't see nothing to do. When I get high, I like to go out and be around people. The guys get high but the average person doesn't run it into the ground. He'd get high one night and the next night, the next week or the next month, he won't touch the stuff. DC: It is readily accessible at there, though. JL: I couldn't say that it was accessible to everybody. It could be kind of hard to get. DC: How long has it been since you have been out there? JL: I just got out on April13. DC: Hasn't even been a year yet. The reason that I asked that is because I had this one excon that I was talking with that said that he thought that at least 40 percent of the residents out to the State Prison used drugs and he thought that it was readily accessible. JL: I wouldn't say 40 percent. I knew guys that used it, but the majority of guys that I knew wouldn't touch it. DC: What about homosexuality? Is that a problem out there? Are there a lot of jokers and punks etc.? JL: No, it's not really a problem. Yes. I would have to say yes because like when I was out there, I heard of the problem before. When I got out there, I seen guys that I normally wouldn't expect ordinarily doing something like that. You would be walking up the 18 stairway, anything, you see something out of the corner of your eye and you look and there are two guys going to it. I wouldn't say that it was fifty percent of the guys that were doing it but it is a problem because you always have to fight them off. Like I was out in the hall talking to some guys one day and this guy that I know, he comes up to me and he was a punk out there. He comes up to me and puts his arms around me. I had been there two years by then and he comes up and starts talking about all the men he likes—young and big and all this stuff. I told him to take his hands off me. The thing is that they do stuff like that. My partner and I was out there and we were out in the hallway rapping one day, and this other one comes up to him and told him that he like tall, curly hair men with long hair. This dude happened to be on the dark side with long hair. DC: What happens if you are physically weak? Then you've got a problem right? JL: From what I seen out there, if a person goes out there and says, you are not going to do this to me and then backs up what he says and starts two or three fights, then they get respect for him. If they say, "Well if I have to fight for this every time I want to do it." They're going to quit doing it. When I was in there, I was up on fish gear and a dude says that he likes the way I looked. I thought that he was going to do something bad so I said, "Yeah, if you want to do it, you go ahead and do it, but when you come just bring your life because I'm going to take it." I didn't even have to fight with him. DC: So it is just a matter of taking a stand and backing it up? The reason I wondered was because someone that I interviewed before said that he had two friends hurt pretty badly out there because they didn't succumb the pressures from some homosexuals out there. 19 JL: It's a problem if subconsciously you want do this, then it is a problem because then it's all in your own mind. Actually if you don't want to do it and you tell yourself that you are not going to do it, then there is no problem. DC: Joe, is there anything out to the prison that we haven't discussed that you think that we ought to bring out. The opportunities that are out there—educational opportunities. Are there any? JL: I would say that there are some educational opportunities because in the last few years that I was in prison, it was like going to school. Before, I could never get interested in school. Like I got up there and I started taking World History and U.S. History. I've always like to read so I started reading on that. Somewhere along the way I picked up a sociology book and I started reading sociology. I had a lot of time so I would sit around my cell, the first little while that I was there, and I read sociology, psychology book, and then they had a library out there. I've always wanted to be a Sociologist so I went down to the library and started reading all kinds of books on it. On my own, I tried to help myself. Then like I had a teacher up there—Mr. Morris, he wasn't helping me change. The only thing was that he was a nice man. He taught band and I was learning to play the trumpet. There was supposed to be three hours of band. For one hour, he wouldn't have anybody there and the next hour maybe half of the guys wouldn't show. I would go in there and practice and he would set up there and talk. He was just a nice guy was all? I think that he kind of had an influence on helping me change because I got over this attitude of, "I don't need anybody else, stay away from me, I don't want you to help." He would set there and talk to me and tell me that I should go out and try to help myself. You would first go up there and, Mr. Evans, was a pretty nice guy. He was a shy type 20 person. He didn't come out in the open that much and once I got talking to him, he was a nice person. Generally, all the teachers were nice. The only teachers that weren't nice were some that were convicts. Just talking to them kind of helped me because this was the type of guy that would come in there and like I got control over you, do what I say. They didn't come in with this attitude. They just came in with "I'm going to try and teach you." That's what they would do. I'd be in my World History class and we would be studying about the Egyptians, and maybe he would give us three or four pages to read and then we would set there and discuss it. I thought that it was all right. I thought that it was actually bad really that the kind of guy that got me started in my correspondence course. I took a correspondence course in Sociology up to the University of Utah but never did get to finish it though. DC: Was you graduated from a high school? JL: No. What happened was I was going to school and talking to these teachers. About a year after I got there, they came up with this Government GT, it was MDTA to really. What I did was take machines operator. In order to go through the class, it was mandatory that every Thursday we had group therapy. It was talking to him and being off around people. I was always interested in social work and what I would really like to do is go to college and learn some child psychology so I could help children. Because, if I could help anybody, stay away from what I went through it would be cool to me. DC: I think that is good. You've got the personality and persuasion. JL: These people don't seem to think so. DC: I don't want you to discuss the charge or anything, but what charge are you in on now? 21 JL: Assault and battery on a police officer. DC: Is that the only charge that you are in on then? So whatever comes out of that will determine where you are going to go. JL: I've already been found guilty. I'm going to be sentenced Monday, before Judge Hyde. DC: Is there a set sentence on that? JL: I don't know we were talking about it but what I could gather, there wasn't a set sentence on it. What the DA said, it was over five. What I want to do when I get down there is ask him to send me to the Halfway House and try to go back to work. Before I went to prison, I had a girl that I was telling you about. After me and this other one split up, I decided that I was going to marry her. We were supposed to get married and I got her in trouble and then I went to prison. When I got out of prison, she was right there waiting for me. We decided that we were going to get married. That's how it is right now. If I go back to prison, I'll lose her and I'd hate to see that happen. DC: You've been out to the halfway home? JL: Yeah. DC: The one here in Ogden? JL: No, I was in the one in Salt Lake DC: You were on work release too, I guess? How long were you in the halfway home there? JL: A month and one-half. DC: Tell me about the halfway home. What do you think about it? 22 JL: I think that it is a beautiful idea really. I think they should have had it there sooner. It has a few problems but basically it is a good thing because it gives a person a chance to just gradually get back into society. If they throw you out into society from prison like when I got out of prison and went to the halfway house, my whole personality to me was like an animal. When you're in prison, you get to the point where you are actually hiding your emotions and you get into the streets and you don't mean to be like that but you go to talk to someone and you just feel it within yourself. I would feel one way and instead of saying it, I'd hide it. Like if I felt like something was wrong and maybe my argument would have changed it, I still wouldn't have said anything. I would think "Oh it is none of my business, I'm going to keep out of it." I just started changing back to what I was before getting my emotions back. I just started getting them back when I come back to jail. The halfway house helps me because the first week that you are there you only get an eight hour home visit. In an eight hour home visit there is not much you can do. You get back around people and you get used to them. Then you go on back. In the meantime, all week long you are working and you are used to being around a bunch of people like that. The second week, you might get a ten hour home visit. You can set down and rap with your family and you can go out and visit friends. This way you are not around them long enough that it gets uncomfortable because you haven't got anything to say. It just builds up from there so that if you are there long enough, you get a whole weekend home visits. DC: Who was you working for? JL: R.C. Elliott & Company. DC: How come you were only there a month and a half? 23 JL: The VTI took out a joint and it lasted one whole year. By the time the year was up, I only had two and one-half months to go. It took them a month to decide that they wanted to send me to the halfway house. My record out there, despite of the write-ups, was good enough to where, I don't think they would have sent me if they could have got around it, but my record was good enough where they had too. DC: You understand that the halfway house here is somewhat different and I've been interviewing residents of this halfway house and the difference is that it is not an extension of the prison like the one in Salt Lake. It's for the kind of person like you are. A person who thinks and whose probation officer feels can make a transition. Can make a transition without going back to prison and that is what you are going to do then. You'll talk to the judge Monday I guess. See what the chances are. That would be great. I sure hope that you get that opportunity. JL: The thing is that I feel that I can make it on the streets. I was only out a month and twenty-eight days at the most. In that time I didn't have a chance to do nothing to prove that I was trying to help myself. It took my brother and I, there was three of us. It took us three weeks of just traveling back and forth from Ogden and Salt Lake to get this construction job. We finally got hired and the day that I was supposed to go to work, I ended up in jail. I wanted to get me this job and stay out of trouble. All I wanted to do was get me a job and a place to stay and get myself together and work so I wouldn't have to go back to that. It looks like it is all down the drain because the way that this thing is going, I won't even get a chance. DC: Who is your probation officer? JL: Youngberg. 24 DC: How long have you been in the Weber County Jail? JL: About seventy-six days. DC: You're trial was last week? JL: Week before last. DC: It was a good month before your case came to trial then? What do you think of the Weber County Jail? JL: Farr, Redd, Moore and maybe Jackson. Those four are the only decent people in here. Like this one dude, we had just had some trouble with him. He came up here and he was making those snide jokes. He came up there, there are three of us black guys and one white dude (That's the one that you interviewed.) He came up there and he was calling us blacksmiths and like he would open the door and he would say, "Hey Sterling, do you know that you are the color of Ogden High's colors?" Well Ogden High's colors are black and orange and Sterling just happened to be wearing an orange tee shirt. We didn't take that too well so what we did, Sterling got on to the marshal about it, the marshal got on his people. They got on Frenchy and Frenchy comes up stairs and he's mad at us now so what he did was give us one spoonful of everything, one little piece. It covered maybe one-fourth of the tray. Two or three spoonful’s and it was all over with. We were mad and decided that we were going to write a letter. He comes over and opens a hatch and said, "Do you guys want some more." And we said, "No." We weren't going to take it so what he did was he called Scrappy outside and he is talking to Scrappy. He lied. The impression that he gave was that Scrappy was downstairs wanted. He tried to get Scrappy to say that we were prejudiced and Scrappy wouldn't do 25 it. So then he called Sterling downstairs and tried the same thing. Sterling wouldn't do it. I know that I'm going to spend the rest of my time here while he is out here. It don't bother me because I know that sooner or later somebody is going to get him. DC: What happened to Gerald? Did he get sent back? He's having his trial right now isn't he? They won't come in with a verdict until tomorrow will they? JL: I think that he'll probably get off. They'll probably send him to a Halfway House or something. DC: The charge you have against you pertains to this question, but what do you think of the police officer? How do you perceive him? JL: I'll be truthful. Of all the police officers that I have meant in my life, I've meant only about five that have treated me half decent. The rest of them, to be truthful, all I found was a bunch of bullies. When I was twelve years old just before I went to the State School, I didn't know nothing about driving a car but I knew where the brakes are. I seen this car rolling down the hill so I jumped in the car and put the brakes on and stopped it from rolling down the hill. This guy comes bursting out of this gas station, dragged me out of the car and dragged me into the gas station and called the police. He had already slapped me on the side of my head. The police gets there and he kicks me in my rear end for stealing a car. I didn't even know how to drive. I didn't even pick up an interest in a car until I was sixteen years old. Before that, I didn't even try to drive one. I've met one or two good ones. When they picked me up and took me to the State School in 1966, if they would have checked on it they would have found out that I didn't even do what they said I did. But they didn't even check on it. All they did was haul me to the station. The cop took me into a room by himself. At the time, it was detective Stettler, he took me off 26 into the room and he said, "You did it." I told him it wasn't me, I didn't do it. He called me a dirty name. He called me a liar so I returned it back and called him the same thing. So he jumped up and he took me one. He grabbed me by my shirt and ripped it half off my back. We was getting ready to go to it and Lt. Dyer walked in there and seen him jumping on me so he told, he hit him again by the side of his badge. He had no choice but to back off. It was mainly him that got me sent to the State School. I was out there ten months before I got to court and they let me go. DC: You actually hadn't been adjudicated then? JL: The women who said that I snatched her purse said that she knew me. I met hereafter I got out of state school that time. She happened to be going to the same school that I was—man power. Somebody else knew her and she came tripping up and got rapping. Pretty soon she was gone and then they finally told me who she was. It's a good thing though because if they had told me while she was there, I think that I might have hurt her. I was pretty hostile doing ten months for something that I didn't even do. There was another time that me and my brother was walking home. We had just got through moving out of a house on Lincoln and we had moved out on Binford. When we had moved we had left for the garbage man the next day our garbage in some garbage can there. The next night we went back to pick up some garbage cans and we got about three houses away from where we lived now and a police car whizzed up. These two jumps out. One jumped out and he had a billy-club in his hand, and there is an old. The one with the billy-club comes over there and tells me and my brother that he is going to arrest us for trying to start a riot—on a street corner where there wasn't anybody. I refused to go with him and this guy was swinging at me with a billy-club so me and him 27 got in a hassle and I was fighting him off, I was actually just holding on to the billy-club so I wouldn't get hit in the head. In the meantime, my little brother bashes this other cop off in the car with an RC Cola bottle. While we were wrestling, another police car comes up, there was only two of them, and they threw me in the car and I went out the other door. I ran around the car and we got to wrestling and they threw me back in that door and I came out the other side. At this time, a dude that owned a barber shop across the street, his name was Mr. Nelson, all he did was asked the officers why they were treating me so roughly. One of them kept wrestling with me and another one my little brother had backed up against the car. The other one just told him, "If you don't get out of here and get away from here, you'll go to jail too." The dude was sitting there trying to talk to them and I guess the racket we had made alerted my mother because she came charging out there. While she was out there arguing with the officer, he snuck off and went home. That is how fair they are to me, because they knew that we weren't down on no street corner starting no riot. Because when we passed that street corner, there was nobody there but us two. DC: Were you ever charged with anything on that? JL: No, It was luck because if all those people hadn't got involved in it and my mother hadn't come over to see what was going on, they would have booked me. When I was going to Washington Jr. High, I'll admit, that I was doing something wrong, but everything that would come up missing in that school. The first place that that they would come, they would call the police and the police would get there, the principal was all right but the vice principal, we never could get along. He march off into the room, grab me and pretty soon I'd have these police officers right behind me. They tried to charge me with rape 28 when I was fourteen years old. Somebody just happen to see what had happened and it wasn't only me that hadn't done it but the girl that said she got raped hadn't even got raped. That's how the officers have treated me all my life. DC: What about as far as the judicial system is concerned. Has it been fair to you? JL: The only fair shot that I got was from Judge Hyde DC: Do you think that the judicial system has a few weak spots that could be strengthened? JL: Yes. DC: Do you have any recommendations as to how we maybe can do that? The way that the evidence has been presented in court, or do you have a good defense counsel? JL: I think that they should pay more attention to the testimony that is given. When I prisoner, there was a witness who was a woman. She was supposed to be a witness against me. The DA asked her, "Is this the man you saw?" She said, "No." So he asked her again and she said, "Yes." That should have made her testimony right there unreliable. The guy that was also supposed to be a witness against me couldn't even collaborate his story with his wife's. She said that they saw me from thirty-five feet away, he said that they saw me from seventy-five feet away--in the dark—at night. They saw the back of me and they said that all they specifically saw of me was my shadow. Still they said it was me. DC: Do you think that maybe the image of the police officer might be changed a little bit and their role ought to be changed? JL: What I think that they ought to do with the police officer, they ought to get some responsible person, someone that they know is responsible that is not a policeman. 29 When the policeman goes on rounds, they ought to have this person with him—somebody that they know is a fair person. This person should patrol with him because a policeman gets into a situation and he makes a mistake. The first thing that he is going to do is try to alleviate that mistake and while he is trying to alleviate that, he covers it up with another one. He just goes on making mistakes and pretty soon he has got to tell a lie in order to justify his actions First thing he does is come up with some fantastic story and instead of trying to give fair judgment about the testimony that is given. It is automatically the policeman’s word that is taking every time.--You don't stand a chance. DC: Is there anything else in the system that you can recommend—ways that we can improve the system, services that should be made available that aren't. JL: I don't see how they can justify sending a person to prison and he is eighteen years old. Actually, a person that is eighteen or nineteen really don't know that much. Take my case, they are going to send me back to that prison without even trying to find out whether I could have, I could get out there and make something of myself or whether I could do something for myself or not. I'm just going to go back to prison without even having a chance. I figure that if a person gets out of prison, he must have earned that privilege or he wouldn't be out, in a case like this where a person hasn't even been out of prison for six months, there should be something that they can do to help that person. They should be able to build another halfway House somewhere. A guy gets out and gets in trouble, so he can't prove that he is innocent, they should be able to take him there to watch him to see what he did, he did purposely and knowingly or whether he wanted to do it that way. They could try and straighten out that thing which caused him to get in trouble. 30 DC: Do you think that if you get a shot at the Halfway Home that you can make a go of it? JL: I can, I know I can. DC: What work would you try to find? JL: First, I would take any work that I could. That's the whole purpose to save your money so when you get to the streets, you can be on your feet. You get out there broke and you can't get a job, the first thing you know you're back there in trouble. Say a person has been robbing all his life, he's been pulling a gun and sticking it in people's ribs. He runs out of money, the first thing he does is "I'm broke." "I got away with it before, there was only one time that I got caught, I can get away with it again." So he goes right back out there and robs again. DC: By that time, it is too late. He's got a record and they've got his prints. JL: What I'm going to try and do is get a job in a machine shop because I made stuff out there that I didn't even know I could make before. My correspondence course, I'd like to write a paper to the University of Utah explaining the situation causing me to discontinue my studies. If I can get them to take me back in, I'd like to go back to that. DC: I'm sure that they will. They'll just lean over backwards. I have a friend that is a professor there and they will just lean over backwards in that department to help. JL: I'm going to check them out because...I remember a long time ago when I was sixteen that I promised my mother that I was going to finish school and go college and that is what she wants me to do and that is what I want to try to do. DC: You've got a good mind really. You speak very coherently. I was surprised when you told me that you didn't finish high school because I would say that you have at least a 31 year of college behind you because of the way you talk and the way you express yourself. JL: Before I went to prison, I couldn't even talk as well as I do now because I was shy. I just couldn't talk around a crowd of people. I couldn't even talk to one person. If I could talk to him, I couldn't express myself—the words would come out all wrong and after a while, I would just quit trying. I would be embarrassed and of course I was shy DC: You must have done a lot of studying and a lot of reading because since that time, you perform too well. Don't put yourself down because you're one of the best interviewees that I've ever had a chance of interviewing. Gerald really impressed me, of course, and he's a very intelligent person as you well know. JL: That was one man that I couldn't see why he went to prison. If he put his mind to it, I know that he could make something of himself. DC: He's got a lot of talent, he knows a lot about trade work etc. That guy could really make it and I just pray that he gets a chance to go to the halfway home—I really do. I think that you and he are kind of two-of-a-kind. Although, you've made offenses against persons and as far as I know he has only made offenses against property. Aside from that difference, you are a lot alike. You could make it—you really could make it. JL: I think that I could. DC: I do to. You'll let me know what happens won't you? What I plan on doing is transcribing and have my secretary type it up and then I'll give you a copy wherever you are. I promise I'll get it to you and then you just read through it and scratch out whatever you don't like. Maybe there will be some points that we haven't made here today and you'll 32 elaborate on this a little bit more than you have and then just initial the bottom of the page and as soon as you get done you send it right back to me. JL: When I get to talking I can find a lot to say. It doesn't hit me at the time and then later on while I'm sitting back...I try to… DC: I try to cover most of the things when you are talking. I write down things to remind me to ask you about it. But there is probably a lot of things that we could still talk about. JL: One thing that I would add is that if I go back to prison, I hope that they change it because a prison is supposed to be for rehabilitation but the whole time that I was out there and everybody that I talked to agreed and if you could see the conditions out there, you would see that instead of rehabilitation, that all they've got out there is detention. It doesn't help a person—all it does is get them bitter. What they need is more social workers out there or case workers. A case worker that won't come back with "Well I've got five more guys to see before you or ten more people. I'm busy now." I hope that soon they'll change that where you can go out there and get some help. DC: This is a real person. Probation and parole don't have enough time to spend with you when you are on probation do they? JL: No. Well I was on probation before. One time I asked to speak to my probation officer. He was a cool. If he had the time he would go on speaking to you. Sometimes, he would have things to do or had to go see somebody, I couldn't even speak to him. DC: When was the last time that you seen Youngberg? JL: I can't remember. It was before I went to Court. DC: So you haven't seen him since? Since the trial? 33 JL: He must have agreed with me on what I said. DC: Well, can you think of anything else, Joe, that we might have missed? Like you say when you start reminiscing in a couple days from now, you'll probably think of all kinds of things that we could have talked about. I hope that when I present you with this transcription that you'll take time to set down and write a couple of extra pages what you didn't put down. JL: I'll probably write something down. Who is all going to see this? DC: Nobody will actually ever probably play the tape. What will happen is that this tape, you know that I have an information sheet which I have jotted down the main items of discussion—that's an index. I just put the main items of discussion down. Then I put down my name and who the interviewee was, and the profession he is in. What he doing like a tax offender in the County Jail. Then I put that together with the release that I have for myself and put it with the tape, and then my secretary types up the transcription. I code it which means that I listen to the tape and read the transcription. Make sure that it is down verbatim the way that it was said. Then I present to you a copy of that. You go through it and cross out anything you don't want in the written copy. Then I go through it and I re-word what I said so that it sounds a little bit better. I take the final transcription and the tape and I take it up to Weber State College. This will be sent to California State in Fullerton. They've got hundreds of thousands of tapes there, you know, on all different subject matters. That is one place it will go. The transcription will stay in my office and I'm going to go through every transcription of every interview that I have. I'm going to pick out the points that were made like someone said that the Warden ought to mingle a little more with the prisoners and get more involved with 34 them. They think that perhaps cottages ought to be constructed so that families can go there. There are some privileges on minimum security out there and perhaps this should be extended and provide them with more privileges to prevent homosexuality. JL: I'm not even married and I think that they ought to do that for married men. The majority of the people that go to the joints, the whole time that they are in prison, there wife is coming out standing there cold. I don't know what does it, I don't understand what it is. Maybe it's because I've never thought about it. It seems like the whole time that they are there, their wife sticks by them faithfully and as soon as they get out, they might stay there for a week or maybe three months and then they end up getting a divorce. DC: Not only that but when you are in prison, it is so easy to get divorced because that is number one cause for divorces. When you're sent to prison on a felony, your wife can get a divorce just like that. That's what we'll do. We'll take all these recommendations and then I'm going to draft a list of recommendations from the consumer of the System. It is going to come from the administrators, it doesn't come from the wardens, it doesn't come from anybody else but the consumer of the system. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time in the State of Utah that this has ever been done. JL: I'll tell you one other thing that they should do that I think would really help. I think that at least once a year they ought to change the board of departments. You go in there one time and you give them a bad impression. They might give you a two or three year rehearing. You go back the second time, because they give you a two or three year rehearing. If you're the kind of person that thinks about it, the whole time that you are in prison, you are bitter—-it just gets to you. Well when you go back you are going to think about these fools talking away three years of my life. Then you are probably going to 35 run back and do the same thing. The board of Pardon, when I was out there, looked to me like they were giving out time like mad men. DC: I imagine that that job is very hard to fill. I don't think that there is too many people that like to sit and judge people. JL: I got to the point where my temper was almost non-existent out there. The whole time that I was in the joint, I never got in one fight. The board almost caused me to fight. They almost lost me one of my best friends. Like I said, I don't care what another person calls me but I don't see where he has any cause to bring my family into it. We go out there and the first thing that they do is call my mother a liar. I've never been in a foster home in my life, but one of the things that they shot at me was "Oh well we see where you have been in a foster home." My mother said, "No, he's never been in a foster home." They called her a liar. They didn't come right out and say, "You're lying. I couldn't help myself. I got kind of hostile. You've got a women to whom you're married too. You've been married two or three years—eight years, ten. They'll come right out and tell you that she is no good. You love this women. Okay, your wife goes off and man she loves you. They tell her that her man is no good that he is a dog- he's a criminal. She's liable to get hostile too. Because she got hostile, they can't touch her and they'll bring it right back and put it on you. I really can't see where that is fair. DC: So if they change it, maybe every year the composition of bringing a couple of people in every year say for a term of office maybe. JL: I think that would really be cool. DC: Can you think of anything else, Joe? 36 JL: Not right now, no. I'll think of something else but I can't think of it now. DC: Okay, when I send out the transcription, in the meantime you can think about it. When I send that out to you then just write down anything you want, and cross out anything you want and just initial it on the bottom. 37