Page 6 P o rtla n d O bserver February 28. 1980 Behind the Walls /»>• Z arry Huker »35021 David Wright H3V8I6 O.S.P. Correspondent Assistant Editor ED I 1 O K 'S NOTE: The d i f f i ­ culties don't end at the gate lor men serving time at the Oregon Slate Penitentiary. The days following re­ lease are often trying as the days spent behind bars. This is the first part in a series that looks at the d if­ ferent ways lour men laced the chal­ lenges of Itte outside. by Howard Goodman He started with $100—that and his prison-issue shirt, pants, socks, shoes, T-shirt, shorts and belt. The slate doesn't furnish coats, regard­ less o f the season. It was December and for Charles LHutchinson, 32, it was re-entry lim e. A fte r 4'/i years behind the Vails o f Oregon State Penitentiary, he was returning to live with the rest o f us. A man can be afraid to jump into water, especially if he isn't sure he knows how to swim. Nearly every day in Salem, men and women leave the state's penitentiaries; nearly all of them wonder if they can make it outside. Many cannot. About one-third return to state prisons within three years because they run afoul o f parole terms or commit new crimes, according io corrections officials. But to all—those who make it and those wo don't—come similar pres­ sures: Finding a job and keeping it, making a home life, avoiding an old crowd or an old drug habit. They are people who already have proven an in a b ility to live by society’s rules. Now they must cope with a world that didn’t stop chang­ ing during the period when time stood still for them. And all to often, they must at­ tempt it with too little preparation. The ‘ ‘ gate money,” the bare $100 that many ex-prisoners start with, is much less than even the cheapest m onth’ s rent. While officials say they attempt to counsel prisoners about the difficulties they will face on the outside, ex-prisoners say the effort is, at best, hit or miss. About 175 prisoners are released each month. Nearly every day they leave, step­ ping through a side door at Prigg Cottage, the correction division’ s release center in southeast Salem. There, tn a high-school-sized building at the edge o f a broad farm field, men and women prisoners wait out the last three or four months o f their sentences. The lights o f Salem appear from the Prigg Cottage windows, flicker­ ing on the horizon across a bitter distance. The air inside is heavy with time. People cotne to Prigg Cottage to wait. Sometimes the time is broken by an interview with a counselor who asks whether the prisoner has lined up w ork and residence fo r his release. Sometimes the prisoner, ac­ companied by a guard, travels out­ side for a job interview. « CHARLES HUTCHINSON sittin g am ong his friends at the Oregon State Penitentiary prior to his release. though perpetually trying to peer out o f a tunnel. He looks like a man placed on hold. He is from O akland, C a lif., where his connng-of-age was typical for those who end up at OSP: Convicted at 19 of contributing to the delinquency o f a minor, 90 days in ja il. He says he was caught buying liquor tor a 17-year-old. C onvicted at 20 o f receiving stolen goods. He says the case in­ volved boxes o f stolen liquor. He says he pleaded guilty and the judge let him go. Convicted o f grand theft auto, 60 days in ja il. Acquitted by ju ry of murder. Convicted o f assault. He says he hit a girlfriend in a quarrel and she called police. His recent sentence stemmed from a conviction for kidnapping handed down five years ago in Rose­ burg. Hutchinson says he was with a friend who put the squeeze on a guy who owed him money. They picked him up in a car. His friend held a gun. The victim charged kidnap. Hutchinson says his friend got five years. He got 10. According to the Roseburg News- Review newspaper, however, H ut­ chinson entered Oregon in a stolen car alter escaping Irom a Contra Costa County, C alif., prison farm in October 1975 w ith nine other men. At the time, he was being held at the county farm awaiting trial on a robbery charge, according to Con­ cord, Calif., authorities. One week after the escape, a state trooper near Grants Pass began to pursue a car being operated errati­ cally on Interstate 5, according to police reports. The reports identify Hutchinson as the driver. Hutchinson sped to a rest area near Azalea and broke into a nearby farmhouse, waking a retired deputy s h e riff and forcing him in to his pick-up at the point o f a sawed-off .22-caliber rifle, according to police reports. " O S P was ju st one big prison. Now I ’m in a bigger o n e .” Mostly they wait. Eventually the parole board rules and their papers clear. And they’ re free to begin new lives o f parole or freedom. Then they stand like Charles Hut­ chinson waiting for his ride to take him from Prigg Cottage, parole papers in hand, $100 in his pocket, looking out over the flatness o f southeast Salem farm land like a foreigner on the border. This is a story about people on re­ lease. It’ s about Wendell Long, who made it, free and clear from the system. I t ’ s about Joe West, who didn’t, and is back in the pen. It's about Vernell Franklin, who finds the leash of parole drawing tighter the longer he is out. And i t ’ s about Charles H u t­ chinson, who, in less than two months, was convinced that prison has only been purgatory; the outside was hell. Charles Hutchinson: ” OSP was lust one prison Now I’m in a bigger one.” He goes by Hutch. He sits quietly, a strongly built man with a firm, sinewy handshake and a touch of doom in his eyes. He speaks in a soft, careful drawl. The eyebrows are arched, as Hutchinson ducked to the floor o f the cab, aimed the rifle at the man's head, and demanded the man drive him to Portland, according to the reports. They drove, with deputies behind them. They stopped the truck in forest country. Hutchinson fled on foot in to the brush, reports the state. Hutchinson came out o f hiding and surrendered to state troopers five hours later, shivering and coat­ less in the cold and snow, the news­ paper reported. At his trial, he asked for a change o f venue because so few Blacks live in Douglas C ounty. He said he would be unable to have a jury of peers. The court turned him down, the newspaper reported. Found guilty o f kidnap he was sentenced tn December 1975 to 10 years in OSP, the newspaper said. He did 494 years at OSP and he did them well. It was a stunted life in the joint, but Hutchinson found ways to expand himself. Not at first. He started his time feeling angry and lost. A 10-year sentence looked like forever. He quit caring. He started fights. He got tossed into solitary five times, six times. He wasn’t counting. But then, Hutchinson says, he be­ gan to mature. Out o f curiousity, he listened in on a meeting o f the prison Toast­ masters Club. Club members asked him to make a speech. He got up, wondering what he was going to say, and spoke o f his arrests and his anger. He revealed his loneliness. His audience listened and applaud­ ed. Hutch joined. He took to clubs. They were something to do. They were maybe a way out. He became president o f the anti­ drug, anti-alcohol Keen Club. He had access to a telephone and office. He brought guest speakers into the prison. He joined the Jaycees and organized collections for the United Way. He completed his high school education. He talked to legislators during an unsuccessful prisoners’ campaign for conjugal visits. He was, he discovered, articulate. He found he had a way with people. “ I went in as a young man,” he says. “ 1 came out as a man. ” 1 feel like an old one,” he adds. ‘ ‘ They took all my young years away from me.” It was in December. A fte r 494 years, Hutchinson was paroled to Salem. He has no family or friends here. He knows ex-cons, but it's a viola­ tion o f parole to associate w ith them. He was paroled to an address— his girlfriend’s—and to an employer —Capen Janitorial Service in West Salem. His girlfriend drove to Prigg Cot­ tage and picked him up. Their first stop was a bank on Lancaster Drive SE, where Hutchinson cashed his $100 check. His parole papers were his only I.D. They drove next to see his parole officer, who spelled out the terms o f release. Then they drove home. And things started going wrong. The $100 disappeared fast. Right o ff, he spent $60 for his girlfriend’s rent. Then he spent $35 to stock the apartm ent w ith groceries. This was only fair, as Hutchinson saw it. He and his girlfriend were a true couple. He was a prisoner when they met. She wrote him nearly every day he was inside. She’d visited twice a week. She’d seen the parole board on his behalf, talked to the warden. They’d discussed marriage. But now she showed a new edginess. Too much was happening, too fast, she said. On their third day o f living together, she asked H ut­ chinson if he had any place else to go. “ I s till don’ t know what hap­ pened,” he said several weeks later, trying to sift the puzzle for meaning. “ Things were fine when I was in­ side. I guess she just wasn’ t ready to face the relationship in reality. Then the job fell through. “ I lost the contract,” said Joseph Evans, owner o f Capen Janitorial. " I had hired Charles, but I told him it was contingent on the flow o f business.” Evans said H utchinson would have worked on a cleaning crew at the state Highway Division building across State Street from OSP. But the state canceled the contract, Evans said. “ I ’ m sorry about it , " Evans said. “ I hope he finds something. I saw him at church Sunday (Salem Mission Church o f God in Christ) and I know he's trying to hang in there.” Hutchinson's situation after three days on the outside stacked up like this: No place to stay, no job, assets totaling $5. He swore he wasn’t going back to the pen. He thought about running away. In California, he could be far from this trouble. But a clear-cut parole violation like that was an awful risk. Desparate, he called a friend he’d made during last year's campaign to gain conjugal visits for prisoners. The campaign had failed, but Ron Huntley, then a legislative aide with an interest in prisoners’ and minorities’ problems, looked like a man who might help. “ 1 honestly feel that i f Charles hadn’t called me he’d be back in the the jo in t,” Huntley said later. “ And that scares me.” Huntley telephoned around. He learned Hutchinson could work on a tree farm on the Coast Range. But he’ d need work clothes, bedding and two weeks’ supply o f food. Where to get it? Huntley had heard o f a $200,000 fund the Legislature had authorized to help prisoners meet one-tim e costs for rent and job-related ex­ penses. After an hour’ s phoning, Huntley tracked down the corrections a u th o rity who held the purse­ strings. Then Huntley and Hutchin­ son went shopping. Hutchinson picked up some work clothes and a sport coat for free at the Elks’ Lodge. They were his first civilian clothes in 4'/z years. " I saw a man totally despondent and ready to split light up like a Christmas tree when he tried on that sport coat,” Huntley said. A t the Veteran’ s center, they picked out used clothes, dishes and cooking utensils. They set them aside in a box. At a K-Mart, they selected work boots. Larry Daniels, a prison official, wrote checks totalling $81 for the clothes and cooking gear, Huntley said. He spent another $30 for groceries. The Salvation Army gave Hutchinson a $15 food voucher. Ted W inters, a friend and ad­ vocate for ex-cons, lent Hutchinson a rain slicker and sleeping bag and drove him to Alpine, a small town southwest o f Corvallis. Four days after his release, Hut­ chinson was planting trees. Just in time: I f the parole board had learn­ ed he was without a job or address, they almost certainly would have sent him back to prison. It’ s hard work on the mountain. The men carry 40-pound sacks around their waists as they climb hillsides, bending to implant seed­ lings. Men with lighter skins than Hutchinson’ s acquire dark bruises around the hips. Five-hundred men attempted the job during Hutchinson’ s first two weeks, he said. He said he was one o f the seven who stuck it out. Hutchinson began at $5.50 an hour. He was paid for 794 or eight hours o f work each day, although travel time often extended the day to 12 hours. At night the men rarely had the energy to set up camp properly. Tents leaked in the rain. Dinners were hurried encounters w ith canned food. There weren’ t any showers. The atmosphere was charged with fights and rip-offs. Hutchinson would wake up in the chill o f 3 a.m. unable to return to sleep. “ It’s completely lonely up there," Hutchinson said during a New Year’ s week visit to Salem. “ I'm one of the only guys who speaks E nglish.’ ’ Other workers spoke Spanish, he said. After two weeks, Hutchinson had $200 and got a ride to Salem. He gave $35 to his girlfriend to help pay her phone bill. He bought presents for her and her son. “ Things were so sad,” he said. “ I wanted them to have a nice Christ mas.” He borrowed money for a bus ride to Portland, where he stayed with friends and looked for a bettei job. He said he applied at about 20 firm s. A ll said they w ouldn’ t be hiring until April. “ A lot o f times on the mountain, 1 wanted to run out,” he says. "B ut 1 can’ t let myself down or the people who are countingon me down there. I ’ll hack it as long as I can.” He hopes a better job will crop up. He says he’s shown he can work hard. Now, i f he can only get a decent job, he might keep clear of prison for good. W ithout one, he might slip. “ 1 still feel that with a little bit o f help, I can become a productive citi­ zen,” Hutchinson says painfully. “ But now I’ m at the bottom with nothing. “ One o f my biggest fears is going back to prison,” he says. “ I saw a lot o f people returning who thought they wouldn’t come back. “ I t ’ s a disgusting-looking road. But I feel I got to survive it.” (Reprinted from the Oregon States­ man.) Lucid walls of time Edited by Julius D. Snowden, 38013 Ah, love, that soft, sweet, vibrant force which energizes the mind, gives life to the body, and enlightens the soul Ah, the sweet, soft voice of the fair maiden in the distance, beckoning her love to her knight who is off to fight the battle. My being is your being, my mind your mind, my love your love. Her hair as gold as the sun, high above the earth on a warm spring day. Her eyes as blue as the sky, crystal clear as a mountain spring, and as beautiful as the saphire. For with both of us together, combining our ever radiant love what wrong can bestow itself upon us? Her spirit, moving freely among the universe, carrying her love to her man wherever he may be; carrying him through obstacles he may come across Let us be as one, and the world shall be a better place in which to live. E X O By Steven H. Daniels • I D U S ' '■'//