The Black Hole of Manhattan

The word that sums up conditions at New York's most infamous jail is precisely the one that Chief Justice Burger used: "miserly." Known appropriately enough as the Tombs, the Manhattan House of Detention for Men is stuffed with close to 2,000 prisoners; it is a dank fortress built to hold 932 at most. Last week, as if to dramatize the Chief Justice's appeal for penal reform, 800 Tombs prisoners erupted in a window-smashing, furniture-throwing, bed-sheet-burning display of frustration brought on by inhumane conditions and the apparent indifference of the outside world.

Buck-Passing. The trouble began at dawn on Monday when 200 prisoners seized five guards and held them hostage behind a barricade of mattresses, bedsprings and chairs until their grievances were heard. After city and prison officials heard the complaints--overcrowding, filthy cells, guard brutality --the hostages were released unharmed. But the next day 800 other dissidents continued the disruptions. With growing fury, the rebels hurled tin cups, plates, pipes and anything else they could wrench from their cell walls. After seizing four of the building's twelve floors, they smashed 3-in.-thick glass windows and tossed chairs and garbage to the streets below. The melee was finally brought under control the following day; the prisoners were promised an official investigation of jail conditions. Remarkably, only two injuries--both minor --were reported.

Even while the last remnants of the riot were being swept away, the traditional exercise in bureaucratic buck-passing had already begun. Mayor John Lindsay held Governor Nelson Rockefeller directly responsible for correcting the situation; indeed, the city's jails contain 4,400 sentenced prisoners who should be transferred elsewhere. While accepting 300 for confinement in state facilities, Rocky reminded Lindsay that the first priority was to restore order. Even with the transfers, only two guards control 250 prisoners on each floor. The most confused official of all seemed to be the city's commissioner of correction, George McGrath, who admitted the overcrowding--and simultaneously voiced disbelief. "If things were all that bad," he said, "I'd have heard about it before this."

Lice and Men. In fact, the squalor of the Tombs was reported 128 years ago by Charles Dickens. He labeled the original Tombs "this dismal-fronted pile of bastard Egyptian." The present dungeon was built in 1941, and little has changed but the occupants. The 6-ft.-wide cells were designed for one man; now they often hold three, with one compelled to sleep on the concrete floor. If a man gets a blanket, it is usually infested with lice and roaches. Homosexual assaults are routine; some guards reportedly traffic in drugs. As a final blow, most of the Tombs prisoners have not even been convicted of a crime --they are merely rotting away while awaiting trial.

Manhattan Democratic Congressman Edward Koch, who has closely studied the Tombs, sums up the situation in words that Chief Justice Burger would understand. "This place brutalizes people," says Koch. "If we permit the prisoners to be brutalized, the prisoners are going to brutalize us."

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