Customer Reviews

The Largest Hotel Chain in Texas: Texas Prisons

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Lon Glenn really tells it how it was and is. As a former, and, thankfully, retired Texas Department of Corrections supervisor, this book gives the employees' side of the working conditions of a rapidly expanding prison system which is mired in trying to implement Judge Willaim Wayne Justice's impractical rulings concerning prisoner treatment and how it has completely changed into a day care center. This book is a real eye opener for any taxpayer who believes his money has been used for rehabilitation. The system has gone from giving an offender a reason to rehabilitate and re-enter society and be a useful person to simple warehousing with no incentives whatsoever. During the past 17 years, TDC has gone from self supporting, low recidivism, to running in the red, non-self supporting, with one of the highest return rates in the nation. In 1984, the prison system housed 46,000 inmates, with 26 prisons. Today, there are over 146,000 inmates with 100 units, not withstanding the special units for medical care. If you want to know where your tax dollar is going, this book is a must read....

There is a strain of downhome American wisdom that is regularly dispensed from small town coffee shops, main street barber shops, courthouse lawns, rural churchyards, roadside beer joints and country music lyrics. Be fair; work hard; don't cheat; help your neighbor - and if need arises, be ready to kick some butt.

This downhome wisdom says actions should have consequences, and the two should correspond. Good actions should have good consequences; bad actions, bad consequences. But life doesn't always work that way.

Lon Glenn spurts downhome wisdom like ketchup from a bottle, and you'll find some on just about every one of the 392 pages of the retired warden's memoir of 30 years in "Texas Prisons -- The Largest Hotel Chain in Texas".

Glenn's got some good stories to tell, and he delivers them with a strong voice and a keen wit. The narrative is aided by dozens of historical photographs (including the graphic crime scene record of inmate Clarence W. Redwine's head resting on a dining room table several feet away from the body from which it had just been detached by an inmate wielding a cane knife).

There are tales of prison lore -- work bucks, manhunts, heroism, treachery, mayhem, murder, tough convicts and tougher lawmen. There is a glossary of prison slang that gives the reader a better sense of what it means to do hard time. If all this book had were the stories, it would be a good read. But there is more. From the vantage point of his experience, Glenn offers hard analysis of how the Texas prison system reached its current crisis state -- a system on the verge of a breakdown that will make Attica and Santa Fe pale by comparison.

The chief culprit, according to Glenn, is Judge William Wayne Justice, the federal jurist who dismantled the Texas prison system in the Ruiz v. Estelle case, leaving a prison power vacuum that was quickly filled by violent inmates at the expense of the dwindling ranks of litigation-bound officers.

Politicians, lawyers and corrupt administrators share the blame for not fixing the troubles, and should be held accountable for what Glenn views as the inevitable collapse of the Texas prison system.

"I am confident that when future historians write about the decline and fall of the criminal justice system in Texas, the failure of those who were in a position to do something to prevent it will be listed as the principal cause."

In the course of making his case, Glenn weighs in on capital punishment, rehabilitation, the U.S. "war on drugs," and criminal insanity. (His views on the drug war may surprise you.)

Dedicated to the officers of Texas Department of Criminal Justice -- Institutional Division, the book includes the 27 tenets of "Glenn's Law." Examples:

"Always maintain a reverent and respectful appreciation for the tenacity of ignorance."

"Having someone you trust watching your back makes all things seem possible."

Lon Glenn has our back. Anyone with a stake in the future of the Texas prison system -- and that's all of us -- should read his book.

I really enjoyed this book.The history of Texas prisons is fascinating.As a Texas correctional officer I know that many of the author's opinions and concerns are shared by officers still working for the state of Texas. While you may not agree with some of the author's opinions this book as a whole is interesting reading.

Mr. Glenn has written a well thought out book that modestly describes his own career while tracing the history and impending destruction of one of the best prison systems ever. I worked at one of the prisons he discusses briefly, just at the start of the real troubles for the system and I can say that he is spot-on and clear in his thinking. In page after page, he seems to have reached into my head and put down just what I was thinking. He says that Crawford was the last of the old-time wardens, uber bosses who earned and demmanded loyalty and obedience, and put their hearts into the system, while providing a crucial service to Texans. I think that he was wrong and maybe Lon Glenn was that man. Bravo.

Lon Glenn has produced an informative book that any reader with an interest in corrections or government, especially Texas government, would find interesting. It is a passionate volume full of anger, bitterness and disgust obviously born of the author's frustration with a changing criminal justice system that falls far short of his view of what it should be. While I would recommend the book to anyone concerned with both justice and public safety, be warned that Mr. Glenn makes no pretense of being objective. On the other hand, just because his view is subjective, it is not without merit. The book will prod you to think about issues most of us seldom consider, but that are vital to us all. Without question this book should be required reading for members of state legislative bodies thouhout the country, and especially in Texas.

A good editor whould have really been a blessing both to the author and the reader. One kept reading variations on the same theme in chapter after chapter. For example, how many ways do you say in effect "the only really good wardens where the ones who came up through the ranks like I did, and not those ivory tower college kids from Sam Houston State University"? After reading that message several times stated in various ways throughout the book, you get the point, even if you ARE college educated.

The absence of objectivity was most apparent in Mr. Glenn's painting with too broad a brush the hated lawyers, bureaucrats, college educated wardens, and others with whom he disagreed, but he did not stop there. He used the same broad brush to paint a different hue those wardens, corrections officers and others that he admired and with whom he was in agreement. There was no indication in the book that the author was aware of the fact that Federal Judges, college educated wardens, lawyers, and prison board members are very much like up-through-the-ranks wardens and corrections officers in that some are honest and honorable people, and some are at the opposite extreme, with the vast majority somewhere in the middle falling short of the mark, but trying to reach it.

Mr. Glenn clearly makes the point that the building-tender system, where inmates had power over and were in control of other inmates, was a necessary evil. It was necessary because the Texas legislature did not provide the resources to control the convicts without its use. If you doubt that it was evil, you have only to read the book, for the author leaves no doubt about it, although he probably did not intend that result.

The author's positions in regard to the need for more corrections officers, better pay and benefits for staff, required hard work by convicts, effective practical rules and methods for the control of inmates, and sane common-sense regulations regarding work assignments of guards all have great merit. The author leaves one with little doubt that if positive changes are not promptly made in the Texas prison system the public will have much to fear. Of added interest is his apparent view that our country's efforts to control drugs require a second look.

Warden Lon Bennet Glenn was tough as saddle-leather, tenacious as a tracking dog and hard-nosed as he needed to be during his 30-year sojourn through the ranks of the Texas prison system, and his "Texas Prisons -- The Largest Hotel Chain in Texas," offers a unique and realistic look at what really happens behind the walls of the nation's second-biggest warehouse for felons.

Glenn does it well.

Now retired and free to unleash a torrent of stored-up candor, he alternately praises and condemns the institution he served, and blames a plague of outside influences which, he insists, have transformed the system into an Armageddon waiting to happen.

Ambivalence is not part of the Glenn equation. Wielding opinions like a riot baton, he weighs in on capital punishment, female corrections officers, drug crimes, and the sorry state of affairs characterizing what was once, by his measure, the finest prison system in the country. And he makes a compelling case for his perspective, serving up generous portions of good-`ol-boy logic and a seemingly endless supply of war stories, many of which happened on his watch but never made it to newsprint.

A man with a mission to set the record straight, Glenn walks the reader through three decades of hard-won experience, describing the best -- and worst -- that he saw during a tenure that was sometimes frustrating but, clearly, never boring. He's an old-school warden who learned his craft from some of Texas' legendary criminal justice leaders, and he'll tell you -- often -- that unless you've worn a uniform and done time as a bona-fide corrections officer, you've no business trying to manage a prison system, or even offering an opinion on the subject.

Without looking at a single chapter, readers can get a good feel for the author`s outlook, simply by scanning the 27 principles in "Glenn's Law." My favorite: "Always maintain a reverent and respectful appreciation for the tenacity of ignorance."

Although his manuscript could have benefited from editorial help, the message doesn't seem to suffer much from less-than-polished prose. He's selling authenticity, not style. I came away wishing I could hear some of the stories he didn't get around to telling. And feeling that if I had to work as a guard in the Texas prison system, I'd be a lot happier with him at my back than any editor I've ever known.

If you want to read a book about TDC then this is the one. I am a former employee of TDC and was assigned to an institution where Mr. Glenn was the warden. He is a good man.

i am interested in this book but i would like to read the back cover to see if its what i am looking for

Looking for a "cell block" eye view of Texas prisons, then this book is a good resource. The author worked his way up from Correctional Officer in the "plantation prison" era to Warden in the contemporary era of corrections. Along the way, he experienced all of the hazards, brotherhood and politics that a career in corrections can bring you. He does not let back on his opinions about Texas prisons in particular and American prisons in general. It's a good read and historical resource and I would recommend it to anyone in the corrections field or interested in the subject.

This book speaks to those who actually do the work of the Texas prison system, rather than to those intellectuals and lawyers who seek to mold it without knowing the practical life and death effects that their ideas have on real, live, breathing, human beings.

Mr. Glenn deals with an issue which is surrounded with myths and misunderstanding. The use of inmate guards didn't begin with the Texas prison system. It just received the most publicity there. All inmates are not created equal. Some are smarter and stronger than others. Some are natural leaders. Anyone who has ever worked in a prison knows that you can either fight this little aspect of reality, or use to your advantage in the management of the prison. Everyone does it because no one has a choice. The problem that Texas encountered with Building Tenders and Turnkeys was due to the formal nature of the arrangement. In other words, Texas was open and honest about the system, with formal proceedures for its management.

Contrast that with the situation of today in every prison system, whether it be state, federal, or 'enlightened' european; in which deals are made between the prison administration and gang leaders because it is the only realistic way of limiting inmate violence.

Building Tenders still exist, only now their existence is denied or they are called something else. So much for the lunatic dreams of Willie Wayne Justice and company.