The Limestone Correctional Facility in northern Alabama sits in a large open field in the easy rolling foothills of the Appalachian Plateau, north of the Tennessee River. The Tennessee border is fifteen miles north. A few miles to the east is NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, the pride of every Alabamian and the state's biggest tourist attraction. One morning last May, three hundred or so, medium-security inmates formed a line inside the prison fence at the facilities east gate. They were dressed in white uniforms with the words Chain Gang stenciled in black letters across their backs. A prison guard mustered the inmates into lines of two, and counted up groups of fifty. After verifying the number of prisoners with a guard manning the gate, he marched the line of inmates outside the prison walls and into the controversial dawn of a new corrections philosophy in America.

Chain gangs are back, and not just in Alabama. The states of Arizona and Florida introduced chain gangs into their prison systems in 1995. In Alabama, the re-birth of chain gangs began as a political promise by the Republican Governor Forrest James Jr., during his successful 1994 gubernatorial campaign. He became Governor of Alabama in January, 1995. Shortly after taking office he denied inmates television, daily coffee, and other privileges, and re-introduced chain gangs in May, 1995. Other states are watching and waiting, and are considering similar programs. For prison policy makers the buzz words are, "tough and cheap." This new attitude of get tough on crime, and a bare bones prison system is gaining widespread support from the US public, politicians, and the courts. The United States Supreme Court has recently handed down several decisions that withhold long established criteria for prisoners rights. The US Constitution is becoming less and less a refuge where prisoners can seek protection from what they perceive as severe and unjust prison policy. Civil rights groups and prisoners' rights advocates are stunned by this new trend. Capital Hill has also taken up the new call for prison reform. Rep. Richard Zimmer, (Republican-New Jersey) has introduced legislation in the US House of Representatives, the No-Frills Prison Act, H.R. 663. Rep. Zimmer's H.R. 663 would make federal construction dollars for state prisons available only to those states that eliminate certain inmate privileges his bill deems frivolous, expensive, and unnecessary.

In the state of Alabama, most citizens support the use of chain gangs and other get-tough prison reform. A Mobile Register -University of South Alabama Poll found that 70 percent of the state's residents support the re-introduction of chain gangs, while only 24 percent are opposed. Black residents are far more opposed to chain gangs than whites, with 53 percent opposed, and 43 percent supporting it. 77 percent of whites approve of chain gangs and only 19 percent oppose them.

This fundamental shift in public opinion towards prisoners and state corrections policy can be found all across America. A recent survey by Corrections Compendium, The National Journal for Corrections, published in Lincoln, Nebraska, of prison administrators in 46 states, the District of Columbia, and the US Federal Prison system, found that thirty state corrections programs have cancelled many privileges in the past year, and all have eliminated or placed limitations on privileges inmates have long taken for granted. A popular public perception, constantly kindled by many politicians, is that the last twenty years of costly prison rehabilitation programs have proven to be ineffective and failed the test of time. Punishment seems to be in, and prisoner rehabilitation is out. Prison officials have responded to this sentiment, some more vigorously than others. Many corrections officials and the politicians they usually work for, believe that the return to bleak prison conditions will save money and discourage future criminals.

Opinions vary and not all agree with America's new prison agenda. Angela Wright, who works the US desk at Amnesty International's London office points out that, "Alabama's chain gangs are not only cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, they also are a violation of minimum international standards including the United Nations Convention against
the Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, ratified by the US government in 1994. We would very much like the US Federal government to step in and suspend such treatment, and to respect international standards on the treatment of prisoners." "Ellen Bowden, a staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center, (SPLC) in Montgomery, Alabama, a civil rights advocacy group, calls chain gangs unconstitutional. " Chain gangs violate the 8th and 14th Amendments to the US Constitution by punishing prisoners in a barbarous, inhumane, and cruel way, and inflicting cruel and unusual punishment. We (the SPLC) have filed a class action suit in US District Court in the state of Alabama on behalf of 4 named chain gang prisoners and all present and future inmates who have been or may be assigned to work on chain gangs, against the Governor, Fob James, and Alabama Commissioner of Corrections, Ron Jones. We expect to go to trial in July of 1996."

Commissioner of Corrections for the state of Alabama, Ron Jones, has a different point of view. "The re-introduction of chain gangs in the state of Alabama, has nothing to do with such issues as cruel and unusual punishment. The real issue is money and the effectiveness of expensive prison rehabilitation programs instituted over the past twenty years and their failure to reduce recidivism. In Alabama, in the twenty years since 1975, we have spent billions of dollars on prisons and programs. In 1995 we have a prison system four times larger and fifteen times more expensive, with no change in the recidivism rate. Starting last May, all recidivists who re-enter our prison system will be assigned to the chain gang." Asked what kind of message he would like his chain gang policy to send, Commissioner Jones responds, "Jails are not a very nice place and you would be better off avoiding situations that might put you there. If you want to commit a crime I would recommend you don't do it in the state of Alabama."

At Limestone, nine months after the chain gangs were re-introduced in Alabama, the prisoners form a line just inside the prison fence at dawn. Several Corrections Officers with handguns and 12 gauge Remington pump-action shotguns keep, what they describe as, a "reaction distance" from the inmates. The road crew inmates, like the ones featured in the Paul Newman movie, "Cool Hand Luke," pass through the prison gate first and board a school bus painted beige. The bus has darkened windows you can't see into, and metal screens you can't get out through. The bus drives off to a 10 hour roadside detail, along some northern Alabama highway needing "road work". The inmate's chains are attached after exiting the bus.

The remaining inmates now waiting outside the prison gate, are summoned, five at a time, a "squad," to two more guards who stand next to plastic milk crates filled with stainless steel chains and leg-cuffs. The five inmates kneel on the ground, prayer-like, facing the sunrise, while the two guards behind them attach the chains to their ankles. The chains look like long handcuffs. They weigh about 3 pounds and are eight feet in length. There is some slight jockeying for the coveted end position on each squad. The inmate on each end has one leg free. Every inmate, almost to the man, re-ties his shoes with a link of chain tied into their shoelace knot to cushion the tension on their ankle. It takes over an hour to attach chains to the legs of 200 inmates. There is a lot of waiting, and a lot of standing around in the cold sunrise.

There is also an unexpected, constant, and loud drone of human voices in the still morning air. The inmates yell at each other, they yell at the guards, they all yell at once, they yell at me. They tell jokes, they constantly gibe with each other, and the guards. There is some pushing and shoving. A snow ball rises up from the middle of one group of prisoners, it's trajectory carrying it towards another nearby. There is an endless deliverance of sexual taunts, sexual boasting, and sexual innuendo. When I asked a large group of prisoners why the cows in the adjacent field held their rapt attention, I was told, "We're kind a hoping to see some cows going at it." A few inmates would furtively give me the finger whenever I raised my camera to photograph. Some were openly hostile, but most seemed "friendly," and most were polite. Some stood silent and watched me work, many want to talk, to complain, to give me their version of how and why they ended up on the chain gang, and of course, their opinion of chain gangs. Chain Gang Inmate, Roosevelt Rivers, " Man this is unnecessary, man. It's cruelty. I know we did the crime, we need to do the time, but this is past time, man this is cruelty man. It's wrong. It's cold out here. It ain't even benefitting any. You know you can't even put five dogs on a chain in Alabama, yet they still let'um put five human beings on... It don't do nothing but build up an anger inside you towards... It's just more and more anger. That's' all they do. It's humiliating, degrading. Twentieth Century slavery."

The chain gang squads are supposed to reflect the prison's racial mix of 60 percent black and 40 percent white, but there are plenty of all white and all black squads. The squads reform into groups of fifty inmates, and march to a work site on the prison grounds. On this cold January day, four groups of fifty, two hundred inmates in all, march north a few hundred yards from the prison gate. They enter a square shaped, fenced in area roughly two hundred yards across, former pasture where prison cattle used to roam. Along two sides of the square and behind the barbed wire fence are two wooden guard towers. An armed guard stands in each tower, watching the fenced in square from his elevated perch. In the middle of the square are two rows of rocks about 50 yards in length and 15 yards wide. This is the prison's rock breaking area, and the rock breaking chain gang has just marched in. The rocks are big, and gray, Limestone County limestone. Chain Gang Inmate, Otis Robbins "You know these rocks were welded, snowed together. First it was a strong rain came through and welded these rocks up. Then the sleet, then the snow. These rocks are frozen... This place ain't no place to make nobody better. This won't make me better. This is, I know to come back to this place here, I'll die on the streets before I let'em bring me back to this place here."

The inmates collect 10 pound sledge hammers from a small shed inside the fence. Goggles are passed around, as are work gloves. Prisoners privately complain to me that there are never enough of either. Groups of fifty inmates break rocks while the other 150 inside the fence simply wait their turn, watch the cows, and continue their banter. Two prison guards urge the rock breakers to get busy and stay busy. Prisoners who refuse chain gang work spend the day at the "hitching rail," an elevated metal bar to which inmates are handcuffed. Amnesty International in London is particularly concerned about the "hitching" rail. AI's, Angela Wright," Prisoners tied to the rail must stand in the hot sun for long periods of time as there is no shade. The inmates have their limbs stretched and suffer dizziness and pain after being tied to the rail. This hitching rail is cruel and degrading treatment."

The amount of rock a modern rock crushing machine could break in thirty minutes would probably exceed what the Limestone chain gang does in a week. One chain gang guard who asked that his name not be used, expressed frustration with the rock crew policy. "There is more meaningful work and more beneficial work these men could be doing, yet we have them standing out here busting a few rocks." The rock breaking I've witnessed at Limestone seems purely symbolic. Hammers are not swinging wildly, or forcefully, or in earnest, at anything. There is no one really breaking out in much of a sweat here, no one really busting ass, or much rock for that matter. Looking busy is the name of the game, as the two guards running the rock crew make their rounds near the Limestone rock busters. Contrary to early newspaper reports, this is not the dreadful chain gang immortalized in a Hollywood movie or by some popular song. It's a 90's kind of chain gang; a little swing of the hammer here, a little swing there. An inmate will take a swing at the big rocks, and rest. Some inmates work together, one placing smaller rocks on top of the big ones, and taking leisurely turns with their hammers. Some inmates do absolutely nothing. While some do break rocks, and all are out there in the damp cold of winter and under the hot sun of an Alabama summer, I wouldn't want to depend on these guys if I needed gravel for my driveway. It's not the rocks anyway. What really matters is the symbolic fragments, the photo op, the sound bite, the TV spot flying through the air that this rock breaking, chain gang, doing-hard-prison-time exercise generates for both sides of the issue.

Chain Gang Inmate, James Richardson #150516 "What good is a chain when you're out there committing a crime, or another offense. You ain't gonna be thinking about no chain gang. You know what I'm saying? They call this the Alternative Thinking Unit. This is supposed to be corrections. In order to correct a person you must help him, teach him some job skills or whatever it takes to correct this person. First you've got to find this person's problem. Why did he come on the chain gang? Why did he commit this second offense?"

Unfortunately for inmate Richardson, the new prison zeitgeist has strayed from a correctional mode to one where punishment and doing hard time take on a new, kind of old meaning. Mr. Richardson's observations coincide with what most professional prisoner rights and rehabilitation workers think about the new, get tough, rock breaking, chain gang attitude gaining momentum in the US. It is highly unlikely that a perpetrator will stop and think about the consequences of his or her act. Criminal justice professionals say chain gangs and tough prison reforms are no deterrent to crime.

For Jenni Gainsborough, spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) National Prison Project in Washington, " Chain gangs have nothing to do with fighting crime, nothing to do with rehabilitation. It is simply political pandering, the deliberate dehumanization, and debasement of prisoners for political gain... It is being done as a spectacle, and that is what is so horrific about it. Punishment like this is not a deterrent for these sorts of crimes. Every study done for the past ninety years shows that harsher punishment is no deterrent, except for white-collar crime."

The sight of convicts in chains breaking rocks, seems to epitomize the get tough image Alabama Governor James promised during his political campaign. But many prison professionals find the new corrections policies way off the mark. With favorable political winds in Washington and in many state houses across the country, and with little opposition from the courts, prison reformers seem to have the operating room they need to implement their tough, cheap agenda. The question remains as to what effect this new prison philosophy will have on crime and criminals in the United States. Chain Gang Inmate, Walker Stewart # 151794, "I been in prison one time before this, but it ain't been this hard... I think I learned my lesson. By coming through this here, I don't think I'll come back no more... This is my last time... Give me a chance, I'll show'em. I was doing good until I got selling them drugs. But I learned my lesson."

This is exactly what Alabama Corrections Commissioner, Ron Jones wants to hear. Chain gang inmate Walker Stewart, a repeat offender serving time for assault, drugs, and receiving stolen goods, has 4 more years of a bare bones Alabama prison system to slog through before he gets his chance to prove the new get-tough prison reformers right or wrong.