Word: hoffa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...help them to that end, Democrats have hired Walter Sheridan, a former Justice Department investigator, to pursue his own study of the case. Sheridan, who played a key role in developing the evidence that sent former Teamster Boss James Hoffa to prison, apparently gave O'Brien the specific leads he needed to make his claims about the tapping of the two phones in his former office. Meanwhile, Williams has filed a request to take depositions from 17 more people in O'Brien's $1,000,000 violation-of-civil-rights suit against, among others, the Committee...
Spray Mace. Lewisburg is one of the best federal prisons, and Hoffa, assigned to a job of recycling old mattresses into new ones, had one of the easier situations. Nevertheless, he hated prison for its deliberately debilitating effect on mind and body. "Everything that goes on is designed to strip you of your manhood. You only get medical attention if you're ready for an operation. The food is horrible. There aren't sufficient exercise facilities, and a lot of people are afraid to expose themselves to possible violence or trouble, so they stay in their cells...
...Hoffa found the guards, who were union men, generally compassionate, but there were disturbing exceptions. "About 85% were O.K., but 10% were overly ambitious, trying to report somebody and get ahead, get a promotion, and they were always causing trouble. Five percent were sadistic, ornery bastards. They had rules, but they'd never hand them out, because if the rules are known to the inmates, then when a guard does something wrong everybody would know it and could stand up for their rights. I pestered one lieutenant to hand out the rules, so one day he handed...
...Manhood. Hoffa agrees with the common view that such treatment does little to rehabilitate a criminal. He also considers prisons responsible for current waves of strikes and violence; two such strikes took place at Lewisburg while he was there, but he did not participate in either. "It's not worth it, but I'll say this. They may beat a strike, but they'll never win it. It gets to the point where the prisoners don't care whether they win or lose. They simply got to show their manhood...
...Hoffa urges prison reform on two levels. One, is to put an end to the practice of jailhouse homogeneity as a way of destroying individuality. "They put rapists in with embezzlers, muggers in with draft dodgers, and they wonder why they're in trouble." The second reform concerns money. "You've got to set up training facilities to prepare men for work after release. You've got to train the guards and pay them more. You're going to spend the money somehow, either in police forces, courts, loss of property and lives, or in reform...