Word: warden
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Back from Outside. But Duffy knew San Quentin. He was born there (the son of a prison guard), grew up inside the walls, and married the daughter of another San Quentin guard. Fascination for the gloomy pile, and an odd, boyhood ambition-to live some day in the big warden's mansion-brought him back from a job on the "outside...
...Warden Duffy began one of the most dramatic housecleaning jobs in penal history. He fired the brutish captain of guards and six other sadistic "screws," sternly prohibited the use of clubs, lashes, straps and hoses. He closed up the "hole" -a dungeon of airless, lightless, unfurnished, iron-doored stone cells into which convicts were thrown as punishment for even the most trivial offenses. San Quentin still shaved prisoners' heads and dressed them in numbered uniforms. Duffy abolished both practices. Men were fed out of buckets. Duffy installed a cafeteria and hired a dietitian...
Acclaim from a Lifer. In the last decade, Warden Duffy has never abandoned his belief that San Quentin can rehabilitate as well as punish. He established a broad program of vocational training. He was the first warden to let prisoners listen to radios in their cells. He encouraged athletics, inaugurated a prison newspaper to which he contributed a regular column ("Facts-Not Rumors"), established the first prison chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous, let prisoners sell handiwork such as belts and wallets...
Last week, after eleven years, Warden Duffy, 53, was finally preparing to leave
...Quentin, Duffy had become one of the best-known, most admired prison administrators in U.S. penal history. But the most eloquent acclaim came from inside the walls. In the prison yard, a rheumy lifer clutched Duffy's hand and spoke out for his fellow prisoners: "God bless you, warden. You'll never know what you've done...