November 1966

have had a most interesting, encour- rectional system. aging and inspiring experience in the Through the years I have seen many years that I have worked thousands of these men enter the closely with our group at the Indiana front gate as the direct and indirect State Prison, and it is the knowledge victims of alcohol. I have sat in on that I have gained in these years that hundreds of parole board hearings I wish briefly to relate to you. and heard a large portion of these Only a short time ago we laid the men admit that alcohol was their cornerstone for the new administra- downfall. I have watched these same tion building at the prison. As the men go out on parole and return ceremonies were being held, one again as the result of the same basic thought predominated, of the many cause. Yet there seemed nothing that that throbbed through my head: to could be done for them. No one what should we dedicate this beau- seemed to know definitely what tiful and magnificent building? To caused men to drink. No one knew the broken hearts . . . the broken definitely how to cure them. dreams . . . the broken and wrecked lives of the men who would, in the Prison, I feel that I could come be- years to come, pass through its shinfore you with something of interest, ing steel doors to the world behind as a representative not only of the the walls? By Alfred E. Dowd, Warden, members of our AA fellowship in Then, too, in my mind and heart Indiana State Prison, our institution, but as a representa- I kept asking myself: “Why is it Michigan City, Indiana tive of all the prison administrators necessary to keep building our priswho have seen the wisdom of the ons larger? And more of them? Why AA program. . . . do men continue to need being

D URING my many years in prison work I have spoken for conventions, service clubs and many Today, I bring you greetings from thousands of men in the Indiana State Prison and other correctional locked up?” Years in penal work, watching the never-ending stream of men pass in and out of prisons, other organizations, but to be invited institutions over the nation who take should be cause enough for asking to address the Fellowship of Alco- part in your program from behind this question-for it was more than holics Anonymous on the occasion the walls. Like alcoholics every- forty years ago that I began my penal of its twenty-fifth anniversary at this where, they are working in AA with career as guard at the old Jefferson- Of the more than 2400 men now international convention is-to me- the genuine desire for finding new ville Reformatory; and my service in committed to our care . . . let us look my finest hour. I have been asked hope and guidance for the todays the various penal institutions in In- at the record. Alcoholism contributes to address you on the subject of AA and for the tomorrows that await diana has been practically continuous the major portion of the population and prisons. It was with humility them beyond prison bars. I speak to since that time, with the exception load carried by prisons today, and is that I accepted this invitation, and you not as an authority on alcohol- of two years I served as Prison Ad- -more than any other one factoryet, as I look back over the sixteen ism or AA, but as a prison warden ministrator in Japan during the occu- directly and indirectly responsible for years during which we have had an and sponsor of an AA group of alco- pation and the more than three years crimes resulting in prison sentences AA program in the Indiana State holic prisoners. I might say that I that I served in the Maryland Cor- of all types. It is factual that more .

,. than sixty per cent of all men enter- oldest prison groups, was inaugu- been able to do for him: we see him ing prison admit to an excessive use rated sixteen years ago, about the learning of guilts the law never knows ‘of alcohol. A judge of the Criminal time that Warden Clinton Duffy of of, for deeds he has never done; and Court of Marion County once stated San Quentin, California, and War- so we understand why he has been that at least seventy per cent of the den Joe E. Ragen, of Illinois State unable to fit into the community life. crimes committed in his county (and Prison, offered AA to the inmates of We see inmate AAs-by their very this includes Indianapolis) stemmed their respective institutions. The examples of living the AA way of from alcohol and saloon contacts. story of our group is filled with tears life-contributing much to the gen- . . . Small wonder that at times and laughter, heartbreaks and hap- eral welfare and morale of the entire a prison warden has a heartbreaking piness. . . . If you will double and inmate body. We see the actual proof job. Society charges him to rehabili- triple the obstacles faced under free in the inmate himself as he goes tate and punish at the same time- world conditions, you will realize about his daily life and work in the a rather paradoxical situation. But what we were up against. Prison en- shop and assignment. Rarely does an we tried in years past to help the vironments, as well as some prison inmate AA appear before the prison drunk, as we knew him then, and officials, do not readily accept the disciplinary board, and then it is genthis he can understand, this “one day in our efforts to study him we called development of new reforms or erally of small consequence and he is business.” Too often he reckons his upon all the available sciences and ideas. When I first talked of intro- dismissed with a mild reprimand. penal servitude in terms of the days arts. Our institutional files were vir- ducing AA inside the prison many of dogged, daily prison routine Yes, we have learned much from tual gold-mines of valuable informa- skeptics argued that it was a useless the inmate AA. If you could see the fad. But today my original convic- ahead, instead of projecting his tion on how not to help the alcoholic thoughts and plans to the years in- effort it is for these men to bring into to recovery. We learned from look- tion of the value of AA in prisons is volved in his prison sentence. He the open those things necessary to ing over these records of trial and revealed as correct. For we find that taking inventory, you would ?lso lives these days, one at a time, in error that there was at least one the man who takes a sincere part in realize that they are beginning’ to somewhat of a mental blackout, not truth: that punishment alone cer- our Bar-Less Fellowship Group is ‘ wanting to think of his tomorrows; understand themselves. And by untainly was not the answer. Something more than two times as likely to make because of this feeling some prisoners derstanding themselves they gain infinitely more powerful was needed. a successful parole as the man who insight, and insight flowers into tend to feel that they are without It was in 1944 that a twentieth has disregarded the program. judgment. It is at this poinvthat their hope or promise for the future. The century miracle came to the Indiana . . . There is no question but what AA principle of members helping attitude and outlook gradually begins I State Prison – Alcoholics Anony- the AA program is a source of each other tends to dispel this dread, to change. T o behold the birth of I mous. Our group, one of the three strength and courage to the prisoner for the outside AAs in their attendhaving a drinking problem and want- ance at our meetings offer the inmate ing to do something about it. member a human understanding, a He finds that the program em- companionship and acceptance by phasizes today as the only day that free society that he had long formatters . . . that any man can live gotten. decently and honestly, in prison or These visits instill hope, faith, palace, in Christian charity, and do confidence, snd a definite promise the things for one day that would in the inmate for his future wellappall him if he thought he had to being and happiness upon release. It keep them up for the rest of his life. is then that we see the inmate AA This makes sense to the inmate and doing for himself what we have not

understanding in a man’s mind is to where in the prison record was there express the appreciation and the important to the inmate. It is heartwitness a hallowed, spiritual experi- one for sheer drunkenness to com- thanks of many prison administrators warming indeed-for those of us who ence .. . you watch it as it udfolds pare to mine. The record was so bad throughout the country for the fine have watched the prison AA program in the daily lives of these men and that the Deputy Warden called me services which you have so unself- unfold-to see men leave the prison you feel the nearness of a Divine in his office on the way out to tell ishly rendered so that inmates in AA to face the world alone and find un- Presence. me I wouldn’t make it. He was right and through AA may see a new day. expected friendship and understand- A question frequently asked of me -I couldn’t have made it alone. So You men know all the pitfalls of ing waiting for them almost at the is, “Does the individual improvement I guess when all is said and done I alcoholism and all the answers; you very prison gate. made by the inmate while he is be- don’t need to be a golden-voiced make our prison groups savor of auhind the walls stick when he returns orator, for with a past like mine, thenticity. And I can truthfully tell to free world society?” I can best my walking around free and sober you now that had it not been for the answer by letting you be the judge should be proof enough that AA regular help and understanding given as I read a letter selected from a does work in hopeless cases. by our AA friends outside, the Inpersonal file, written by a former in- “It is a good feeling for me to go diana State Prison AA groups would mate AA now living in the free home now and know that the police most assuredly have failed; and by world. are not going to lean on the place at the same token, if it had not been I , Meet Fred. He had an imposing any moment. I know what I did last for the persistence of our group of record in the F.B.I. files covering night because I was sober. Seven and alcoholic inmates, who realized their many pages when he came to the a half years ago, before finding AA, serious problem and their need for Indiana State Prison. In a single year I couldn’t have been so sure.” help, we could never have continued. he had served five sentences in a … Fred now has a lovely wife and But these men knew they had Detroit Workhouse, three nine-day two wonderful children and a fine reached the end of the road . . . they The book of life crowds many sentences and two sixty-day sen- job. He writes frequently of the great knew they could not help themselves events into the pages between life and tences, and his record also listed for happiness in living which he found and that they needed the help of death. Among these, we who are conthe same year several suspended sen- through AA, and, what is more im- others and a Power greater than nected with penology believe that for tences, one probation, and numerous portant, he has not been arrested themselves. They grasped AA as a sheer emotional drama the story of a “Golden Rule” releases. His arrest once since his release in 1950. Does drowning man would clutch a straw, man leaving prison ranks high. To record looked like a railroad time- it stick? and they hung on tight. Many of you the prisoner walking out of the gate table. However, he was released on . . . Yes, the alumni of Indiana AAs say solemnly that the program into the free world, happiness stems parole, only to be returned in a short State Prison Bar-Less AA Fellowship of carrying hope and help through not only from the exhilarating sense time for parole violation because of are becoming an illustrious and im- barred windows comes of an old AA’ of freedom, but also from the opporalcohol. The second time he came posing group, with a wonderful rec- recipe for successful accomplish- tunity to share that freedom with his back he arrived about the time AA ord of individual accomplishment ment: man hours of persistence. And loved ones, those from whom he has did. He was paroled again, and here and achievement and an enviable they say that each meeting with our been separated for so long. When the are a few excerpts from a letter that record of reclamation of wrecked inmate AA reminds them of an old gates shut behind him and he can we received from him: human life. . . . familiar motto. You can see it around again take those loved ones into his “When you stop to think about it, I would like to take this oppor- any AA meeting room-it reads: arms, freedom becomes a tangible Warden, the fact that I am still out tunity to express my gratitude to you, “. . . But for the grace of God.” reality. But the man who walks out and on the bricks today, no matter and to all the AAs in the free world You men who come from the out- into the world again, without the by what means, is a miracle. I’m who have helped in our work with side provide another service that is welcome of family or friends or loved not a garden variety of drunk-no- the AA prison groups. I am sure I again part of the AA program and ones, has no one thing to prove his

I’lberty to him. There is nothing to the fact that they were in prison. which he can hold and say, “This is They dreamed of the day when the freedom.” And perhaps in the be- gates would open and they could get ‘wildered, lost hours that follow, even or catch up. A fair description while he searches for the tangibility, of those days written by an inmate he may again wander off on the philosopher went something like this: wrong road. “Within these walls the days unwind It is true that most men who fail and roll one into another, like drab on parole do so within the first few ribbon . . . each one as colorless as months, an indication that here is a the day before and the day to come. link which must be strengthened. There are no yesterdays worth re- The ties with the outside AAs are membering, no todays worth living, constructive and can do much to no tomorrows worth anticipating.” strengthen this link and that is the I wish the man who wrote those one reason why I look upon AA as a lines could visit-not only the Indiana valuable ally. To that end we are now State Prison-but all prisons today. doing our utmost to create a fellow- Among the many thousands of inship of understanding on the part of mates he would see hundreds of faces all outside AA groups. of inmate members of AA which In closing, I would like to com- mirror hope and confidence for the ment on the fact that not so long ago future. a prison was known as a rough, tough For myself, I too have benefited hell-hole and many inmates did their from the Alcoholics Anonymous protime the hard way. When the prison gram and I am grateful for the opgates shut behind them as they en- portunity to have contributed a very tered, the world stopped and stood small portion to its wonderful and still while they lived in a past of inspiring work in helping alcoholic bitter yesterdays. prisoners to recovery. As long as I have seen them congregate in I am warden, and just so long as the yard and argue their cases, com- one alcoholic prisoner is benefiting plaining of the bad breaks and mis- through the program, we will have an fortunes which befell them. They Alcoholics Anonymous group in the blamed everybody but themselves for Indiana State Prison.