Scenes of Prison
16. The Farmhouse Five
T he Lincoln Correctional Center assumed celebrity status in Nebraska when it opened. It was the first of an ambitious program of reform to replace prisons and correct a destructive system of corrections and put in its place new buildings with a healing environment where the troubled and troubling young men of Nebraska could be sent. People were anxious to get a report about how it was going.
Judges especially were watching and listening, and they asked themselves if there might be some new use they could make of this reformed prison. I was introduced to one judge’s answer to this question soon after we opened at a meeting of one of my counseling groups.
I had selected ten men, and we met on a Thursday morning for the first time. The first meeting required introductions and some getting-acquainted exercises, but I was surprised to find that several members seemed to already know each other. It didn’t take long to get the story, and once I got to know them, I thought of them as the Farmhouse Five.
The story begins in the farming regions of Nebraska where there isn’t much exciting for young men to do, so they drink - often too much. When young men drink too much and live in a place where there isn’t much to do, their entertainment often brings them into contact with law enforcement officers, and so it was for them. “Hellraisers” is a term one might use to describe them, and the local authorities quickly tired of their preferred amusements.
One night, already liquored up on alcohol, the Farmhouse Five found themselves cruising along deserted gravel county roads in the neighborhood of a vacant house on farmland owned by one the Five’s grandfathers. “Let’s stop and check it out,” they decided, so they entered the house and went room to room looking for something to entertain themselves, but it was winter, and they were cold. So what do you think drunk young men do in an abandoned farmhouse when they’re cold? Why, they start a fire, naturally. So they did, right in the middle of the living room floor.
A fire in a closed house quickly fills the house with smoke, and this house was no exception. Realizing their foolishness, they put out the fire and left to find entertainment elsewhere. Well, they thought they put out the fire.
The fire was not out, but they were soon long gone. By morning, the house had burned to the ground, and Grandad was mad. Mad enough to call the Sheriff. Mad enough to press charges against not only his own grandson but against all of his friends who were with him – the Farmhouse Five.
The local judge and prosecuting county attorney recognized a golden opportunity with the brand new prison in Lincoln. They could help the young men, please the grandfather, and temporarily rid their community of five hellraisers. This would quiet things down considerably, and the coming Halloween might even be uneventful this year.
Off to prison they all went, convicted on a charge of arson. Now they were convicted, incarcerated felons.
When the Lincoln Correctional Center opened, we had a few rooms we couldn’t fill. That didn’t last long. Judges all over Nebraska suddenly faced defendants they were sure needed a stay at our new, reformed prison.
There’s a moral here. One echoed in a film that some of you may remember. It was a story of a young man who wanted to play baseball, so he built a baseball field in a cornfield on an Iowa farm. It was an act of faith: “If you build it, they will come.”
If you build a new prison, it will fill up. There’s something about a new prison with empty rooms that judges will always find attractive. Convicted felons standing before judges for sentencing are much easier to send to prison if the prison has empty rooms, especially if it is a brand new reformed prison committed to helping people change. Judges will find people who will need a period of incarceration in such a place, and they will send them to you. It will be best for them, and it will be best for the community, so beware building a new prison to reduce overcrowding. You might get even more inmates and still have no place to put them.
Discussion
- Have you ever been a hell raiser, had a little to drink, had some bad luck and a mean, angry grandfather? Did you know that could send you to prison?
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