Letters From Alcatraz - Michael Esslinger [46]
Deputy Warden E.J. Miller and Dr. Beacher were called to Wutke’s cell on November 13, 1937, after the prisoner was found dead by Lieutenant Weinhold. Miller’s official report read in part:
Approximately 2:40 this morning I was awakened by the telephone. Upon answering the telephone, found it was Lieutenant Weinhold stating that he believed Wutke had cut his throat in his cell and that he had notified the Doctor. Told Lieutenant Weinhold that I would be there immediately.
It was about 2:50 A.M. when we opened the cell door and Doctor Beacher entered with me into the cell. Wutke was sitting on the toilet bowl in a drooping position with his back braced against the corner of the wall. The cell was quite bloody and the sheets and blankets were full of blood.
Doctor Beacher examined the man and said that he was dead and stated that about 2:35 A.M. was approximately the time of death. The body was removed from the cell to the hospital. I then called Warden Johnston stating that the man had committed suicide and was pronounced dead by the doctor and moved to the Morgue.
I had Lieutenant Weinhold search the cell to find out what he had used and he found that Wutke had cut his throat with a small blade from a pencil sharpener fastened in the head of the safety razor.
Wutke was buried on November 17, 1937, at the Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, California. Following his suicide, numerous stories were leaked to the press alleging harsh confinement practices at Alcatraz. Countless inmates believed that the unrelenting torture of strict confinement had contributed to several inmates “going crazy.” Over the span of the island’s tenure as a federal penitentiary, there would be a total of five inmate suicides. Some even claimed that the first escape attempt at U.S.P. Alcatraz by Joseph Bowers was actually an intentional suicide. This was never substantiated, but inmates would later assert that his mental condition had deteriorated as a direct result of the prison’s conditions, because a person of “weak mind” could not survive there.
When James Bennett became the Bureau Director, he made a concerted effort to provide psychiatric services for Alcatraz inmates. He also differentiated between inmate rights and inmate privileges in the official policy of the Bureau. In correspondence to Warden Johnston, he stated: “it is unnecessary to impose such rigorous rules.” As a result, the silence policy was relaxed in 1937, and this would be one of the few policy changes that occurred over the prison's history. However, it should be restated that the track record of Warden Johnston demonstrated his desire to rehabilitate the inmates rather than simply to punish them. In his 1949 memoir, he described his perspective on prison discipline:
Discipline in prisons is frequently confounded with punishment. Punishment or deprivations are sometimes necessary to hold some men in line, but the measures taken to instruct and train men are more important. Discipline is systematic training to secure submission to authority. The value of discipline is the respect it induces in individuals and the resultant good order of the group.
When discussing the discipline for prisoners we should keep in mind the purpose of the prison. Alcatraz is reserved by the government for perplexing problem prisoners and organized on the basis of maximum security with every precaution taken to insure safekeeping of prisoners and to prevent the possibility of escape.
Privileges are limited, supervision is strict, routine is exacting, discipline is firm, but there is no cruelty or undue harshness, and we insist upon decent regard for the humanities.
Stories of inmate suicides, accompanied by media hype based on limited information, eventually earned Alcatraz the unflattering nickname of "Devil's Island." Warden Johnston succeeded in keeping the media at a distance, and this resulted in the