103: The Human Stories of Military Justice and Rehabilitation - Interview w/James Cummings - The Prison Officer Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:48):
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Pepperball is the safer optionfirst.
Well, welcome back to thePrison Officer Podcast.
My name is Michael Cantrell.
Today I have a guest, jimmyCummings.
He's a retired Marine who spent21 years working in corrections
in the Marine Corps.
He's retired as a commandingofficer at the Brig in Okinawa,

(01:10):
which for layman's terms that'sa warden.
So he still lives in Japan andI'm interested to talk to him
about that also.
We're going to talk to himabout his life and career and we
might even have a littleconversation.
We're going to talk to himabout his life and career and we
might even have a littleconversation.
Him and I have crossed pathswith the same notorious inmate
and so we may have a discussionabout that also.

(01:31):
But I'm really happy to havehim on the podcast and excited
to hear his take on, you know,corrections in the military.
We had Warden Fuel on here onetime and he talked a little bit
about the Army, but you wereover there on Okinawa and in the
Marines, so it should be alittle bit different.
I'm interested to hear.
So welcome to the podcast,jimmy.
Can I call you Jimmy?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Sure absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Okay, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Hey, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
I start all these interviews the same.
I like to learn about peopleand tell me where you grew up
what that was like, and then foryou it was going in.
The same.
I like to learn about peopleand tell me where you grew up
what that was like, and then foryou it was going in the
military.
That's how you got incorrections, but was that a
choice or you know kind of tellme how you got into that.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Okay, yeah, I grew up in Scranton, pennsylvania,
irish Catholic family, went toCatholic school up until the
eighth grade and then I went topublic school.
Didn't do well in school Ifthey had the diagnosis of ADHD
back in those days I would havebeen diagnosed as ADHD, never

(02:36):
knew that I had it until lateron in life.
But got in some trouble atschool, got thrown out of the
Catholic school and high schooland then I was in the public
school and then I went till Iwas 16 years old and I quit
school and I was working for thecity.

(02:57):
Then I said, hey, I'm goingnowhere and decided I wanted to
go in the military.
Vietnam was still going on andI was fine with going to Vietnam
if I got the orders.
So I went down to the recruiterand I wanted to go into the
Seabees.
So I went to the Seabeerecruiter and he said can't take

(03:22):
you, you're high school dropout.
And the Marine recruiterhappened to be in earshot and
said, hey, come on over and talkto me, we'll take you.
So I went in on a back.
Then you could go in on atwo-year contract.
So I was 17 and went to ParrisIsland First time I ever flew in
my life and arrived at ParrisIsland and my whole world was

(03:45):
turned upside down.
I bet Absolutely.
I learned a lot, found out whowas in charge and it certainly
wasn't me.
I went through boot camp andgraduated boot camp.
Then they sent us to CampLejeune to advanced infantry
training.
I was an 03-11, a grunt toadvanced infantry training.

(04:05):
I was a 0311, a grunt and wefinished the infantry training
and then was able to go home onleave and then back to Camp
Lejeune to 2nd Battalion, 2ndMarines, and was deployed to the
Mediterranean.
We have a battalion of Marinesfloating around 365 days a year

(04:26):
and we do operations on Crete,sardinia and places like that
and you're out there for sixmonths.
Then came back to the CampLejeune and then the battalion
broke up and I got orders toOkinawa.
So this was 1971.
I'm in Okinawa and I was withKilo 34 over there infantry and

(04:55):
loved the island, loved it somuch.
I met my wife over there in1971 and we got we got married.
So I was 19 years old, marriedmy wife.
I stayed till 1973 and then umgot orders for discharge.

(05:16):
I went to treasure island andvietnam was still going on at
that time.
I had uh, I had volunteeredwhen I before I met my wife.
Uh, when I was in three four inokinawa, I had volunteered to
go to vietnam.
But uh, the first sergeant, uh,when orders came in from the
battalion, quotas would come inand uh, the first sergeant, he'd

(05:38):
send the shitbirds down thereto vietnam so the other marines
he'd keep.
You know, he had to fill aquota and and the shitbirds were
the excuse, the terminology.
The shit birds were the onesthat got the, they got, they got
, they got the quota.
So I didn't get it but luckily,thank God, you know and I met
my wife and married and thenwent back to Treasure Island.
It was discharged from theMarine Corps, went back to

(06:01):
Scranton and things weren'tworking out as far as trying to
find a job.
I tried to get in the statepolice.
That wasn't happening and I wasworking for my uncle at a
brewery there delivering beer,and I said, you know, I had it
better in the Marine Corps andthank God that when I did get
out, a reserve recruiter came tomy house and said to me, why

(06:26):
don't you come down to thereserve unit?
And I said no, no, I've had it,I'm ready, that's it.
And he said no, why don't youjust come down?
So I went down there and theysaid what do you want to do?
It was a Marine Corpstransportation squadron and they
said I said, well, I want to bea truck driver.
So they made me a truck driver.
I stayed in the reserves forthree months and said no, I'm

(06:47):
going back on active duty.
So I went down to the recruiterand said I want to go back on
active duty.
I was a corporal then and hesaid okay, we're going to put
you back in the infantry.
I said, no, I don't want to goback in the infantry.
He said what do you want to do?
So on the recruiter's officethey have this, what they call

(07:07):
an MOS chart.
That's all the occupationalfields that are throughout the
Marine Corps.
And I looked at the one and Isaid I want to be a polygraph
operator.
Well, the closest I got to thepolygraph was the second deck
turnkey at the brig at CampLejeune.
They made me a corrections man.
So that's how I got incorrections.
I never thought of corrections,never entered in my mind

(07:30):
anything about it.
So I report to Camp Lejeune andI'm at the brig at Lejeune.
We had two brigs and a brig isa prison and we had 450 inmates
in the brig that I worked at andthen the other brig was about.
It was probably about a half amile away from us.

(07:50):
We had about 250.
We almost had a a TO battalionof people locked up because
Vietnam, vietnam was still goingon, yeah, and we we had some
criminals that were were werelocked up.
So I they put me up on seconddeck, turnkey and I didn't know

(08:11):
shit from Shinola aboutcorrections or anything else.
I hadn't even been throughpre-service training yet.
They just put me, you know, ojt, up there on the second deck,
turnkey.
And I'll share a story with you.
This is you know.
I'll share a story with you.
This is you know.
I hear you many times whenyou're talking to people who
said what was your firstexperience when you went into
the walls and so forth?

(08:32):
Well, this place was.
It was like a zoo, the stuffthat was going on.
And I remember sitting in thatturnkey cage and the sergeant
was bringing prisoners down fromadministrative segregation.
Those were allowed to go downto the chow hall to eat asap,
and he was taking them down andon the way back up one of them

(08:53):
said you motherfucker orsomething like that, and he
brought them all back in.
And then he came out to me nowthis guy was a seasoned marine,
he was a sergeant, been tovietnam, he was a tough son of a
gun.
And he comes back out to me andhe said write up a report shit.
I didn't hear.

(09:13):
He said write up a report shitgot it.
This is what he said.
So I wrote the report shit up,get into him.
And I said you know, sergeant I?
I said I didn't hear the guys,I don't feel good about this and
don't want to do that.
And he looked at me and he saidhow long you been here?

(09:33):
I said three days.
He said you're going to bethinking a whole lot different
after this, you know.
And that was it.
And he was it and he was right.
It took about a month or twomonths and the mentality I could
find myself changing to it wasus against them.
That was the mentality that Iwas getting into, along with the

(10:01):
other guards that I worked withand so forth.
Then I got promoted to sergeant.
I was in charge of a dormitory,had about 70 inmates in that and
worked that, and then workedother security jobs, then got
orders to Okinawa.
So in 1974, we had two brigs inOkinawa, one for pretrial and

(10:27):
the other for the sentencedprisoners.
And this is in 1974.
And when I got there I was adorm supervisor and I was a
senior dorm supervisor, so I wasin charge of the other dorm
supervisor.
We had four dormitories.
We had about probably about 175prisoners all together and I
really liked the dorm setup.

(10:47):
I liked that you could look downone end and even the prison
that we're in, even the headarea was all completely opened.
So you could just envision, themess deck was in the middle of
the prison and the fourdormitories all surrounded it

(11:08):
and you could see from the messdeck.
You could see into all of thedormitories, you could see into
all of the head areas, theshowers, the crappers and
everything else.
So there was no blind spots andit was good for sanitary
purposes.
It wasn't the greatest.
Somebody could be on thecrapper while you're eating your

(11:28):
lunch and so forth.
And then I enjoyed that,working the dorms and working
with the inmates and stuff.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
Just trying to wrap my head around it.
So security levels what are youguys dealing with?
I mean, is this dorm, is thislike what I would call medium
security, or is this highsecurity inmates?
Do you have bars and doorssomewhere where you're putting
the worst of the worst andeverybody else is in the dorm?
How does that work in themilitary breaks?

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Okay, we had a sure we had seg, we called it seg.
And in seg, you had a sure, wehad SEG, we called it SEG.
And in SEG you had ASEG and youhad DSEG.
Aseg was administrativesegregation, dseg was
disciplinary segregation.
So the DSEG disciplinarysegregation was a closed-faced,
solid steel door and all you hadwas the food tray and that was

(12:26):
it.
There was no window or anythingelse.
It was completely closed,closed face door and it was hell
back there.
And so the prisoners, thepunishment that they could be
given by the commanding officer,they could be given
disciplinary segregation,restricted diet.
I don't know if the Feds hadthat system or the states they

(12:47):
could put them on a restricteddiet, not for health reasons,
for disciplinary reasons.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, some places do the food loaves, and that's
what's a restricted food diet.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, okay, so we could put them back there for 15
days disciplinary segregationand 15 days on that restricted
on that restricted diet and thenadministrative segregation.
That's we kept all the cats anddogs and stuff.
They could be max custodyprisoners back there too.
The dormitories, pretty much wehad back then we called I don't

(13:17):
know you ever use the this wasthey changed it.
We used to use the term closecustody we had.
We had base paroleeses thatwere billeted outside the prison
.
It was like minimum custody.
They could move around insidethe institution cleaning up and

(13:48):
so forth.
Then you had medium custody.
They're the ones that we wouldsend outside to on working
parties under guard side to dowork and stuff.
And then we had close custody.
Close custody remained inside,then had max custody, which were
the max custodies, were allkept back there in segregation.
Interesting enough, you know.

(14:10):
Later on you know we can talkabout our, our prisoner that we
had at the fountain in common,the commanding officer beknownst
to me.
He decided that he was a closecustody prisoner but opted to
put him in the dormitory, whichwas a mistake.
Wow, and, yeah, I had, he wasin my.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Is this after he was sentenced?

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
It sure was.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Well, let's go ahead and we'll step into this a
little bit.
Since we've talked about it,let me give a little bit of
history.
So Clayton Fountain was a hehad went in the Marines.
He got mad at his sergeantbecause the sergeant had
apparently written him up forwearing workout clothes in the
mess hall.
They got in an argument soFountain went, took a pistol

(15:01):
apart, slipped it out of thearmory, took it over to they
were on the Philippines, Ibelieve and he stepped out on a
place for shore leave where theyhad that, used the pistol to
take a shotgun from a securityofficer a Philippine security
officer and then walked up andshot Sergeant Wren.
After the military sentenced him, he was kind of and we'll talk

(15:23):
a little bit about what you sawthere because I don't know about
this part but they sent him tofeds and he ended up killing
three more inmates and a federalcorrectional officer.
After that.
I mean we kind of refer to himas a prison serial killer
because I mean he had fivebodies on him by the time.
You know he was passed away.

(15:45):
So tell me about ClaytonFountain at that time.
I mean that was fresh, that was.
You were right there.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, he was transferred down to us from the
Philippines, you know, forpretrial confinement.
First they only kept him in thePhilippines for a short period
of time and they transferredthem down to us and we put them
back there in a segregation unit, aseg.
He was back there at ASEG andthen the commanding officer had
this idea he was going to putthem on mess duty, which which

(16:18):
was not a good decision.
And he put him on mess duty.
And now envision you've got thefour dormitories open where
anybody that's on the mess deckcan see into all the dormitories
and the mess deck.
You had cast iron picnic tables.
They're cast iron, these things.

(16:41):
These things were about a halfan inch thick metal and they
were bolted to the deck and theywere ideal.
I mean, you couldn't lift themup even if they weren't bolted
to the deck.
They were so heavy.
Judy, as a dorm supervisor I gotoff around 2230.

(17:02):
We tucked the prisoners in forthe night and then off we'd go,
the dorm supervisors.
Well, the next day I didn'tcome in until 1400.
The next day I think it was inthe morning Mountain decides
he's going to take on some guard, he jumps up on the cast iron

(17:23):
picnic table and he's got theold swabs.
You know, you have the metaland he detached the swab from
the metal and he had the metaland he had the broom and he's
threatening to kick ass andeverything else.
Well, they sent in a riot team.
They took him down.
Else, well, they sent in a riotteam, they took them down.

(17:44):
Back in those days we stillemployed non-corrections folks.
We had what we call FAPRs.
They were from the infantry.
So these guys weren't trainingcorrections or anything else.
These guys were just hardcoregrunts.
Some of them were non-vets andstuff.
So they got Fountain down andthey kept twisting the leg.
The leg didn't twist anymoreand it broke.

(18:06):
So they had to take him down tothe hospital.
They had to cast him up.
So the next day I came on at1400 and I'm in the dorm and
then the duty warden.
He came and he said we needyour help in SEG.
I said what's up?
He said Fountain, he's tearingup the cast and we damn sure
don't want to take him back downto that hospital again.

(18:27):
So we had to go back there, puthim in a four-restraint.
Back then you could do that Puthim in a four-restraint and
just tied him down.
He did.
Eventually he ended up back inthe dormitory again.
I had him.
He was one of the best workersI had, I mean as far as like I'd
put him in that head to cleanand everything else and he

(18:49):
worked well, but he just hadthis way about him the temper
and just extremely dangerous.
So he did about nine monthswith this.
Then, when he was sentenced, wetransferred him back to

(19:09):
Leavenworth.
And while he was at Leavenworththat's the military prison, I
think they call it the UnitedStates Disciplinary Barracks we
transferred him back there andthen he worked himself, I think
in the medium custody orsomething, and he made a
homemade shank and he had put itto an army guard's throat.
It was going to kill him unlesshe gave him access to the
rotunda house there thatcontrolled all the movement of
the tiers and stuff and theykept weapons in there.

(19:32):
He got a weapon.
He started shooting the place.
One guard lost his eye.
Then they had a sniper teamcome in and they had the
infrared dot and Fountain sawthe dot on him and he
surrendered.
And that's when they went out tothe feds and said, hey, look at
, this guy's a bad actor.
Would you take him off ourhands and the feds were very
kind enough to take him and theytransferred him to Leavenworth

(19:54):
Federal Prison and that's whenhe tied in with the Aryan
Brotherhood and he tied in withSilverstein.
They became bosom buddies andthen, you know, years went by
and I lost touch.
What was going on with him.
But then it's probably about oh, I was back, I was Camp Lejeune

(20:17):
.
I was the brig officer backthere, like a deputy warden and
some big shot from the FederalBureau of Prison.
He was a reservist.
His name was, I think, turner,cecil Turner.
Does that ring a bell?

Speaker 1 (20:29):
Yeah, he was the warden.
Marion was one of the places hewas warden at.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Oh, okay, okay.
So he came in 80, that wouldhave been probably 85.
He came to Camp Lejeune to dohis two weeks reserve duty.
So they, they, my boss, thecommanding officer.
He went on leave and then andTurner took the place over and

(20:54):
we got talking and he just Idon't know how he got talking
about Fountain.
He said, oh, you knew Fountain.
I said, yeah, I had him when hewas first locked up.
And then he said well, let metell you what he's done, he's
progressed.
And he told me about you know,what had happened at Marion and
he said that in fact he was oneof the ones that did the
investigation.
And he said they transferredhim out of there as quick as

(21:17):
they could for fear the guardswere going to kill him, him and
Silverstein, and then I guess hewas transferred into the
medical facility.
That's where I go.
Maybe that's where you pickedhim up.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
They built the cell at the Federal Medical Center,
him and Silverstein killed twoofficers, robert Hoffman and
Merle Klutz, and they did it onthe same day.
Silverstein got out first.
I had somebody uncuff him andpass a shank through the bars
and then he stabbed, silverstein, killed.
So yeah, and a few hours laterthey came up off lockdown and

(21:51):
Fountain did the same thing andgot a shank from another guy and
then stabbed Hoffman, robertHoffman.
So we lost two federal officerswithin a few hours at Marion
and so they ended up building acell at Federal Medical Center
in Springfield, missouri, forFountain.
And then they built a specialcell at Leavenworth for
Silverstein, but Fountain andeverybody forgets about this I

(22:13):
mean Klutz was his or Hoffmanwas his fifth murder, not even
including the officer he shot inthe eye at USDB and all the
people that were hurt up tillthen.
That was his fifth murder andthey just kept tacking.
Oh well, there's another lifesentence, there's another, and

(22:34):
nobody ever dealt with it.
I have a little bit of aheartache over the whole
fountain story because I watchedit at the end when he was being
paraded around.
Of a heartache over the wholefountain story, cause I watched
it at the end, uh, when he wasuh being paraded around and
being loved on by it.
Sorry if I get a little woundup, but I got to watch that monk
that wrote the book come inthere and got to watch uh, big

(22:54):
wigs come in there and treat himlike he was a celebrity, uh,
and to me he's just a five-timemurderer, you know.
But that's interesting.
But yeah, that's where I raninto him was the medical center
and that's where he died in 2004or 2005 or something like that.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah, I think it was.
Then, mike, let me ask you aquestion.
With that, I read the book.
Did he make those changes?
According to the book, towardthe end they said he had no
infractions or anything.
Did he, you know, because I wasshocked?
I was shocked when I read that,you know.

(23:33):
Did he soliciting for money towork on his doctorate's degree
in theology or something?

Speaker 1 (23:40):
I said what the hell's going on?
Yeah, they paid for his college.
They would come in and visithim.
You've got to take a look Atthis point.
He's older and they're treatinghim like a celebrity.
So if he did have and it wasonly minor infractions, we did
not touch him.
You had to slide a door to getto the door, to put his tray in

(24:01):
a box, so there was no way forhim to actually get to staff, to
go to rec.
We had to roll another doorthat would let him over there
and close it behind him.
So there was never stafftouching him.
So he didn't have theopportunities and for minor
infractions that he did, they'dsweep that stuff under the rug.
Well, we don't want to get himupset.
And so, yeah, he didn't getwrite-ups, he didn't get stuff.

(24:24):
But I used to have a I won'tname him, but I used to have an
AW, a warden, who thought he wasa psychologist, who would come
back there and order me to breaksecurity protocols by putting a
chair and opening both thosetray slots so that he can sit
there and have lunch withFountain.
I read that.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
I read that in a book .

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Just the most irritating thing I've ever done
in my life to treat him likethat.
You know nobody here and I'mgoing to go off a little bit,
but where were these monks?
Nobody went and took care ofthe families you know, of the
officers or even the inmates.
It wasn't Fountain's place todecide whether or not it was
time for those three inmates todie.
I don't know what type ofinmates they were, but that's

(25:06):
not his place.
And then what about SergeantWren's family?
They never did anything forthose people, but they were in
there passing money and payingfor college and making a big
deal out of him.
It was kind of sick to watchthere.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Were you there when he passed.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
I was working there, yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
He died of a heart attack.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
unfortunately he died of a heart attack quietly in
his cell.
They were doing rounds and hewas dead.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
I had heard that back to Marion with that, that this
is a good point.
And I saw this in correctionsand I'm sure you did too, with
complacency where guardssometimes you know they start to
just take things for granted.
And then there was a Sally portcell in front of it, then the

(26:01):
cell next to it and then a Sallyport in front of.
I heard that they had kind ofgotten complacent and left the
Sally port cells open so theycan get into, getting in and out
a lot faster.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, it was rec time .
You're moving bunches ofinmates, so you just open them
all up so that you can you getin there and you don't have to
take as much time.
And you've seen it, I've seenit.
We're staff taking shortcuts.
That complacency is always whatgets us in trouble.
If we're doing our jobs andwe're doing it at the level that

(26:32):
we can, rarely do people gethurt because we've got the
security in place.
We've got hundreds of years ofpolicy and post orders that have
been based on problems orthings that went wrong and we
learned from.
So if we follow those postorders, if we follow those
policies, rarely do we haveproblems.
But we all know aboutcomplacency.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Oh yeah, and I'm as guilty too At times I have to
remind myself to take don't takethings for granted.
Just start questioning again,start questioning again, start
looking at stuff.
I told I would tell the guards,I would say to them hey listen,
you think your post that you'reon, whatever it is, is just
it's a no, nothing post and it'snot important, and all that.

(27:16):
Let me tell you something it'sa no-nothing post and it's not
important, and all that.
Let me tell you something If aninmate escapes through your
post, your post now has becomethe most important damn thing in
there.
So don't take your job incorrections for granted, any job
where you're working there.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
You know it's an important position that you're
in, so let's go back.
I mean I hate to get off there.
That's just kind of my petpeeve.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
No, no, it's interesting because there's not
many people that knew him or hadcontact with him, but he was a
dangerous, dangerous individual.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
He was an asshole when I knew him.
I mean, he wasn't like Mr NiceGuy, oh, no, no, no, no.
He was smiling when they'd comevisit him and then when he'd
leave, he was calling us everyname in the book and he got
fatter.
That's one more thing.
I'll kind of say this, and Idon't know if it's kosher or not
, but there's going to be peoplethat know what I'm talking

(28:17):
about.
He put on a lot of weight andwhen I got to Springfield I
heard some of the old guards saythat they were giving him extra
trays.
And I'm like what the hell areyou giving him extra trays?
Well, if he's fat, he won'tfight as much, and that was kind
of the thought.
So they wanted to keep himfattened up.
So he wasn't, because he usedto be in really good shape.

(28:38):
He exercised, and when he wasdoing all that killing he was in
great shape, and so that waskind of their way of here give
him an extra tray, let himfatten up.
And he was.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
He was pretty good sized.
You know, that's something realquick.
I never.
Now I know some of my fellowpeople that I work with in
corrections.
They'll take a stance to thisbecause they were big
weightlifters themselves.
But when I took over thatprison in Okinawa at first, I
got rid of all the weights.
I said to hell with them.
They're not going to have theweights because they're going to
get stronger, they're going tobulk up, they're going to

(29:13):
intimidate, they're going tobulk up.
So I don't know why we allowthem to have to have the weights
.
I can understand cardio thingsand stuff like that there, but
not those damn weights wherethey can bulk up and they can
become like monsters feds gotrid of it.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
I can't tell you exactly what year, but we had
had enough people killed with a50 pound weight on the yard that
finally they, they pulled theweights off the yard, the loose
weights.
But yeah, when I walked intomissouri, penn the first time
there was a weight pile, thatwas just amazing and there were
giants of inmates that lived onthat weight pile biggest man

(29:51):
I've ever seen, you know.
And luckily they wouldn't getin trouble because they were so
busy trying to steal enoughprotein or pay somebody to steal
enough protein out of thekitchen and work out that they
would stay out of trouble sothat they wouldn't lose, you
know, their food or their, theirprivileges.
But uh, every once in a whilethere'd be a fight and somebody
would take a 45 pound weight andcrush somebody, you know.

(30:14):
And finally pretty mucheverybody, I think, has gotten
rid of those, I think.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
That's good.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, so yeah, crazy stuff.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Well, back to where I .
So when I went to Okinawa and Iwas working the dorms, then the
commanding officer decided okay, cummings, I want to make you a
consular.
Well, I didn't want to be aconsular, but I had no choice.
He says Cummings, you're goingto be a consular.
Well, I didn't want to be acounselor, but I had no choice.

(30:54):
He says Cummings, you're goingto be a counselor.
So he made me a counselor.
And then I was working at acaseload of about 40 inmates and
stuff and didn't the punishment, the CO.
Sometimes I just didn't feel wewere getting the backing by
them.
You'd write up a report, shitand so forth, and they'd get a
slap on the hand or they justweren't getting the punishment
that they really deserve, whichthat's a tool for us.

(31:17):
You know, if they, you knowwhen they screw up and with the
report, if you do put them onreport.
But they were.
You know, I don't want to saythey were trying to be good guys
with the inmates, but theydidn't get the punishment that
they should have gotten.
And I said to myself by God, ifI ever get in the position of
being in charge and everythingelse, by God, I'm going to back

(31:39):
those guards up.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, so tell me a little bit about, because I
think people don't understandwhen inmates military inmates
are in military prison, they'restill under the military code of
justice, they still are undereverything, and so military
prisons are ran a little bitdifferent.
Do you feel like you have morecontrol?

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Oh yeah, absolutely, Because military inmates I mean,
I respect you guys immenselyJust the people that we dealt
with there is nothing incomparison to what your
experiences are and the peoplethat you're dealing with.
We just get a little tiny, tinybit of that, but these people

(32:23):
in the military, they have someform of discipline.
Even though they're bad and soforth, there's still some form
of discipline, so you can runthe institutions more stricter,
okay, and that's something thatI believed in.
I heard you talking to thewarden it was yesterday, I think

(32:44):
, from Kentucky.
Yeah, parker, he was in Ohio.
Yeah, parker, I really enjoyedthat.
Yeah, I would love to meet thatguy.
I really enjoy it.
I just like the way he operated.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
Yeah, he's a really nice guy.
So let me ask a dumb question,because I don't know the answer
to this.
So if you get in trouble withmilitary justice, are you
automatically getting adischarge, or did you hold guys
who had the opportunity to do acertain amount of time low-level
stuff even and still go backinto the service or stay in the

(33:19):
service?
Was that an option, or is italways a dishonorable or a?

Speaker 2 (33:24):
discharge.
No, no, no, they depending onwhat the court was like if they
went to a.
We had.
We had three courts in themilitary justice system.
You had a summary court marshal, and a summary court marshal is
a very minor court marshalwhere they could give you up to
30 days in the brig but there'sno discharge attached to it or
anything, so you can go back toactive duty.

(33:46):
Then the next court-martial youhave is a special court-martial
.
That's where they can give youa max of up to six months
confinement.
Back then they could give youup to six months confinement and
they could give you a badconduct discharge, bcd, and if
you got a BCD, that was it youwere going to.

(34:08):
After you did your time, youwere going to get out, you were
going to be sent home and thelast court martial you've got is
a dishonorable discharge andthat's where they can go all the
way up to the death sentencewith a dishonorable discharge.
But to answer your question,yes, we did.
Back in those days we did haveprisoners that were going back

(34:31):
to duty even if they got a badconduct discharge.
That's where we started incorrections.
It was called restoration.
This is for prisoners that weregoing back to duty and I did
that at Camp Lejeune.
I ran that when I was enlisted.
I was a staff sergeant and Iwas in charge of that particular
program and that's kind of likea semi-boot camp.

(34:55):
We kept them in there for aboutthree weeks.
I had my own dormitory withabout maybe 30 of them in there
and I'd take them out of thebrig.
We did training, marine Corpstraining, run the hell out of
them and all kinds of militarythings like that.
And if they did well in there,then that report would be
forwarded back to theirbattalion commander and he could

(35:18):
suspend even a bad conductdischarge.
He could suspend it and theycould go back to active duty.
That was back then.
But, mike, these days, no,everybody, they're out After
they've finished their time.
They don't give them a secondchance these days.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
I just wonder because it seems like they would be
harder to control because theyhad.
Not only are they in jail orthe brig, but they've had
everything taken away from them.
They're going to lose theirstatus, they're going to lose
their, and I think that type ofinmate would be harder to
control.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
Oh they are.
We had in Okinawa when I wasthe commanding officer.
There we could keep, we couldhouse them for up to a year.
Okay, if they received asentence of a year or less, I
could house them for up to ayear.
If they received the sentenceof a year or less, I could house
them for up to a year.
Beyond a year, we transferredthem back to Camp Lejeune and
Camp Pendleton where they housedthem for up to five years and

(36:10):
then, beyond five years backthen we would transfer them to
Leavenworth where they couldspend the rest of their life at
Leavenworth.
But a lot of our inmates, evenat Leavenworth, were still, for
whatever reason, I don't knowwhy, but they wanted to go to
the federal prison.
A lot of them did because theycould get out quicker in the
federal prison system than theycould in the military system.

(36:31):
We had a system back then whichwas really bad, where if you
went to your court-martial andyou received let's say you
received six months confinementand a bad conduct discharge,
well, in military corrections,if the sentence was under a year
, they got five days goodconduct time for every month.
Okay, feds work that way.

(36:53):
Yeah, they got five days.
So when you computed theirrelease date, you'd commute that
in there.
When you computed their releasedate, you'd commute that in
there.
If they got a year sentence,five, it'd be 60 days.
So their minimum release datewould be that it's a practice 60
days from their militarysentence.
But that's another thing youcould do as a commanding officer
.
If they screwed around andeverything else, boom.

(37:14):
You could take that goodconduct time away from them.
Right, so they'll spend longerin there.
They won't get out early.
So that's another tool that youcould use.
But the system backed in wasn'tgood because if the person
received the bad conductdischarge, you couldn't transfer
them back home.
I mean, they get released fromthe brig and they'd be waiting

(37:36):
around the unit until they couldtransfer them back home.
Because they couldn't transferthem until they took final
action on their discharge and,as a result, you'd have a guy
that was forfeiture of allpaying allowances.
He doesn't have a penny in hispocket.
Now he's hanging around thebase on restriction with no

(37:58):
money and they'd re-offend.
Camp lejeune, for example, therewas this is a good story.
There was this prisoner.
His name was priest, and priestwas really one of the dumbest
prisoners that I think I've everencountered.
He should have been sellinginsurance or something.
He just he just didn't have itto be a criminal.

(38:20):
So, priest, he breaks into thePX at Camp Lejeune through the
air conditioning duct, he dropshis ID card in the air
conditioning system and thentakes off with the goods and all
that stuff.
But the ID card's there.
So when the investigators wentin they found the ID card.
It and they found the ID card.

(38:44):
So he comes into the brig, hegoes to court and he receives
like a four month sentence.
So he's sentenced to fourmonths.
Right, bad conduct, discharge,same system.
He gets released.
He's hanging around, no money.
Well, him and his buddy, theyget drunk, they go down to the
Marina on the base, they steal aboat and they're trying to go
to Cuba.
And they, they ran the boat upon a sand dune.

(39:07):
The police caught him and theybrought them back to the, to the
brig to lock him up in pretrialconfinement.
So, commanding officer, he was alieutenant colonel and tough
guy, but a good man.
And priest comes in and colonelsays to him do you know who I

(39:28):
am?
He said, yes, sir, you're thecommanding officer, because he'd
been in the brig before.
You're the commanding officerof the brig.
He goes, you're right.
And he says do you know whoseboat that was that you stole?
He said no, sir, he said it wasmine.
This guy was a loser, worstluck, bad luck.
And then he had another inmatebecause we had the two prisons.

(39:49):
So this one inmate gets outthrough the mess deck and he
jumps in a dipsty dumpster.
You know what a dipsty dumpsteris?
The dipsty dumpster is thosebig metal things they throw
garbage in and everything thisgarbage, can you know, with
thick metal and stuff, and theyhave to use like a.
They have to use a special dumptruck that comes down.
It's got like a forklift and itlifts the dipsty dumpster up

(40:12):
and dumps it into the, into thegarbage truck.
So this inmate, he literally hegets in the dipsty dumpster
because he knows the garbagegonna, the guy's gonna come.
He's in the dipstick dumpsterbecause he knows the garbage the
guy's going to come.
He's in the dipstick dumpster.
So the garbage truck comes in.
It puts the forks in, lifts itup, dumps it in there and now
the guy that's driving thegarbage truck, he pushes the

(40:32):
button to compress it.
Now this guy's in the backthere, right, and he's
compressing.
He's lucky, he didn't compressit all the way, but he's crushed
in there with all the garbage.
So he leaves the gate, thecompound.
But what does he do?
The garbage truck goes to theother brig, goes to the other
brig, pulls into the compound.

(40:53):
By the time this inmate workshis way through the garbage to
get out, he jumps out and hestarts running to find out that
he's in the compound of theother prison.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
The lifetime of stories there.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
Oh, there's stories.
Yeah, you too, you got somestories.
So anyway, I went to God no,god, no.
And then I went to I wasrunning what they call that
restoration, you know whereprisoners, they're going back to
duty.
And I was a staff sergeant andthis captain that I work for, he
said I'm putting you in forwarrant officer.
I said, sir, I don't want to bea warrant officer, I like what

(41:27):
I'm doing.
No, he said.
He said I'm going to put you infor it.
I said, okay.
So he put me in for it and Ididn't get picked up, but I
didn't care because I reallydidn't care.
I was, I love what I was doing,I really enjoyed it.
So the following year he saidI'm putting you in for it again.
I said, sir, and he said I'mputting you in for it.

(41:50):
So he put me in for it and thisGunny and I, we said, hey, we
need to get out of the break,let's let's go to the drill
field.
So we both volunteered to go tothe drill field and the Gunny's
orders came in and I wanted tobe in the same class with him
and I called my monitor, whichis up in Washington, and I said,
hey, where are my orders forthe drill field?
He said I can't touch your bookright now because it's at the
warrant officer board.
I said when does the board getout?
He said in a week.
I said well, as soon as it getsout, cut me the orders.

(42:12):
He said okay, the board got outand I got Tank that.
So I went to Quantico, virginia,to the Warrant Officer School
officer training course downthere, sure, and finished that
and then they gave me orders tothe brig in Okinawa, which was
ideal.
My wife's from here and came toOkinawa in 1979.

(42:35):
And, uh, I was at the brig forabout a month and this full bird
colonel said to me he had anIrish brogue, he puts his arm
around me and he goes oh, mrCummings, how would you like to
be the officer in charge ofcorrectional custody?
Correctional custody issomething that the state I don't

(42:56):
know if the feds ever went to.
It was shock incarceration.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Some of the states have.
Did you ever see that program?
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Okay.
So correctional custody isbasically that it's shock
incarceration.
So if a Marine goes tononjudicial punishment that's a
minor punishment, not courtmartial system or anything like
that a nonjudicial punishmentthe commanding officer can give
him up to 30 days correctionalcustody and he goes through like

(43:23):
a boot camp.
It's hell for 30 days.
So this colonel wraps his armaround me and he says to me Mr
Cummings, how would you like tobe the OIC of correctional
custody?
I said sir, sir, I want to bethe brig officer.
He said no, no, mr Cummings,you're going to be the OIC of

(43:47):
correctional custody.
I said okay, sir.
He said don't put your hands onthem and don't let your staff
put your hands on them.
I said no, sir, I won't.
So I'm up there about a week andthe place is out of control.
The captain that is not acorrections guy, that had it.
He was an alcoholic and all hewould do for the whole year that
he was there he'd have thedriver take him down to the
airport on the base and justwatch the planes, you know, come
and go.
He couldn't wait to get back tothe States.

(44:08):
So I took it over and the placewas just out of control.
They were doing stuff therethat you know.
Somebody was going to jail andI remember the words of the
colonel and my senior enlistedguy that they assigned me was 55
years old.
He made the landing of Okinawaat 17 years old.

(44:28):
Walter Balibus he was a gunnerysergeant made the landing.
I was 28 years old.
This guy made the landing ofOkinawa.
So he's my staff in COIC and I'minto the program a week and I
get a call from my duty and hesays, sir, one of them jumped
the fence last night.
I said what happened and hetold me and I said no,
something's up.
So I went in with the gunny andwe're questioning them and they

(44:52):
said he just took his cartridgebelt off and just jumped over
the fence.
I'm thinking bullshit, you knowwhat.
And then I get a call from theinvestigators.
They're saying I was a warrantofficer, then Warrant officer,
you're going to have to bringthese corporals down there.
Your awardee we call themawardees your awardee turned

(45:13):
himself into us down here andhe's been assaulted and so forth
.
I said oh shit, that's not good,this is not good, this is not
good.
But anyway, thank God we camethrough it and those guys that
had done that I got rid of themas quick as possible, moved them
along.
They weren't suited forcorrections, so I had that

(45:33):
program for five years.
It's a good program.
I mean you can really turnMarines' lives around.
In fact it was such a goodprogram that the Navy, the ships
out at sea, they heard about it.
They would literally thecaptain of the ship would
sentence the guy to 30-day CC.
They'd bring the ship intoOkinawa only for the purpose of

(45:53):
dropping the guy off and then 30days later they'd come back and
they'd pick him up and he gotlike a little Marine back.
It was a good program.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
That was a shock for a Navy guy to get dropped off in
a Marine.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Oh yeah, yeah, that was a shock and a half and it
was really a shock for the unit,like when the Navy they got him
back and they just couldn'tbelieve it.
You know he was like a Marine.
He was, you know, yes, was agood Mike.
It was a good program.
And then the last year theymade me the CO of the brig, the

(46:26):
brig that I, that fountain, wasin.
They made me the CO and then Ipicked up captain, went back to
Camp Lejeune as the brig officerThat'd be like the deputy
warden and had that for about ohno, I'm sorry, yeah, had that
for about a year.
And then the general, theywanted to start a correctional

(46:47):
custody program at Camp Lejeune.
So they knew that I had theexperience of running the one
over there.
So they had me set it up andset it up from scratch with the,
with the great staff that I had, you know.
And then, you know, after thatI went back to be the brig
officer back there.
Then, luckily, I got a call fromour op field sponsor, which was

(47:14):
a lieutenant colonelcorrections guy, and he had told
me he was going to leave mealone and let me stay at Lejeune
.
But then he said he came.
He said, jim, we're going tohave to move you to Pendleton.
They're having some problemsout there.
And I said, sir, you told meyou're going to leave me alone
and you kept telling me to chillout, chill out, chill out.
And I said now you want tobring the junkyard dog out and
you want me to go out there toPendleton.

(47:36):
You're going to Leavenworth,which one do you want to go to?
I said, well, I damn suredidn't want to go to Leavenworth
, out there with the army andstuff and all the years that I'd
been in corrections it'd belike old home week seeing those
inmates that are out there.
So I said, all right, I'll goto Pendleton.
And luckily enough, thecommanding officer over here in

(47:58):
Okinawa.
He had got passed over frompromotion.
So I came over to take over forhim and when I got here he had
had three internal escapes onhis three-year duty there.
And you'll find thisinteresting the way the place
was designed.

(48:18):
They could have designed it asa max facility if they wanted to
, but the CEO at that time hedesigned it like a minimum
security facility.
There was very few bars on anyof the windows.
It was a nightmare.
My predecessor.
He had three internal escapesand you know, some of it was due

(48:41):
to complacency, some of it wasdue to the locking system just
wasn't strong enough.
So I briefed the general and Itold him.
I said, colonel, I can'tguarantee I'm going to have a
seat.
I need bars, I need more bars.
So this, this colonel, he wasa-star general and he was a
tough guy and he said all right,and millions and millions of

(49:04):
dollars, mike, they came.
Maintenance came to pre.
Have you ever seen bars prefab?
When they make them fromscratch?
Holy God, that's a, that'squite a.
They were there for six months,months of doing nothing but
that those bars To move theproject along.
We sent inmates in there towork with them too.

(49:25):
It was so labor intensive butfinally got the whole place
barred up and I never had anescape on my watch in the five
years that I had it.
And then, as the CO of the brigin Okinawa, I worked very
closely with the Japanese prisonsystem.
I would meet with the wardenwith the Japanese prison system.
I would meet with the warden ofthe Japanese prison once a
month and we would talk aboutthe incarcerated, what they call

(49:49):
SOFA status prisoners.
Have you ever heard a termbefore SOFA status.
It's an abbreviation for statusof forces agreement.
So it's an agreement betweenthe host nation and the military
.
They call it SOFA.
So when a military person comesto Okinawa or his family comes

(50:10):
to Okinawa in their passport,they stamp it with a SOFA stamp.
That's their visa to be inJapan.
So if a person was a SOFA statusperson when they committed a
crime, the Japanese have thefirst go-so on crimes, even on
base, even on base.

(50:30):
So if you had a murder on baseor a rape or something serious,
the Japanese are the first.
They have the first go.
They have the first go.
Or they can say all right,we're kicking them back to you,
we're kicking them back to you,but you've got a guarantee that
they'll be at court on such andsuch a date.
Well, most commanders, they'lllock them up, they can put them

(50:51):
in our brig.
This is a nice thing that acommander can do.
He doesn't have to have acharge or anything else.
He just puts in there understatus of forces agreement with
the host nation, or I forgetexactly what the words.
He puts in there, but there'sno magistrate hearing, no
magistrate hearing.
So he could keep that.
That guy could be locked up forsix months until his Japanese

(51:12):
court, and the courts take along time in Japan to go.
So I would go down once a monthand we'd have a meeting and
then I would go through theprison with the warden and I'd
go back there and see thoseinmates.
And so it was established agood relationship with different
wardens.
They have a great system, theJapanese.
They have a great system.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
I would picture it as very controlled, very
controlled.
Their culture seems verycontrolled in what they do.
The prison's the same way, huh.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Mike, absolutely, in fact, if you ever come over here
to visit me, I'll take you downthere and I'll show you some of
their facilities.
There's two and they literallyit is so controlled.
But the nice thing about aJapanese prison it's a little
bit.
I mean they're very controlled,like I'll give you an example.
I mean they're very controlled,like I'll give you an example.

(52:03):
They can only, in one week,they can only write a letter,
one or two letters, and they canonly have three pieces of paper
.
Okay, now, if the paper is twoinches by two inches, that's one
piece of paper.
If the paper is 12 inches by 24inches, that's one piece of

(52:25):
paper, if the paper is 12 inchesby 24 inches.
That's one piece of paper.
So the prisoners I'd go downthere and this one prisoner, he
was a dirt bag.
He said, captain, you know, weappreciate that you're getting
papers down here, but can yougive us a little bit bigger
papers?
I said what are you talkingabout?
And he said well, sir, you know.
You know, the notebooks thatyou're giving us are only this
big, you know.
And he said one page counts asone page, that's it.

(52:49):
Can you give us biggernotebooks?
And they're very restrictedwith their food they eat, based
on the work job they have.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
How many calories they need have Interesting how
many calories they need Exactly.
They don't get.
Everybody doesn't get the same.
If you're, if you're pre-trial,your calories are reduced
because you're not leavingyourself.
If you're, if you're a sentenceprisoner, if you're working in
the mess hall, you get so manycalories.
If you're working outside, youget so many calories.
And they got it down to agnat's butt.

(53:19):
They flattened.
And the warden?
The warden in the japaneseprison, he has to go down and
sample every meal, every meal,and when you go through there in
the chow hall they have to keepfor three days the meal that
was served refrigerated uhcontainer, the meal that was

(53:40):
served for those three days.
The meal that was served in arefrigerated container, the meal
that was served for those threedays.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
That's interesting.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
They have to sit.
They have to sit and they haveto look at the wall.
They can't like their cellblocks.
They have a what do you call itlike a flip thing that goes
down like that so you can't besticking your hand out there.
Hey guard or anything elsePerfect silence, there's no
talking.
So you flip that switch andthat lever comes down.

(54:09):
So when a guard sees that he'llcome down, what do you need?
And that's it.
It's very controlling, verystrict, but it's a safe
environment where an inmate cando their time.
They don't have to worry aboutif they follow the rules.
They don't have to worry aboutbeing beaten up.
They don't have to worry aboutbeing raped by another inmate or

(54:31):
intimidated by another inmate.
It's a safe environment.
If I had to do my time, I'd doit in a Japanese prison, in a
heartbeat.
I've always felt strong aboutthis.
We that are in the business, wecannot guarantee a safe
environment for the inmates thatwe have in there.
We cannot, we cannot.
And I say you know society.

(54:53):
I've had people tell me lockthem, sumbitches up, they
shouldn't get anything, and allthat.
I said.
Let me tell you something theystill have to be treated, you
know, as human beings.
I said you start, you know, youstart.

(55:13):
You know.
Let's say, a young offendercomes in.
He got caught smoking marijuanaor selling marijuana and he
gets a year sentence.
Okay, he comes in.
Now he's been sentenced, got ayear, comes in.
He's being intimidated by otherinmates, possibly beaten up or
worse, he could be raped.
Now when this guy gets out,he's pissed at society.
He's saying hey, you, yousentence me into this place.

(55:35):
I've been victimized, torturedand everything else in here.
You know I said we should beable to to provide a safe
environment, you know, for themand everything else in here.
You know I said we should beable to provide a safe
environment, you know, for themand for our staff, but because
of the budget, we don't getenough money.
We don't have enough programs.
There's just not enough money.
More needs to be done in thecorrection system.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
I watched it.
You know a lot of that is justit just snowballs for him.
Because you'll see and I'veseen it, I worked in some pretty
rough prisons you get theseinmates who come in with a small
charge, they've got light atthe end of the tunnel, but by
the time they get caught up inwhat's going on, or being
threatened or being raped orwhatever maybe defending

(56:17):
themselves, maybe killingsomebody and now you've got this
snowball where this guy's goingto spend his entire life in
prison.
So you know there was no chancefor them to do better and get
out and change.
Now they're trapped in that.
So yeah, I know exactly whatyou're talking about there.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
Yeah, that's what I would tell when I was giving
presentations on thecorrectional custody system.
I'd go around to differentunits and explain to them that
this correctional custody is agood program.
You know, it's a punishmentauthority that you, as the
commanding officer, haveavailable to you to send
somebody.
But don't send somebody thatyou feel is not salvageable.
I said because it's not goingto do any good.

(56:56):
If you feel the guy issalvageable and everything else,
give him that punishment, sendthem and we can do something
with them.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
Don't just send them because you want to get a pound
of flesh.
So a question that popped up inmy head and I don't think I've
asked Marine.
What do you call a Marine thatworks in the brig?
Is it a correctional officer?
Is it a guard?
What do you guys refer to themas?

Speaker 2 (57:19):
The manual.
As far as the occupationalfield, it says corrections
specialist.
Okay, that's what the, that'swhat the like, remember?
Remember?
I told you that MOS chart and Isaid, oh, I want to be a
polygraph operator, right?
Okay, so you'd have 5831corrections specialist, 5832
corrections counselor, 5804Corrections Officer.

(57:41):
That's what I was.
I was a corrections officer,okay.
So we called them correctionsspecialists.
But no, nobody, they still.
You know, hey, you're on guardduty.
You know you're working SEG,you're working the dorms.
You know you're going to be adorm supervisor, you're going to
be a duty warden Names likethat.
But it was interesting.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
The MHLK guard, or do they ICO or no?
No, no Rank rank, rank, rankokay okay, rank.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Yeah, they call them by their rank.
Okay, my fault on that.
Prisoners are called prisonersif they've been sentenced, and
if they're pretrial they'recalled detainees.
Okay so, prisoners if they'vebeen sentenced.
And we I think oh, let's see,when I was on, just before I no,
not before I retired, maybe afew years before I retired we
went before.
We used to keep them in theirmilitary uniform and then that

(58:30):
was nice.
We got rid of that.
Now we've got orange forsentence prisoners and blue for
pre-trial okay, you know Iworked with a lot of the guys
that worked at the db.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
When they retired they would come over and do
another 20 at Leavenworth, afederal prison.
So I don't even know.
I bet it's probably a quarteror a third of our staff over
there at one time had come fromthe military into the federal
system there.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
Did you work Leavenworth too?
Not the DB?
I worked Leavenworth.
No, not the DB.
You did, yep.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
Whoa, wow, that's where I started.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
Hot House, the Hot House.
I read that book.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
But they used to tell me they did use of forces to
give a guy a shave.
He wasn't allowed to grow out abeard.
So if they were doing that kindof stuff they'd put a team
together and shave him orhaircuts and stuff.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
So it was kind of interesting to hear those
stories from that other side.
Yeah, yeah, that's true, that'strue, that's true.
And force feeding them too.
We used to force feed them andwe used to use it.
Back then we were using thefour point restraint.
You put them on that metal rockand we tied down, you know,
with handcuffs, and stuff thelegs and the arms.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
We still have it in policy.
I think most people are movinginto this restraint chair, but
we still have it in policy whereyou can do a four-point
restraint.
I did a lot of it at theFederal Medical Center because
we had inmates who would injurethemselves and that's the only
way we could stop them from.
I mean, I've had guys chewholes in their arms and
everything you can imagine atthe medical center because we

(01:00:01):
had all the mental health.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
Yeah, it reminds me of a funny story had this one
inmate back at the back of CampLejeune.
He was in disciplinarysegregation and he had taken his
feces and he had formed starson them and he put them on his
shoulder Right and he's starknaked, he's got the stars on his
shoulders like this here andthe captain the captain to do

(01:00:26):
his security check and he comesand he opens up the door and
there's the inmate right thereand he says to the captain
salute me, give it attention.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
And then another one I remember the gunny is doing
count, he's going down throughthe cell block and he's got the
hand going like one, two, threeand he gets to the one and the
guy's standing stark nakedinside the shitter, at attention
, at attention in the shitter,stark naked at attention.
I mean you got the stories,Some of these guys, some of the

(01:00:57):
stuff they do, yeah, yeah,sounds like we walked a lot of
the same area area, even thoughwe weren't at the same place.
No, no, no, but you to a more,more dangerous degree.
You know, we we didn't, wedidn't have what you you had.
We had small tippins of thoselike that, but you, you were
dealing with the worst of theworst.
Then then let's's see what theheck Then?

(01:01:20):
Well, with the Japanese prisonsystem, I'd go up to mainland
Japan and this one warden hisname was Myojin-san, this guy
from the old school, theirAlcatraz was Aba City up in
Hokkaido.
That was their Alcatraz.
And back in those days, thethis guy, myojin, that was the

(01:01:44):
warden of the prison here inOkinawa.
He was telling me that as a kidhe grew up and his father was a
guard and his father they livedright there in the compound and
Hokkaido is it's, I mean, it's,it's cold, it's really cold up

(01:02:05):
there, and that's one of the,that's one of the big complaints
with the Americans that we'dhave locked up in the Japanese
prison system.
Is they?
Um, it was cold in the winterand hotter than hell in the
summer.
They didn't, they didn't givethem there's no air conditioning
, anything like that there, andthey, so that condition, that
that part wasn't wasn't good,but as far as safe-wise, they're
safe, but they.
I forgot where I was going withthis.

(01:02:26):
So I went up to mainland Japanand I saw this Myojin-san.
He took me to this famous placethat sold.
What did it call tempura?
You know tempura?
Yeah, yeah, place that sold.
What did it call Tempura?
You know Tempura?
Tempura is like deep fried,okay, tempura.
So he took me to this Tempuraplace in Tokyo where all
corrections guys go.
It was this old antique place.

(01:02:48):
So I'm in there, we're shootingthe baloney with some of these
other Japanese and I told him Isaid Yojin-san, I want to see
Fuchu Prison.
That's their big one in Tokyo,fuchu Prison.
He says Kaminzano.
He said Yokohama, he's myfriend, the warden at Yokohama.
This was a Japanese holiday.
I went there so he had calledhim and told him that I was

(01:03:11):
coming with another Japaneseperson and another person.
So we went there on hisJapanese holiday and this guy
obviously Myojin was very strongbefore he retired.
This guy was there with hissuit on and everything else that
took me through the wholeprison up there.
I think they had 3,000 inmatesand stuff.

(01:03:31):
They had railroad tracks wherethey make this stuff and move it
along in areas 3,000.
It was an interesting, clean asa whistle and old as hell.
It must have been at least 150years old.
Can't imagine.
The deck was the administrativearea and everything else was

(01:03:54):
all that old Japanese wood thatwas shining like a baby's rear
end Right.
Just beautiful, that's amazing.
Can I get you back on heresometime?
Can we have?

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
another conversation.
Yeah, I'd love to.
Yeah, I'd love to do that tooand hear more about this.
Before I forget, I want to saythank you for your service.
I appreciate what you've doneand being in the Marines.
Being a Marine, I know that myfather was a Marine and he was
actually on Okinawa.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
When was your dad on Okinawa it?

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
would have been 62 through 64.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Yeah, oh no, I didn't get here until 70.
No 71.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
But he might have saw the brig.
From what I understand, I thinkthere was a bar fight.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
Oh yeah, he was there .

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
I think there was.
Oh yeah, he was there, I thinkthere was a bar fight and he got
a little bit of trouble.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
What was your dad?
What was your dad's mos?
What was it?
What field was he in?

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
he was communications , that's all I know oh, he's a
calm guy.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
I I used to get a lot of calm guys.
Those guys, not your father,but those calm guys, man, they
were into drugs.
Those guys were into drugs.
The calm guys, they into drugs.
The comm guys, they're too damnsmart.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
They had a good weekend at a bar and there was a
big fight, and so I think hegot in trouble for a weekend,
you know.
But yeah, that was a story.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Is he actually alive?

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
He passed away a few years ago, but yeah, yeah, so
yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
I got an invite.
If you ever want to come overto Okinawa, I'll show you a good
time.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
I'd love to yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that, but
I'd love to have you back onhere.
You're a great guest andwonderful stories, and I want to
hear some more of them.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
I'm enjoying so much your you know just your audience
there.
The whole reason that I'm onhere is because I listen to
Mike's Not All Prisoners AreEqual talk about the
justification for putting peoplein seg and keeping them in seg
for extended periods of time andso forth, and I was just blown
away by that.
Just so practical.

(01:05:52):
You nailed it.
You nailed it.
You know every lawyer and thosecharacters that are on CityCons
because they're trying to takethat away from us.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
Absolutely.
Yeah Well, thank you very much.
Would you like to leave anemail, or do you have social
media where, if somebody wantedto contact you, are you on
LinkedIn or anything?
I didn't ask.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
They can contact me on Facebook.
Okay, facebook, shamey Cummings.

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
I'll get that information and I'll put it in
the show notes Sure ShameyCummings.

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
Or you can give my email address.
I don't care Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
I know sometimes people like to follow up with
the guests, so yeah, but in parttwo we can talk about my new
life now.
I would love to.
I would love to hear about ittalk about my new life now.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
I would love to.
I would love to hear about it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
You'll be shocked to say well boy, this guy made a
real change in careers.

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
Absolutely so.
Thank you so much, jimmy.
I appreciate you coming.
Okay, mike, it was a pleasuremeeting you.
Thank you for having me too.

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
Have a great day.

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
Hey, Semper Fibro.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
I would like to take a minute to thank one of our
sponsors that make the PrisonOfficer Podcast possible.
Omni RTLS is a company thatI've been working with for the
last year.
I am proud to be part of thisteam of correctional
professionals who have developedthe best real-time locating
system on the market today.
With Omni's real-time locationtechnology, you automatically

(01:07:18):
know the accurate locations andinteractions of all inmates,
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103: The Human Stories of Military Justice and Rehabilitation - Interview w/James Cummings

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}103: The Human Stories of Military Justice and Rehabilitation - Interview w/James Cummings