The Pit

Built in the 1930’s in response to the rising tide of crime sweeping through America on the heels of the Great Depression, Pitcairn Maximum Security Penitentiary sat atop a rocky bluff overlooking a small town bearing the same name. Originally constructed to house 480 inmates, by the time it was officially decommissioned in the early 1960’s when the presiding philosophy of incarceration swung from right to left, from the more punitive and rigid application of justice toward the need to provide offenders with rehabilitative programming, the population was only 114.

An anachronistic edifice, long passed its glory days, a testament to a bygone era of stone walls and steel bars, Pitcairn lay essentially mothballed, decaying and decrepit.

The War on Drugs and the implementation of new three strikes legislation caused the rates of incarceration to reach critical mass. Prison populations were exploding and overcrowding was identified as one of the primary contributing factors to the record levels of violence occurring within the penal system.

In an effort to address the problematic issue plaguing the penal system, The Holmstrom Study was commissioned by correction officials to identify potential strategies designed to cost effectively mitigate the escalation of violence within institutions and violent acts committed by prisoners.

After a number of years of thorough analysis, Holmstrom concluded that, aside from overcrowding, the majority of incidents of prisoner on prisoner and prisoner on guard violence were due to the influence of only a handful of prisoners either directly or through their agency. Identifying and labelling these particular felons as ‘habitual criminals’, it was postulated that removal of these antagonistic elements from the system would alleviate one of the fundamental root causes of violence and could be used as a stepping stone to restore a semblance of order to the system.

All parties agreed there was credence in the findings, but implementing the recommendations proved onerous, the cost of building modern new facilities from scratch was an exorbitant expense and burden to frustrated taxpayers, whom elected officials were reluctant to provoke lest they find themselves suffering in the polls.

Mired amid the tremendous amount of bureaucratic process, the Holmstrom project languished, though reviewed and re-submitted but never getting beyond the development stage, all the while the cost to accommodate ever more criminals in the overburdened system continued to spiral out of control.

Then along came elements from the private sector, equipped with liquid capital and an entrepreneurial approach to incarceration and the project was revitalized. Rather than starting construction on an entirely new facility, the new paradigm was to repurpose an existing institution.

The introduction of privatization and the ideology of repurposing old facilities was received very positively by government and correctional officials alike, presenting a much more fiscally responsible approach and one which would permit corrections to absolve themselves of problematic felons.

With financial backing and directorship of the private company Lindholm Global, the project was given provisional assent based on a limited scale for a pilot. Pitcairn was an ideal location for the pilot program due to its location, the nature of the facility, size, and of course most importantly, cost.

Pitcairn, as a whole, would be brought back up to code, but one of institution’s three residential cell blocks would be retrofitted to be a special handling unit for ultra-maximum security inmates. Work began in 2013 and new blood and life were infused into the old gaol.

Originally the institution was laid out in the shape of a ‘+’ and built on the cardinal compass points. North block, the top of the tee, was selected as the unit for the enhanced security remodel, having housed the prison’s previous segregation and isolation units, the infirmary, and a small fully contained exercise yard.

East and west blocks each possessed a left and right side, five tiers high, twenty cells to a tier for a maximum of 400 prisoners. These would be kept vacant during the pilot to determine overall efficacy of the project.

There were no cells in the South Wing, instead, it housed the administrative offices, reception, laundry, and a kitchen and was directly attached to center of the tee and the control area called the Dome.

Renovating the jail proved easier said than done, cost overruns, injuries, and other unexpected complications delayed completion until summer of 2015. Workers joked under their breath that a fresh coat of paint for a facelift couldn’t disguise the fact that Pitcairn was still the Pit, and the Pit demanded its pound of flesh.

While the location was being prepared, next came the screening process to identify twenty prospective candidates for relocation for the pilot from which twelve finalists would be chosen. The criterion for selection was simple, using Homstrom’s methodology, find the absolute baddest of the bad, the most incorrigible and violent amongst existing prison populations. Those with no possible hope of any type of parole or release except in a pine box. After months of careful review, twelve men were selected, nicknamed the ‘Dastardly Dozen’ by the selection committee comprised of representatives from corrections and Lindholm Global.

Like the construction aspect of the project, there were some hurdles to overcome getting the twelve selected criminals relocated. Two of the twelve finalists were killed prior transfer and a legal circumstance precluded inclusion of another so only the rights to nine of the candidates could be secured and the ‘Dastardly Dozen” became the ‘Nefarious Nine’.

Although now a private entity, the operation of the institution would still be bound by the tenets of the Penitentiaries Act of 1973, with oversight still regulated by an appointed council made up of members from government, corrections, and Lindholm Global itself. This being said, it was implied that there would be a substantial amount of unwritten latitude built into the project. Lindholm Global kept the fine print details of the actual project aims and management strategy hush hush, but correction officials didn’t care as long as they were able to wash their hands of responsibility of everything associated with the habitual criminals. All elements of day to day operation would be left to Lindholm Global, including security, catering, and provisional health care.