The Jail Generation

"I've been working fourteen years to keep my sanity, now I'm on vacation," mused J.J. Tennison, speaking in a slow, metered voice. In 1990, Tennison, then 18, and Antoine "Soda Pop" Goff, then 21, were convicted of manslaughter and sent to separate state prisons in California to serve sentences of 25 years to life. Then, in September 2003, they were proven innocent on appeal and exonerated. But in a small press conference with about 20 journalists at San Francisco's Pacific News Service last December, Tennison and Goff showed little bitterness. Didn't they despair over losing the prime years of their youth, asked one journalist, himself just pushing 25? Tennison, now 31, leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "Most of my friends from that time are either locked up or six feet under, so it's hard to say what my life would have been like," said Tennison.

It was a startling admission, but surprisingly realistic. America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, far outstripping runners-up Russia and Belarus. The U.S. houses more prisoners than China and India combined, according to the King's College of London International Centre for Prison Studies. This has not always been the case. Prison populations have quadrupled in the past 20 years in the U.S. (to around 2.1 million people currently).

Of those incarcerated, 57% are under the age of 35. As welfare roles decline, prisons have become the primary institutional interface for more and more youth, informing everything from pop culture to worldview and life expectations. While commentators have sought to define today's young and restless as the Hip Hop Generation, a better moniker might soon be the Jail Generation.

"Going to prison has become normalized," says Billy Wimsatt, a journalist turned activist whose 1994 underground book Bomb the Suburbs was one of the first and most eloquent articulations of the politics and worldview of what would later be termed the Hip Hop Generation. "Prison used to be the monster way in the corner, now it's taking over half the room, and it's getting its slime all over," ventures Wimsatt. In his second book, No More Prisons, Wimsatt leveraged his grass-roots populist appeal to focus attention on the anti-prison movement. His path exemplifies the growing convergence between mainstream hip hop and an urban lifestyle that is deeply damaged by increased incarceration rates.

"Going to prison has a variety of negative effects," says Marc Mauer, assistant director of The Sentencing Project, a Washington-based prison analysis and advocacy group. "It hurts employment prospects, it breaks up families, and the high degree of mobility creates a population that has fewer legitimate connections to the community." Although juvenile poverty rates have steadily declined, the percentage of children raised in single parent homes has risen from 12% in 1970 to 28% in 1998. Although it is unclear how large a role increased prison populations play in this phenomenon, the increase has been most marked among those populations that have high incarceration rates. In 2000, only 38% of black children were being raised in two-parent homes. "Think of the number of kids who can only talk to their parents through collect phones or class trips upstate. Prison fosters a culture which people bring out into their world," Wimsatt laments.

If so many young people are growing up in prison, what exactly are they being taught?

"In prison, you learn to talk less, listen more, and observe -- and you learn patience," says Eddy Zheng from a pay phone in Solano State Prison in Vacaville, CA. In 1982, when he was 12 years old, Zheng came to America from Canton, China, with his family. His parents worked full time -- "my Dad worked at McDonalds; all he memorized was how to say 'mayonaise, lettuce, tomatoes.'" Zheng didn't adjust well. In 1986 he was convicted of kidnapping with intent to commit robbery, and was charged as an adult at the age of 16. "I grew up in prison," admits Zheng. Still learning English when he was admitted, Zheng took ESL classes and got his GED, and then went on to receive an Associate Degree of Arts through extension classes at San Quentin State Prison (he has since been relocated to Solano State). He plans on starting a youth guidance center for new immigrants when he is released. Zheng realizes his story is unusual and praises the "huge support from family and friends beyond the community of incarceration" that have helped him make the most of his time in prison.