![]() ![]() They might have sent me back to camp! The Nisei resisters enjoyed good food, good friends, hard work, and recreation all in a beautiful setting. Some, like Ken Yoshida, began to wonder which had been the worse punishment: Prison or the relocation center? If they had left me in camp, Yoshida explained, I would have had a more miserable life…I didnt tell the government that. Although no Nisei sent to Tucson ever accepted this offer, many other prisoners sentenced to the road camp did.Ĭonditions at the road camp in Tucson stood in sharp contrast to the resisters experiences in the WRA camps and county jails. For the first time in its history, the War Department agreed to grant all nonviolent offenders early parole from prison if they would enlist. Every month, prison officials gave inmates at the Tucson Federal Prison Camp the chance to commute their sentences if they would join the military. In wartime, one of the most meaningful occupations available, according to penologists, was serving in the military. Gordon Hirabayashi petitioned to work in the camp kitchen and learned how to bake, which as he put it, made him quite popular with the other inmates. Prisoners busted rocks in the least glamorous of cases, but some also learned how to use jackhammers, heavy equipment, and in the case of one Nisei resister, Ken Yoshida, he became a member of the blasting crew, learning how to plan and set explosives to break out new sections of rock. This was part of prison reforms designed to rehabilitate inmates through meaningful forms of work and job skills training. In Tucson, prisoners worked to build the road, learning skills in the process. ![]() Judges also had gained more discretion over sentencing so they could better respond to convicted criminals individual circumstances. Prisons had become multi-tiered and diverse in their purposes and their treatment of prisoners. It was a minimum-security prison designed to hold only the most minor, nonviolent offenders. Most aspects of life in the Tucson Federal Prison Camp epitomized the latest trends in federal prison reform and expansion. While the few resisters from Topaz were transported in relative comfort by car from the Salt Lake City County Jail to Tucson, the larger group of resisters, coming from the Denver County Jail, was transported in iron chains by train. , Arizona, and one whose case originated from outside theĬamps who arrived under very different circumstances the following year. Also housed in Tucson were Japanese American Neither Hirabayashi nor the attorney general who approved the transfer to Tucson knew that Tucson was well inside the exclusion zone. In an effort not to serve more time in a county jail, Hirabayashi hitchhiked to Tucson in order to serve his ninety-day sentence in a road camp. ![]() He had lost his appeal to the Supreme Court. Gordon Hirabayshi stood out as the first Japanese American to arrive at the prison camp in 1943. The site of the former prison, which is located on the Coronado National Forest, was renamed in 1999 the Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation Site.ĭuring World War II, prisoners began arriving who had resisted the draft, including Jehovahs Witnesses (JWs), Hopi, various conscientious objectors such as members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Pentecostals, Mennonites, Molican Brethren, and Independents, adding to the existing population of inmates serving non-war related sentences. ![]() Who served between six and twenty-four-month sentences for Selective Service violations in 1944. Served his prison sentence for violating curfew and exclusion orders after he lost his appeal to the Supreme Court in 1943, followed by forty-one Originally built due to an agreement between the Bureau of Prisons, the Bureau of Public Roads, and the Arizona Highway Commission to use prison labor to build a new highway into the Catalina mountains outside of Tucson, Arizona, this prison housed war-resisters of various backgrounds during World War II. The Tucson Federal Prison Camp, also known as the Catalina Federal Honor Camp, was a minimum-security honor camp built to house trustee-level felons. PopulationDescription:Held draft resisters mainly from Granada concentration camp, some from Poston and Topaz concentration camps Gordon Hirabayashi, who was imprisoned after losing his Supreme Court case against the exclusion order, was transferred here to complete his sentence. The camp was established in 1939 within southern Arizona's Coronado National Forest to provide prison labor to build mountain highways. Description:Located in the Santa Catalina Mountains, northeast of Tucson, Arizona. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |