PSU Magazine Fall 1992

A city behind walls or a prison, the Columbia River Correctional Institu– tion is deceivingly attractive. At the front entrance, visitors see neatly kept beds of roses, yellow chrysanthemums, pan– sies and petunias. It's a landscape most home owners would envy, except for the fact that it lie at the base of an imp ing chain link fence laced at the top by continuous coils of razor wire. It's a prison, all right. Visitors don't go in or out without an appointment, an ID check, and an escort. Inside, the facility is its own small town-one in which its 400 male and female citizens wear identifying clothing and are not free to leave. Mike McGee '71 is the town's mayor and judge. Although his real title is superintendent, he draws the analogy as a way of explaining the prison's function and the job he has to do. Soft-spoken and professional, McGee explains that as in any small town, the prison has medical services, a banking system, a church, a public works department, and a police force. The police force here is larger than average, and life is not exactly rule by consent of the governed, but the com– parison seem ro stick. His job is to make sure all the ele– ments run smoothly and to make sure the "citizens" do what i necessary to live peacefully both inside and, ultimately, outside the prison walls. It's a complex social organization, made even more complicated because it is one of the few prisons in the 12 PSU United States that is coed. As such, McGee's degree in sociology has been a valuable tool in running it. "You're dealing with large groups of people, political issues, the dynamics of social interaction. There's a way people behave in groups, and these groups can be guided in certain ways," he says. Group guidance in prison is accom– pli hed with a well-defined system of rewards and punishments. Violation of the rules can result in a longer sen– tence, or time spent in a segregation cell. Good behavior can result in shorter sentences, or more privileges. McGee walks comfortably among the inmate population as he show off the prison's law library, cafeteria, can– teen, and recreation yard. He says a friendly hello to an occasional prisoner, and they return his greeting in kind, but leave one with the unmistakable feeling that they know who the boss is. He has spent all of his adult career in corrections. His first job was as a counselor with a work release program in Coos Bay, where he found employ– ment and other community re ource for prisoners making the transition into free society. From there he spent nine years as a parole officer, first on the Oregon coast, and then in Portland. He became executive assi tant to the super– intendent of what is now the antiam Correctional Institution in Salem. Then six years ago, when Gov. Goldschmidt began a push to provide more prison beds, McGee wa a ked to help plan the construction and develop- As superintendent of Columbia River Correctional Institution, PSU alumnus Mike McGee is the mayor and judge. By John R. Kirkland ment of minimum security facilities. When one of those-Columbia River Correctional Institution-was built in 1990 in northeast Portland adjacent to the Riverside Golf and Country C lub, McGee was named superintendent. At 45 to 50 hours a week, the job is more than full time for McGee. And although he receives calls at night about occasional incidents at the pri on, it's a life that he keeps separate from the one he spends with his wife and five children. That aspect is different than the one he grew up with in West Linn. His father was an auto mechanic, and McGee remember many Saturdays playing around his dad' workbench while he repaired cars. 'That's not the kind of thing I'm going to do with my children. I'm not going to bring them to the prison, although they have been here on tours. They know their father is a warden, but they don't know a lot of what that is." When McGee graduated from PSU after the fall 1971 term, a career in cor– rections was the farthest thing from his mind. McGee started college in the mid- 1960s during a time of anti-war acti– vism, the civil rights movement, and a heightened concern for human rights issues. He took a break from school in 1966 to become a VISTA volunteer in Georgia and South Carolina. One of his prized po e ions, a photograph of Ebenezer Bapti t Church, autographed by the pastor, Martin Luther King, and