Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 28, No. 3, November 12, 1927

Herein is exposed that little known but widely established institution of our american jails — the kangaroo court.

In spite of the fact that this sounds as though it may have been taken from a child’s book of animal verses, it is just a part of an old jail song. A “fresh fish” is merely a new prisoner coming into jail, while “kangaroo” refers to the kangaroo court, one of the most curious organizations existing anywhere in the civilized world. And not only curious but practically unknown to those outside of prisons and jails.

It would seem impossible that an organization known to hundreds of thousands of men who have been in jail, and which has existed in this country for many years, should be so little known by the world at large that no mention of it has ever got into an encyclopedia or dictionary.

It is a fact; nevertheless. In the New York Public Library I searched every dictionary and encyclopedia I could find. The only reference any of them contained to a kangaroo was that it was an animal of Australia which carried its young, in a pouch, and so on.

As a matter of fact, outside of books about jails, I have never seen the word in print, and dozens of authors and playwrights constantly writing stories about the underworld and underworld characters don’t even know that it exists.

Nothing could better illustrate what a “close corporation” the criminal class is, and why it is so difficult to those “on the outside” to understand the workings of the prisoner’s mind.

When a thing known to thousands and thousands of criminals can be kept from spreading to such an extent as to keep it out of the encyclopedias, it shows how really closemouthed the prisoner is about things in which he is interested.

For there are, in all probability, at least a thousand kangaroo courts in the United States. There are approximately three thousand county jails, and at a conservative estimate one-third of them have this organization existing among the prisoners.

In a few jails the sheriff or jail officials exercise a supervisory power over it, but in the vast majority the prisoners organize it, operate it, and mete out its punishments and penalties on the other prisoners without the slightest interference from the authorities.

The announced purpose of the kangaroo court, according to the jail authorities and the prisoners, is to maintain discipline and keep the institution in good condition. Sometimes it accomplishes these desirable ends.

In the majority of cases, however, it is simply an organization designed to levy tribute on the weaker prisoners or those known to have some money, and also for the purpose of providing amusement for the prisoners in order to while away the days, weeks, and even months of doing nothing.

The judge of the court is either the most popular or the most dominating among the prisoners. Perhaps the “toughest” would be the better word. For toughness is an asset not to be sneezed at when a man is in jail, as it undoubtedly saves him from considerable discomfort at the hands of the other prisoners.

He immediately appoints his assistants and the other court officers, these officers corresponding with the officers of a court on the outside. Sometimes the jail officials refuse to permit a kangaroo court to operate, but the majority of them look upon it as a help in maintaining discipline and keeping the jail clean and the prisoners contented.

More often than not it’s simply tolerated by lazy or indifferent jail officials because it relieves them of responsibility, although even this type of jailer often has to step in to prevent the injury of an unpopular prisoner at the hands of a brutal court.

Let’s take a look at the kangaroo court in operation. A new prisoner comes into the jail. Immediately the cry of “Fresh fish! Fresh fish!” is taken up from one end of the institution to the other.

Out of the various cells pop the inmates, pouring into the corridor toward the entrance door to look over the new arrival to decide whether he’s “blowed-in-the-glass” or not.

A blowed-in-the-glass stiff knows the ropes, and has probably seen many kangaroo courts. The court has to be a little careful with him. But if he’s a kid who’s never been in a stir before, there’s fun and amusement for all, to say nothing of the possibility of replenishing the jail’s depleted treasury by the addition of a few dollars for pies, cakes, cigarettes, and other luxuries.

Let’s assume that we have one of the latter kind. An officer of the court immediately finds out whether the frightened new arrival has any “jack.” This, of course, is most important.

The rapturous expression on the court officer’s face — “Limpy” St. Clair by name — as he digs his hand into the newcomer’s pocket, informs all present that pay dirt has been found.

His honor, “Digger” Henderson, the judge of the organization, immediately calls the court into special session. Digger earned his name by digging under the wall of a penitentiary and getting out into the open, where he obtained a splendid view of the rifle of a guard waiting for him, and then went back to serve the remainder of his time.

Digger is tough. The other prisoners know it, and Digger himself makes no effort to keep it a secret.

So the “fresh fish” is tried on the usual charge of “breaking into jail.” Thousands of prisoners are every year tried by the kangaroo court in hundreds of jails for this same “heinous” offense.

“Noodles” Gallagher solemnly testifies that he was sitting in front of his cell playing crap with Ed Hughes and “Beans” Rogers when he saw the entrance gate swing open and a young man enter.

“Is this the young man?” inquires his honor. Noodles goes up to the “fresh fish,” who has given his name as Pete Sinton, gazes at him intently, studies every feature carefully, and then replies: “Yes, your honor, this is the man I saw come in.” Ed and Beans corroborate this statement.

Asked if he cares to say anything before sentence is pronounced, young Sinton gulps nervously two or three times, tries to speak, but merely shakes his head to and fro, whereupon his honor informs him that it is the judgment of the court that he be fined — here Judge Noodles runs his finger over a page of Breezy Stories, or any other book at hand, as though hunting the law — the sum of five dollars, which is to be used for the purchase of tobacco “an’ sech other chow as the fellers want.”

Glad to be let off so easily, young Sinton pays the fine. He thinks he’s lucky, and he is, because if he hadn’t been able to pay it he would have been sentenced to scrub the entire inner corridor of the jail under the supervision of Limpy St. Clair, Rube Elbows and Kid Skirts, who have shown by experience that they can be trusted to see that the fresh fish does a good job.

Now, cleaning the inner corridor of a small jail doesn’t look like such an appalling job. But when you have three such taskmasters it’s something which can be very easily underestimated.

The fresh fish starts to work. When he’s through, St. Clair, with an expression of pained surprised, points to a dark spot in front of one of the cells. “It’s a shadow,” says the fish, who has at last found his tongue.

But St. Clair gives him a little lecture on such a patent attempt to dodge his work, admonishing him that only by doing his work well can he hope to progress in the world, and mentioning various well known captains of industry who owe their success to taking good care of the little jobs.

So Sinton scrubs on and after the lapse of a few moments his tormentor apologizes profusely, admitting that it is a shadow after all, and that it’s funny he should have made such a mistake.

Occasionally, of course, his honor makes a mistake and catches a tartar. I remember upon one occasion seeing a kangaroo court “judge” in a jail in Arizona looking like he had been run over by a threshing machine.

It turned out that he had sentenced to floor-scrubbing a scraggly-looking “bum” who turned out to be a former champion pugilist down on his luck. When the judge sentenced him to polish the bars the “fresh fish” replied with a smack on the jaw which made his teeth rattle.

His honor sat down on the cold stone floor to think over what to do next, as there was no precedent in kangaroo court procedure for handling such an emergency at the moment. The judge finally decided he would hit him back.

But there were three or four pugilists dancing in front of his buzzing eyes and he couldn’t decide which was the real one and which the figment of his disordered imagination. So he decided to adjourn court for the day.

I say there was no procedure for handling such an emergency at the moment. But there is a method of handling it ultimately, and no one prisoner who challenges the authority of the kangaroo court can hope to “get away with it.” I have known it to be tried on hundreds of occasions, and in only a very small percentage is it successful.

This is for the very simple reason, of course, that there are many against one. So, in the case of this pugilist, nothing was done at the time. But, if it had not been this fighter’s first taste of the stir, he would have thought better of antagonizing the court, as, in cases of the kind, reprisals are made when the refractory prisoner is asleep. This was exactly what was done in this case.

That night, while the pugilist was asleep, an “officer” of the court placed a twisted piece of paper between his bare toes and lighted it.

A moment after he had returned to his cell, ostentatiously snoring, there was a piercing scream which “awakened” all the other prisoners, who were lying, with ears tensed, waiting for it. No one, of course, knew anything about it. The prisoner’s foot was terribly burned and blistered, taking several weeks to heal.

I have seen numbers of prisoners who have been so treated when they incurred the enmity of their fellow-inmates. And in the majority of cases they will get little sympathy from the jail officials. If one complains he’ll probably be told by the jailer that it was his own fault, and that he should have obeyed the mandates of the court.

But it is when a “sucker” with plenty of money arrives that the kangaroo court stays in session almost continuously. A prisoner of this kind will be utterly amazed at the number of rules he can violate, notwithstanding his best efforts.

He will find that his cell is not clean, that he was seen spitting on the floor, that he left the shower turned on so that all the precious hot water ran away, that his bed was not properly made, et cetera.

If he takes the charges seriously and offers proof to offset them he will be charged with snoring and keeping the other prisoners awake. Quite naturally, he cannot deny this. For every such “offense” he’ll be haled before the kangaroo court, fined a dollar or two by the judge, who puts on a “this-hurts-me-more-than-you” expression for the occasion, and admonished to go and sin no more.

The money, of course, goes into the “pot” and the genial Irishman who has the cake and pie privilege at the jail, wonders where all the new business is coming from.

The formality which is gone through in bringing charges, and particularly the seriousness with which some of the prisoners take it, would seem screamingly funny to any outsider permitted to witness it.

But outsiders never are, and I never knew any one, outside of officials whose business takes them into jail, who had seen such a trial. These charges, which are often in writing, will recite that, “on the 19th day of June, A. D. 1927, one Daniel Haggerty, alias Postage Stamps, alias Red, alias Fat, did, knowing and willfully, with malice aforethought, indulge in uncalled-for politeness to a ‘screw’ by greeting him with the following words, to wit, that is to say: ‘Good morning, Mr. Ketcham,’ contrary to the form of the rules in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the Booneville County Jail.”

Some of the old-timers have had indictments against them so many times that they can recite the form of them by heart. Indeed, I have met many jail prisoners who were as well versed in the criminal law as lawyers on the outside making many thousands of dollars a year by proving that their client wasn’t there when it all happened.

It isn’t usually necessary, however, for the court to bide its time to punish a refractory “culprit.”

The judge is usually chosen because of his fistic ability, and when occasion demands his honor is not above laying aside the dignity with which he is invested, stepping down from the bench, and smacking the defendant in the jaw, thus speeding the course of justice and rendering undue delay unnecessary. Or, if his honor appears to be getting licked, his clerk and bailiff, and possibly one or two other attaches of the court will step in to aid him.

There is, therefore, little doubt about the ultimate result, although I knew one prisoner, a strapping six-foot surveyor, who had got into trouble through passing a bad check, who licked the judge and attaches of the court individually and collectively, then drew a line in the jail corridor and threatened to lick any man who crossed it.

As a result he had a private jail during the balance of his stay. But a case like this is decidedly unusual and it takes a scrapper of extraordinary ability to maintain such a position.

Hardened old-timers will often enter into the spirit of the court, when they haven’t money, and agree, by hook or crook — usually, it is unnecessary to say, by crook — to get some luxury for the boys.

Thus, one I know promised that he would get a quart of whisky for the gang. He was placed “on probation” for three days, with the understanding that if he didn’t make good, he would be compelled to work out his sentence.

The jail windows, on one side, opened out into a small court, the windows having a thick iron mesh screen over them to prevent the passing in of any contraband. The mesh was very fine, giving a space of but a small fraction of an inch. But the prisoner made good.

He “flew a kite” — as the prisoner calls a contraband letter — out to a pal, and a day or so later the pal appeared at the window with a cornucopia made out of heavy glazed paper.

He held the wide part of the cornucopia, which was filled with a quart of whisky, outside the bars, leaving the other end, which had a very small opening, just inside the mesh. He then tilted it and the delighted prisoners inside allowed the beverage to trickle into their tin cans.

Another moneyless prisoner agreed to give the court a squab dinner. No one expected him to make good, as this was an almost impossible undertaking. The prisoner asked for a week’s probation, which an indulgent court granted, more out of curiosity than any other motive, to see what the prisoner would do.

The latter immediately got busy. Borrowing a box from the jailer, the prisoner took it apart, put it piece by piece through the bars, and reconstructed it on the outside, working by sticking his hands through the bars, and incidentally almost “beaning” a citizen below by dropping the hammer upon one occasion.

After the box was completed, he secured it to the bars with a string, then made a pigeon trap out of it by tilting the box, holding it up with a small stick and scattering bread crumbs and other food inside. It was not long until the pigeons began to arrive.

When one got inside the box he would pull the string attached to the small stick, the box would drop and the pigeon would be trapped. He kept them alive until he had got five or six, when he killed them and fried them on a shovel over a small spirit lamp.

I know of one case in which a prisoner made his experience with the kangaroo court pay dividends. The jailer told me this story just a few weeks ago. The incident happened during a murder trial which had aroused nation-wide interest.

The woman charged with the murder — incidentally she was subsequently acquitted — was confined in a small town jail. The jailer had been pestered to death by reporters wanting an interview with her, which the jailer refused to grant, as he had been threatened by the district attorney with the loss of his position if he permitted any one to see her.

One day a frowzy-looking “bum” was brought to the jail to serve ten days for vagrancy. The jailer took him down to give him the usual bath, when he noticed that, despite his filthy exterior, his underclothing was immaculately clean.

He immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was a newspaper man who had had himself committed in order to see if he could get to talk to the accused woman for a few moments. So he determined to take him “over the jumps.”

Not only did he give him the most disagreeable jobs in the institution, but he “tipped off” the kangaroo court, which immediately began work to make his ten-day stay as miserable as possible.

He was charged by the court with every offense under the sun. In fact, the eyesight of the court officers became so keen that they were able to see things which never happened. The reporter took the tormenting in good part, paying the fifteen or twenty dollars which he was assessed in various fines.

But when he got out he sold an article on his experiences for five times the amount. This is the only instance I ever heard of where a prisoner made money out of a kangaroo court, and this “prisoner” probably has set a record.

But the kangaroo court is used not only to get money for the general fund out of which to buy luxuries, but also to provide amusement for the boys and alleviate some of the boredom of jail confinement.

Usually, of course, this amusement is at the expense of some half-wit or “prison simple,” and sometimes the humor will be of a decidedly cruel nature. Often, however, it is just merely harmless fun. Prisoners, particularly the unsophisticated ones, will be tried on all kinds of ridiculous charges.

Thus, the kangaroo court in a jail which I used to visit frequently once tried a prisoner who wasn’t “all there” on the charge of stealing a chicken and a pig. Before he was brought up for trial one of the prisoners opened a pillow, took out a handful of feathers, sprinkled them over the back of the “accused,” put a considerable quantity in his pocket, stuck a few in his shoes, and so on.

Then, when he denied the theft, his honor directed that a search be made. When the accused prisoner saw the feathers taken off him, he promptly — and seriously — admitted the theft of the chicken, but denied positively that he had stolen the pig. He had just sense enough to know that they couldn’t find any hog feathers on him.

This horse play, owing to peculiar conditions existing in some of the jails of the country, often sounds like comic opera.

For instance, in some of the smaller county jails, particularly through the South where most of the prisoners are mountaineers and countrymen known to the sheriff — and from whom he gets his political support — a prisoner is often intrusted with the key to the jail during the sheriff’s absence, and I have, on dozens of occasions, on my regular visits of inspection for the government, been shown through the jail by a prisoner.

And, strange as it may sound, in many of these jails escapes are practically unknown, as these mountaineers have a curious sense of honor. They’ll violate every liquor law that was ever put on the statute books, but once they’re put on their honor not to escape, they can be absolutely depended upon.

In one such jail the kangaroo court tried a prisoner for keeping too close to the stove. He was found guilty and sentenced to spend an hour outside the jail.

As there was a cold rain failing, he protested vigorously against the cruel and unusual punishment, which he eloquently contended violated the constitution.

But the court instructed two of its officers to carry out the sentence, so, while the prisoner intrusted with the keys opened the door, the protesting “offender” was shoved out into the rain. He was let in, drenched to the skin, in half an hour, the court informing him that his time had been cut for good behavior.

The kangaroo court, of course, could not exist without the permission of the jail officials. Sometimes, however, when there are several dominating prisoners in the institution, the organization becomes so strong and well-knit that the prisoners try to use it to enforce demands for privileges against the jail officials; in other words, biting the hand that feeds them.

Usually it’s because the particular hand doesn’t feed them well enough to please them, as such demands almost invariably have to do with the menu. In the event the jail warden is a “weak sister” their demands are very often met.

Or, even if he isn’t weak, he may be lazy or indifferent, or immersed in some outside prison, as many sheriffs are, so that he thinks the easiest way is to let the kangaroo court run the jail the way it sees fit.

The sheriff or jailer who wants to escape trouble in the long run will treat his prisoners fairly, kangaroo court or no kangaroo court, and stop right there, but if he has a kangaroo court he will find the situation much more difficult to handle.

When he awakens to the fact that the situation is getting out of his control it may be too late, as more than one serious beating or even killing of a jail official has resulted from his refusal to meet the demands of a particularly strong kangaroo court.

This is the reason why prison reformers everywhere are making a determined effort to stamp it out. And likewise the reason why they are making very little progress, as the vast majority of hardened jailbirds throughout the country respect nothing in the world but brute strength.