Prisons: Cook County Horrors

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Not Alone. Nicknamed "the Wipe Lady" because of her complaints about the jail's filth, Mrs. Macdonald was soon approached by a Negro woman named "Queenie," who announced: "I never had a white woman before. Are we going to have fun with you tonight." She was later told that "money talks, Wipe Lady," and bought her way out of trouble with cigarettes and candy. But she could do nothing to help a woman in the next cell who was so tormented by her roommates that she tried to commit suicide by putting her head in the toilet and flushing it. After seven days of disgust, Mrs. Macdonald agreed to allow the bank appraisal so that she could get out.

By all accounts, dope is easily available, almost any favor can be bought and only the cunning and the brutal thrive. Moreover, penologists know that the Cook County Jail is by no means the sole or worst offender. In the wake of the disclosures, similar investigations were suggested for the city jail, where a guard recently beat a prisoner to death, and the juvenile home, where homosexuality is also rampant.