The Law: Jaycees in Prison

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Frequently, of course, the Jaycees in prison pay a high price for their hard-sought status. They are sometimes considered turncoats by cellmates, fakes by old-line prison officials and hardened criminals by outside community groups. Gibbs' best friend and former accomplice would not speak to him for three months after his induction into the Jaycees. "You have 'to give up your friends and the prison subculture," says Christensen. "That's tough, and some can't do it." For a black Jaycee like Charles Ivery, 30, president of the chapter at Maryland's correctional center at Jessup, there are added headaches. "You have to convince the whites that we're not trying to create a Black Power situation and convince the blacks that the Jaycees are not a Ku Klux Klan white organization." To do that, and then persuade convicts to ante up the money to join, is no easy job, but the Jaycee record in prisons shows that it can be done.