Lifers Without

Christopher Blystone smiles his soft smile, looks you dead in the eye and says, with pride: "They said I almost committed the perfect crime."

Blystone, at 17, put a gun to the back of the head of a drugstore delivery boy, pulled the trigger six times and walked away with $2,000.

The crime was not quite perfect. Blystone was caught, convicted and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. He will spend the rest of his days behind the brick walls and steel bars of Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla. He will eat, drink, sleep - even breathe - at state expense for the rest of his life.

He is 24. It could be a long life.

With his startlingly boyish looks, Blystone was considered a likely victim for Walla Walla's known sexual predators when he arrived at the prison in 1988. Now he's considered predator, not prey.

His transformation was not sudden. Even back in 1988, he says, he understood most of the rules.

"I figured I'd be here the rest of my life, and I had this I don't-care-what-happens attitude. They'd just sentenced me to life without the possibility of parole, and I was only 20. I felt like I had nothing to lose. So I made sure people understood that if they messed with me, I'd tear them apart."

A short time later, "they started calling me Babyface Nelson, the little killer."

On the outside, in the world of societal regulations, Blystone's remarks would be blasphemous. But here, in the world of killers and robbers and rapists - where force rules - Blystone's words are filled with unerring truth.

Here, his survival is rooted in his capacity to hurt and maim.

Here, his standing is greater because on the outside he killed another man.

Here, his reputation is larger because he has life without the possibility of parole.

He is not alone.

Blystone and others like him have committed crimes so heinous, so cold-blooded and inhumane, the state judicial system deemed them unfit to ever re-enter society.

But 16 years ago, the sentence life without the possibility of parole did not exist. There were death sentences and life sentences with parole, meaning a prisoner with life could be released after 13 years - even if convicted of murder.

That changed in 1977, when the Legislature enacted Washington's first life-without-parole sentence.

It didn't last long.

The state Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in two separate cases in 1980 and 1981. And in 1981, the Legislature repealed it and instituted a revised life-without-parole sentence.

Today, more than a decade after the sentence was instituted, 78 inmates in Walla Walla are serving "life without," as the sentence is known. And it is likely that with a pervasive lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key attitude among lawmakers and the citizenry, the number will swell.

In a 1991 Gallup Poll, the public showed a strong leaning toward sentences of life without parole for murderers.

What does that mean on a daily basis for the lifers without? What does it mean for the prison system?

And what does it mean for the residents of Washington?

If Blystone lives another 40 years, it will cost Washington state taxpayers at least $1.1 million to pay for his incarceration (excluding inflation). The costs will soar even higher as he gets older and is in need of medical treatment, special foods and medicine, surgery and trips to civilian hospitals.

If he lives 50 years, it will cost much more.

Blystone is a symbol of what could become one of the state's most expensive long-term human investments.

It is an investment that - generation after generation - will never bring an economic return.

"It's an economic burden right now," said state Senate Majority Leader Jeannette Hayner, R-Walla Walla. "But if we didn't have people violating the law, we wouldn't have to do this."

On the average, the residents of Washington spend $22,000 to $25,000 each year on every inmate. With 78 inmates serving life without, that's close to $2 million a year total.

These state dollars provide food, shelter and clothing for some of the state's most dangerous inmates. These dollars also provide opportunities, in some cases, for education and training.

"I don't think about the standard rate" of housing the inmates, said Jim Blodgett, prison superintendent at Walla Walla. "The yearly figure is based upon an assumption that those are the costs for housing and feeding. But what I do think about is the extra costs."

Which, Blodgett said, are staggering.

"A guy who is serving only five years doesn't set up house here," he said. "If they're unhappy, they tolerate things because they know they're going to be released. But a lifer without parole becomes much more vested. A lifer without is much more likely to file civil suits against us. We have to defend those suits and it costs us money."

Big money - as much as $1 million for a single inmate.

Many times, Blodgett suggests, lifers intentionally use the legal system to complicate life at Walla Walla.

"Some of these folks make a career of making life miserable for us," he said. "They flood our system with torts and claims. That is their mission. It's their way of saying, `We're going to get you back' for sentencing us to life without."

The sound of steel clanging against concrete - and grunts and shouts and roars of support and approval - echoes inside the prison weight room. The gym is packed.

This is where inmates release the pent-up anger and frustrations of prison life. This is where they escape from their cages, from their memories. This is where the weak try to become the strong.

Blystone and his "cellie" and right-hand man, Larry Sullens - another lifer without - understand this. That's why they spend the majority of their unscheduled time holed up in this small room each day with dozens of other inmates.

"Let's go, Chris!" shouts Sullens, a small, stocky man. "One more. One more!"

Blystone strains, his face contorted, as he heaves the 70-pound barbell into the moist air of the smelly room.

"One more!" Sullens screams.

Blystone strains and struggles, but doesn't quit. He is young, strong. And this is his way of staving off attacks from other inmates.

"My life might depend on whether I can throw somebody off me," Blystone says matter-of-factly. "It's that simple."

For the state of Washington, the Blystones and Sullenses of the prison system are not so simple. They are complications. What happens when they're not so young, not so strong?

If the current rate of sentencing remains constant, there could be 300 lifers without by the year 2000. The cost to taxpayers would be huge.

"As inmates are sentenced to longer periods of time, we're going to see an aging of the general prison population, which raises a number of issues," said Larry Fehr of the Washington Council on Crime and Delinquency.

He points to a recent study of older inmates at Walla Walla which revealed that 65 inmates were identified as high risk for coronary-bypass surgery.

"Yes, it could become a tremendous burden on the citizens of the state. But I guess the underlying question is, what is the alternative?" said James Spalding, director of prisons for the state Department of Corrections. "You're not going to get me to say we need to execute these people."

Even if he were to make such a suggestion, given the lengthy, complicated and legally contentious process of actually executing criminals, it is unlikely that death sentences are ever going to be handed down at a great rate.

Enter life without.

Since it is a relatively new concept, there is no sure way to evaluate its deterrent effects.

Nor is there any compelling evidence - as there is with the death sentence - that some citizens find it repulsive and primitive. But many prison officials and crime analysts consider life without an effective tool of incarceration.

Tim Ford, a national expert and longtime opponent of the death sentence, describes life without parole as "what a jury imposes when it finds mitigating circumstances."

Those circumstances include age, state of mind, family background, education and social status.

Ford - like other legal and social scholars - believes the life without parole sentence "means the public has made the judgment that there are crimes that deserve this kind of sentence."

Benjamin Ng is a classic example of how lifers without - even those who have committed heinous crimes - cling to the hope they'll someday be released, even as they accept the possibility they'll spend the rest of their lives behind Walla Walla's gray walls.

"The hardest part about it," he said, "is it's a long, long time. It's like a big cloud above you that's going no place."

Ng was convicted of killing 13 people in the infamous Wah Mee murders in Seattle's International District on Feb. 19, 1983. He concedes he earned his life-without-parole sentence; he is not certain, however, that he'll complete it. Ng believes he'll be released someday from Walla Walla.

"I don't think I'll get out now, but somewhere down the road I believe they will let me out," he said.

Those hopes, in fact, are rooted in history.

Despite the ostensible finality of the sentence - and the widespread public view that lifers without parole remain locked up forever - there appears to be ample evidence that few people actually complete their prison sentences, authorities say.

"My perception is that the majority of life-without-parole inmates are released before they die," said Blodgett.

"I've been in the prison system for nearly 30 years, and rarely do you see someone die inside who has been sentenced to long prison terms. The biggest share (of life-without-parole inmates) get their sentences commuted to life sentences. And that's true in every state in the United States," Blodgett said.

At Walla Walla last year, there were at least two instances where inmates sentenced to death were able to get their sentences reduced to life without; now, those same inmates are trying to get their life-without-parole sentences reduced to life, which would open the legal door to release.

Some corrections experts believe the state's residents and lawmakers have failed to clearly examine the ramifications of life without, both from a social and punitive standpoint.

Indeed, they say, most residents have misconstrued the sentence entirely, believing inmates who've committed heinous crimes and been sentenced to life without will be treated harshly - at the least more harshly than other inmates - by prison officials.

"People are sent to us as punishment, not for punishment," prison director Spalding said.

"We're not in the business of providing a miserable existence for people. The courts won't let us get away with it."

The hierarchy of prison life is on display three times a day at Walla Walla in the one place in the prison where the toughest of the inmates demand respect: the chow hall.

Among the clatter of trays and the muted sounds of plastic spoons and forks, among the blank walls and distasteful food, among the chatter of inmates, the lines of power are drawn.

A newcomer learns early, sometimes as soon as his first day in prison, that you never sit at the table or in a chair of a lifer without.

There is no room for error in this matter.

The chow hall is pure, primitive territorialism. Those inmates who are too soft to rebuff attacks can be seen handing over their food to those who can. It is here the inmates who rule assert themselves.

"This is my table," Bruce Bushey says early one morning, with unmistakable harshness. He stares down at his breakfast - pancakes, syrup, coffee and milk - and looks around the room: "No one sits here, no one eats here unless I give them permission."

Lifers rule at Walla Walla.

Next to death-row inmates, they have the least to lose.

Ask inmates who the most dangerous prisoner is and three or four names emerge.

Rapist-killer Charles Campbell and Westley Allan Dodd, a child-molester and killer, are high on the list.

Both men, however, are death-row inmates. They are considered too dangerous to live among their criminal peers and are isolated from the general prison population.

Lifers without are frequently housed in the general population.

"Short-timers are real cautious in dealing with lifers, especially guys with life without," said Bushey, a lifer without who is regarded as an inmate to leave alone. "There are a lot of guys who are considered tough. But I can't say there is one person at the top of the list. Once you start talking about how tough you are . . . then you've got to prove it.

"But we're here (lifers without) longer than anybody else, so killing one of these guys for being stupid or something like that isn't really a big thing to us."