Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction November 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. TAKE THE REASON PRISONER No process is perfect ... but some men always feel unalterably convinced that their system is the Be all and End all. Psychology now, should make prisons absolutely escape-proof, and cure all aberrations.... JOHN J. McGUIRE Illustrated by George Schelling * * * * * Major general (Ret.) James J. Bennington had both professional admiration and personal distaste for the way the politicians maneuvered him. The party celebrating his arrival as the new warden of Duncannon Processing Prison had begun to mellow. As in any group of men with a common interest, the conversation and jokes centered on that interest. The representatives and senators of the six states which sent criminals to Duncannon, holding glasses more suited to Martini-drinking elephants than human beings, naturally turned their attention to the vagaries in the business of being and remaining elected. Senator Giles from Pennsylvania and Representative Culpepper of Connecticut accomplished the maneuver. Together they smoothly cut the general out of the group comparing the present tax structure to rape, past the group lamenting the heavy penalties in the latest conflict-of-interest law, into a comparatively quiet corner. "Well general, no need to tell you that we are all as happy to have you here as Dr. Thornberry seemed to be," Senator Giles said. Bennington nodded politely, though he had not been much impressed by the lean, high-voiced man who had greeted him with such open delight. Dr. Thornberry had expressed too much burbling joy when he had been relieved of his administrative job as Acting Warden, had been overly-happy about resuming his normal duties as Assistant Warden and Chief Psychologist. "I'm very much interested in some of your ideas on reducing the overhead here, general," Culpepper said, "although I'm also wondering if they may not cost my good friend, the senator, some votes in his district." "That will be no real worry," Giles said thoughtfully, "if I can show the changes are real economies. Today that's the way to gain votes and I'd come up with more than I'd lose." "But your turnover," Culpepper said. "I can see that in a regular prison, where they have the men a long time, it's easy to train them in kitchen work and supply. But here.... How long do you plan to keep them, general?"