User:Hatch1938

Page Title - Warden Bob Hatrak                                                  Add a text block with My picture + at right                                                             margin Early Life - Born in Jessup - Move to Trenton, N.J. - Education - Teaching/Coaching

Pre-CorrectionsHistory (B - Launching Career in Corrections - Warden Rahway State Prison

Rahway State Prison Warden - History of Violence - Start Date - Initial Goals and Objectives - Control of Violence - Goal, Approach and turning things around - Introduction of new management units to the table of organization - Relationship with the union - Relationship with the Inmate Committee

Creative Approach to Inmate Rehabilitation - Program - National Notoriety - Accomplishments (top 5 in country)

Resignation - 1979 - Director of Corrections in an Oregon County - Alaska Commissioner - Neevada Deputy Director

Business Career - JDSA

REFERENCES Bob Hatrak served as warden at Rahway State Prison from 1973 until 1979. On his watch Bob used what he called inmate Self-Rehab Enterprise groups to successfully reduce violence at the once riot torn penitentiary. These groups offered inmates opportunity to join a group most closely related to their plans once the have been released. Bob was a firm believer inmates ha to assume responsibility for their own rehabilitation.

A n number of the groups Bob started was The Escorts a Rahway Prison Vocal Group that recorded several albums and single while still confined. On February 16, 1974 while one escorted furlough from Rahway they made a live performance before a sold out crowd at Newark, New Jersey's famed Symphony Hall. The Lifer’s Juvenile Awareness Program when filmed became the Academy Award Winning film documentary known as Scared Straight. The Boxing Trades Vocational Training Program produced a light heavyweight champion of the world, sponsored seven nationally televised fights from the same auditorium that hosted a riot in 1971 , four inmates inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame (Eddie Johnson, James Scott, Art Tucker and Murad Muhammed) and James Scott who became the WBA 2nd ranked light heavyweight fighting all his fights inside Rahway Prison.

Rahway’s introduction to the world of boxing was on October 16, 1978 when inmate James Scott shocked the boxing world calling Rahway Prison again to the attention of the national press (the first was Scared Straight) when Scott easily defeated Eddie Gregory the #! ranked light heavyweight boxes by the World Boxing Association. Light heavyweight contender Eddie Gregory traveled to Rahway State Prison to fight inmate, and unbeaten, James Scott. Gregory wanted to use the fight as a tuner for his pending world championship fight with champion Mike Rossman.

On January 15, 2019 George Jakovic  (GJAK Productions) published a YouTube Video which presents the entire fight (pre and post coverage) known as James Scott – HBO Behind Bars.

QUESTION - CAN I ADD THE POSTER ANNOUNCING THE FIGHT HERE"

In 2019 a media story appeared in communemag.com an article titled For Every Empire A Spartacus written by Trey Sterling discussed Rahway’s Boxing Program. In part he wrote:

''“Two years later, in the wake of an investigation into the causes of the Thanksgiving Day Riot, Robert Hatrak took over as Rahway’s new superintendent. Now remembered as a great reformer, driven by a belief in redemption and resurrection, Hatrak had more base motives for reform; without it, he ran the risk of being taken hostage. Hatrak invested heavily in the kinds of vocational programs Hurricane Carter identified as essential to keeping the peace.”''

SBNation.com

We located a number of YouTube videos about prison boxing in foreign places like South Africa, Bangkok and Thailand

Similarly, Scared Straight is still talked about today and 42 years later is still being used, in various formats, throughout the world. [i] https://communemag.com/combat-and-incarceration/

For every empire a Spartacus

“Two months after the storied Attica uprising, on Thanksgiving Day, 1971, hundreds of prisoners in New Jersey’s Rahway State Prison staged their own takeover. For twenty-four hours, five hundred inmates held six employees, including the superintendent, hostage after the guards cracked down on an illegal wine-making operation. At Attica, thirty-three inmates and ten guards died when the state raided the prison. At Rahway, however, there was no massacre. The inmates managed to submit a list of grievances to the governor, release the hostages, and negotiate a surrender.”

These are just a few programs Hatrak developed in six short years. Each received a lot of national publicity. Some media referred to Rahway at the time as “The College Of The Second Chance and the “Prison Boxing University."