The description and nature of ways of handling malcontents, dissidents and those who disobeyed Jonestown community rules is fairly well known. The real question \u2013 which may be unanswerable, since in large degree it depends upon perspective and recollections of the people who attempt to answer it \u2013 is the extent to which the punishments were exercised.<\/p>\n
This much is known:<\/p>\n
\u2022 The Learning Crew was the work detail for people who committed minor infractions \u2013 being consistently late for assigned tasks; back-talking a superior (or a senior); exhibiting racist, sexist, elitist or other types of behavior associated with capitalistic habits learned in the US \u2013 and consisted of such onerous chores as cleaning latrines, clearing fields after a harvest, and draining ditches of stagnant water. Jim Jones often followed the recommendations of people who made the reports, although he sometimes extended a sentence for a repeat offender or reduced it for someone who showed a good attitude while on the assignment. Many of the notes of these assignments may be found in records of Peoples Rallies<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 \u00a0Group punishments were meted out during community meetings to handle crimes and unacceptable social behavior against the community. Perhaps the most complete example of this may be found on Tape Q 734<\/a>, during which a woman is slapped for committing several minor infractions, a teenager is beaten several times for shoving one woman and mouthing off to three others (including Marceline Jones); and another teenager is more severely beaten a half dozen times for the crime of child rape.<\/p>\n \u2022 This same tape<\/a> also demonstrates evidence of the use of \u201cThe Box,\u201d which was a six-foot by 4-foot underground enclosure used as a sensory deprivation chamber. Discussion of the use of the box also appears on Q 597<\/a>,\u00a0 Q 743<\/a>, and Edith Roller\u2019s journal for March 1978<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 Less quantifiable was the use of terror. Certainly Jones\u2019 threats and decisions to tie people to a stake near the jungle so \u201cthe tiger\u201d could get them \u2013 as in Tapes Q 781<\/a> and Q 743<\/a> \u2013 would qualify, as would forcing a woman who is deathly afraid of snakes to endure having a snake crawl over her (also on Q 781<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u2022 Finally was the use of drugs to sedate and quell dissenters, often \u2013 but not always \u2013 administered in conjunction with isolation the Special Care Unit. There is little agreement on how many people were handled in this way, although there is no doubt that both Shanda James and Eugene Chaikin were subjected to this treatment. Even for the latter, it is debatable how often or to what degree Gene was incapacitated. While some have suggested that his increasing and more vocal opposition to some of Jones\u2019 decisions resulted in him spending much of the last six months in a drugged haze, his work for the Jonestown community assisting Mark Lane in September<\/a> and (likely) October-November<\/a> belies that and suggests he was drugged mainly when outside visitors \u2013 with whom he might otherwise have interacted \u2013 were around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The description and nature of ways of handling malcontents, dissidents and those who disobeyed Jonestown community rules is fairly well known. The real question \u2013 which may be unanswerable, since in large degree it depends upon perspective and recollections of the people who attempt to answer it \u2013 is the extent to which the punishments […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":35361,"menu_order":37,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-35333","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/35333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35333"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/35333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118584,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/35333\/revisions\/118584"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/35361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}