Day 16: Life Lessons

Prison has to be one of the most primal displays of patriarchal hierarchy found on the planet. As a transitional step for prisoners from the normal blocks before they re-enter the community, Work Release is a profoundly disastrous environment.

I am not so naïve as to believe that among some tiny minority of prisoners, the violent psychopaths, a brutal display of authority, without mercy or accountability, is perhaps the only way to keep order. Those prisoners might expect minimal civility from their captors.

But likewise, in a minimum security area, shouldn't the prisoners expect, if not maximum civility, a certain modicum of civility? For, there is none. Based on the shared experiences and anecdotes of some of the prisoners who have been to the other blocks, the guards all act alike no matter where they are assigned (to wit, guards frequently work different blocks). This may explain why the prison-wide announcement system routinely calls in a "Code 13" - CO being attacked - or a "Code 26" - two COs being attacked. Everyone has a breaking point for how much psychological abuse they can withstand.

It is very easy to assume that COs and prison administrators only behave in this barbarous manner when they are at work, and they do so only because the prison culture requires it to ensure the safety of both they and the prisoners.

However this assumption breaks down when considering Work Release. The assumption is therefore generally suspect.

What lessons are the prison CO and administrators teaching by example before sending prisoners back into communities?

• Power is absolute, never to be questioned.
• He who has power can wield it arbitrarily, without accountability.
• The ambiguous nature of some rules and contracts is no excuse for an alleged violation, if he who has power decides there was a violation.
• Polite speech ("yes sir", "no sir", "please", "thank you", etc.) , greetings, and salutations are a sign of submission and will never be used or acknowledged by one who has power.
• The primary way to get someone to change their behavior is to publicly raise one's voice at them in anger. This is most effective if he who has power says things intended to humiliate him.
• If raising one's voice does not work, then violence should be threatened.
• Kindness (e.g., offering to help someone) and honesty (e.g., turning over found money to the CO) are signs of weakness, to be derided by those in power.
• A request for assistance or a question may be treated as an appropriate act of submission, and addressed in the manner of a benevolent despot. Alternatively, the same request or question may be treated as an annoyance or rule violation.
  

The average age of the Work Release block is young - probably under 25 - and recidivism must be considered in the context of the lessons these young men are learning from the COs and staff.

It is also reasonable to conclude that the mental state of the COs has a direct impact on the frequency of domestic violence committed by them, if we draw an analogy from the 3 to 5 fold increase of such incidents in the military. Unfortunately, I was not able to find a reputable source for domestic violence incidents by occupation to test the theory (for law enforcement and corrections personnel, such data might be intentionally suppressed). As many of the COs and staff of the prison, parole, and probation systems seem to exhibit the symptoms of antisocial personality disorders, while the inmates are there mostly as a result of poverty and the lack of a functional social safety net, members of society are most at risk by the people who claim to be protecting it.