Doing Hard Time

I met my boyfriend in prison. Shocking, right? Who would want to date someone who was in the big house? Well, it’s okay. You see, I was in prison too. What did I do, you ask? And what did he do? What crimes did we commit?

The answer is simple. None. We worked there. I am writing today, from first hand experience, to say that anyone who works in a prison for a prolonged period of time is an unsung hero. Prisons are dangerous, depressing places. I couldn’t hack it, so I escaped after five years. Yes, I flew the coop. I freed myself after a relatively short sentence, although you could argue that working in a prison is a little bit like counting your age in dog years. One year in prison time equals about seven years of a normal human life, or at least it feels that way.

Let me tell you a little bit about what it’s like. But, first let me backup a bit and tell you another reason why I think prison employees are unsung heroes. You know all the cop shows that exist in the streaming world? And those cop shows that also cross over with courtroom drama such as Law and Order? The whole premise is that the heroic cops solve the mystery, figure out who dunnit and catch the scary bad guy. Next, the dedicated, hard working lawyers prepare a rock solid case and the judge sentences the bad guy to many years in prison. Humanity is then saved when the bad guy is locked up without a key, paying for his unspeakable crimes. Everyone then lives happily and safely ever after. 

Except, it’s not really the end. There really is no happily ever after. The camera never follows the prisoner to his final destination – prison. The viewer never sees what happens next and who has to deal later with the evil, scary, deranged murderer or rapist. I am here today, writing this story, to correct that omission.

You might be wondering how a “nice girl” like me ended up working in a prison. All I can say is that I am a librarian, and even prisons need libraries and librarians. As a newly graduated librarian with a Master’s degree and being a divorced, single mother, I took the first professional job that came my way. The pay was decent and the benefits were good. Unlike other library jobs, I also got my evenings and weekends free, a real plus as a single parent.

Thus, I began my employment at a medium security prison with a one week training called “Security for the Non security”. In other words, it was training for the “newbies”, those who were new to the prison system and had never worked in law enforcement. The training was all about watching your back, being aware of your surroundings, and setting boundaries with prisoners. Do not let the prisoners get too close. Never tell them your first name. Don’t put a picture of your family on your desk. Being too familiar with the prisoners was consorting with the enemy. Prison staff could be punished for “fraternization” or getting too friendly with prisoners. This was considered dangerous because the prisoner could take advantage of a hapless employee, manipulate them, and compromise security.

As prison staff, not only did we need to police our words and actions, but also our wardrobe. A dress code decreed that we dress conservatively. You wouldn’t want to “tempt” a prisoner. Sturdy, closed toed shoes were also mandated. Sandals were not permitted because we might need to run from something, or someone, dangerous at any given moment. Moreover, although conservative dress was encouraged, women were not allowed to wear bras with underwire in them, because the underwire could be used as a weapon. Cell phones were not permitted either, lest they get stolen or lent to a prisoner. To ensure that no cell phone entered the prison, staff were not allowed to carry purses. Instead, we had to put our personal belongings in transparent bags which were then scanned electronically each day when we entered the prison, also crossing under our own metal detectors.

Taking care of yourself physically and mentally was also strongly encouraged. Staff members were advised to take “psychological showers” and let upsetting, distasteful things wash off our backs. Some prison guards even had feces thrown at them by prisoners. Suffice it to say, they had to take actual showers after work, not merely "psychological" ones.

What other distasteful, upsetting things did we encounter? Our mandated trainings point to some of the hazards of prison life: suicide prevention, the prison rape elimination act, infectious diseases, first aid, self defense, hostage training, and more. I also was trained and charged to work as a notary public, putting my embossed seal of approval and validation on several legal forms for prisoners – legal forms fighting their convictions, forms dealing with family law matters, complaints and grievances against prison staff and other law enforcement, and more.

For confidentiality reasons, during my notary sessions, I was in a room by myself, unsupervised by guards, sitting directly across from a prisoner, with only a narrow table between us. My notary customers and library patrons were rapists, murderers, child molestors, burglars, and thugs. At first, it was a little unsettling, but after a while, working in close quarters with prisoners, both as a notary and as a librarian, it became somewhat routine. I was slowly becoming “institutionalized,” that is, I became like an unthinking, unfeeling animal in the zoo who never strays from his cage, forgetting about the dangerous animals around him and the larger world outside.

Complacency, as I learned, could be dangerous. One of my training sessions was on how to cope if you were ever held hostage by a prisoner. The training was conducted by a fellow prison librarian. He, and other prison staff members, had actually been captured and held hostage by a prisoner inside their own prison, in the library of all places. His goal was to educate others, in case we were ever kidnapped ourselves.

How could such a thing happen? Prisons have several vocational training programs. The goal is to train the prisoners to be productive members of society upon their release. A noble cause to be sure. The only downside is that some of those training programs allow the prisoner to work with tools that can be turned into dangerous weapons. My own institution had a culinary school where prisoners learned how to cook and run a restaurant. To be a chef, of course, one needs to use a knife. You can see where this is going. The culinary teacher in the prison would understandably often beg for increased security inside of the training kitchen. 

The prison where the hostage situation took place had some sort of workshop where inmates were taught carpentry or woodworking. An enterprising inmate cut a hole into the floor, dropped down into the library, and surprised library staff by brandishing a sharp saw. He had a list of demands, one of which was that he wanted a staff member’s wedding ring. He threatened to saw the poor prison employee’s finger off to obtain the ring. The man naturally complied and gave the inmate his ring, since no ring is worth losing a finger for. 

It’s been many years since I took this training, and I don’t remember precisely how the standoff ended, and the hostages were released. I do know, however, that the prisoner was eventually recaptured and subdued, and no one was hurt. That is, outwardly. Inwardly, the staff members obviously suffered several emotional trauma no “psychological shower” could wash away. Who needs all their fingers anyways?

Another fellow prison librarian was attacked by an inmate while she was notarizing. She had refused to notarize a questionable, possibly illegal form he presented. He took his revenge by stabbing her in the neck with a pen that he had whittled down and sharpened into a razor sharp point. Last I heard, that librarian is no longer working in the prison system. She is now, thankfully, for her own mental health, a regular small town librarian. 

Prison librarians work closely with inmates. We hear all of their tales and professions of innocence. I had a library clerk shelving books for me who happened to be a murderer. He was also a very talented writer who participated in a creative writing group I facilitated in the library. His speciality was spoken word, and he was an aspiring rapper.

His creativity also was evident in the explanation of his crime. He really hadn’t meant to murder anyone. I believe he told me it was New Year’s Eve, and he had merely fired his gun straight up in the air in jubilation. “Happy New Year!”, he was evidently saying with his gun. The bullet just happened to go straight up before striking some poor woman in its downward trajectory, killing her instantly. It was all merely an unfortunate accident, at least according to him. 

To make matters worse, the powers that be placed the victim’s brother in the same prison as the murderer. Someone in administration had goofed big time. A man in prison has nothing to lose. The inmate, upon discovering that his sister’s murderer was in the very same place he was, vowed to seek his revenge. 

And where did this revenge seeking take place? You guessed it, the library. One day, my inmate rapper/murderer/library clerk was busy shelving books, minding his own business. I believe he was in the Stephen King section, shelving Stephen King before Barbara Kingsolver. Suddenly, he was grabbed from behind. The other inmate’s hands were around his windpipe, strangling him and threatening to cut off his air supply. The other inmate was much larger and stronger. The library clerk began making horrible gagging sounds, struggling to breathe. He raised his hands in desperation, trying to pry the other inmate’s fingers loose from his neck. He was rapidly turning blue from lack of oxygen.

I stood in stupified fascination, staring at the scene in shocked horror. I do believe that in stressful situations, in addition to fight or flight, human beings are also faced with a freezing instinct. Fight or flight becomes fight, flight, or freeze. And freeze is just what I did, like a deer in the headlights.

It should be noted that there was a guard in the library, but he seemed to be in no hurry to break up the fight. The librarian who had been employed before me had stepped into the middle of a fight, becoming severely injured. She had since left prison employment, along with the prison library’s previous guard. I only hope they were adequately compensated and are now fully healed. Knowing this history, my library guard just called for reinforcements and let the fight continue. This was also in keeping with institutional protocol. Why risk your own self to protect an inmate?

Inside I screamed “do something”, but I remained frozen and unable to summon help from others. It should be noted that I was equipped with three devices for raising an alarm – a portable “screecher” that I was supposed to wear around my neck, a large panic button on the wall, and a telephone. The telephone on my desk did not even require dialing. All I needed to do was to pick up the receiver, taking it “off the hook”. This raised an alarm, and help would come running. Failing that, I could also simply push the large, easily accessible panic button on the wall. Somehow, however, I was too panicked to push the panic button. As an aside, I had also stopped wearing my "screecher" alarm after it accidentally went off when I was in the bathroom, literally with my pants down. At the time, I was left with the difficult decision of not knowing what to do first – turn off the ear splitting whistle or pull up my trousers. You see my dilemma?

And at rate, other officers finally arrived and thankfully broke up the fight, with the two inmates no worse for the wear. The aggressor was rapidly cuffed and escorted to segregation, otherwise known as “the Hole”, and the other, my inmate library clerk, was taken to the Health Services Unit to get examined. 

You may wonder why inmate fights aren’t broken up by security sooner. The short explanation is that there are security procedures and protocols to follow. The number one duty of a prison guard is to “protect the public”. This also means protecting themselves. Inmates are expendable. One could conceivably argue that they had placed themselves in danger through the commission of their crime and ultimate sentencing. I am not saying I agree with this take on the matter, I am just trying to explain the security mindset.

So far, I have only talked about non-uniform staff. I will now turn my attention to the unsung heroes who are uniform staff or “blue shirts” as they were called in my prison (their uniforms, both pants and shirts, were blue). I don’t have as much authority or credibility to speak about their actions or feelings, since as “non-uniform staff”, I was not one of them. Therefore, I will rely on word of mouth and news and social media accounts. 

I begin by relating one altercation involving my significant other who was one of the “blue shirts.” Picture our prison as a mini college campus. I worked in the same building as my boyfriend. I was in the library and he was upstairs in the health services unit. His post there involved monitoring inmates visiting the prison’s doctor and dentist. In an all male prison, going to the doctor is very popular, since in addition to seeing the doctor, they also can see female nurses and get prescribed narcotics. Therefore, inmates need to be closely guarded as does the pharmaceutical supply. In addition, there is a psychological services unit where inmates receive counseling.

One day, an inmate was going for a counseling session with the prison psychologist. Upon hearing from the psychologist that his father had just passed away and he was unable to attend the funeral, the inmate became enraged. He cornered the psychologist and threatened to kill the shrink, unless he was permitted to leave the prison to pay his final respects to his beloved father. The psychologist, a mild-mannered, academic type, did his best to calm down the inmate, but was not succeeding. He panicked and felt himself in danger of being attacked. Since counseling sessions are confidential, no guard was in the room. Therefore, the psychologist summoned help – either pressing the panic button or knocking the phone off the hook. I am not sure which one he used. Unlike me, the psychologist didn’t freeze, and he successfully raised the alarm. My boyfriend, the blue shirt, came running.

The inmate was very large and menacing. Prison guards do not carry guns, because guns can be taken away by inmates and used against them. Guards do, however, carry tasers and pepper spray to be used only when absolutely necessary. Therefore, my boyfriend did his best to diffuse the situation with mere words and actions. He put himself in harm’s way to draw the inmate’s attention away from the psychologist. Then, he tried reasoning with the distraught inmate, relating that he had also lost his own parents. He empathized with the inmate and his words calmed the inmate down, proving that a kind, listening ear is sometimes the only thing a person needs. Nonetheless, due to his threatening behavior, the inmate was eventually cuffed and escorted to segregation. The psychologist, who truly felt himself in danger, then let out a big sigh of relief and remained forever thankful to “my guy”.

Words don’t always work, however. Since the prison’s mission is to “protect the public'', there are four watch towers, one in each corner of the prison yard. The guards who man such towers are empowered to “shoot to kill.” Just this past summer, there was an attempted escape at my former place of employment. The inmate was shot by a sharpshooting guard and failed to escape. He did not, however, die. I would call that a successful outcome and heroic.

At other prisons in my state, there were two inmate deaths this past summer – one from suicide and one from a drug overdose. Prisons are severely short staffed, but staff members continually come under fire for failing to keep prisoners safe.

Lastly, in a youthful detention facility in my state prison system, also this very same summer, a youth counselor was killed by a young inmate in his charge. Young prisoners are not allowed to be tazed or controlled with pepper spray. You see, it is considered cruel and unusual punishment for youthful offenders to be hurt in such a way, since they are young and impressionable. Their brains are not fully developed and they are theoretically capable of change. Nonetheless, this young inmate attacked the staff member and somehow managed to kill him.

My heart bleeds for that staff member who was just doing his job, going to work on a day just like any other, trying to make a difference. I heard through the grapevine that the murdered man was one of the “good guys”. The young offenders he supervised liked him. He was kind and caring. He listened to them and tried to help them. Other young inmates even tried to break up the fight and protect the counselor from their fellow cellmate. Sadly, however, they were unsuccessful, and the poor man died.

In closing, I reiterate that no “psychology shower” can wash off the pain that those working in prisons feel when they hear such stories. Prison workers, as unsung heroes, occasionally die in the line of duty. Those still surviving and working in prisons, like the inmates they supervise, are surely also doing “hard time.” I only hope one day that they too, like me, can escape without too many scars, either physical or psychological.