"“Now watch what they do,” says Christopher Acosta, a corrections officer with a shaved head who worked for 15 years as a front-line prison guard and now runs public relations for Pelican Bay. We are standing with our backs to a fence and can see everything.
At first, we seem to be watching a sullen but semi-random parade of terrifying men—heavily tattooed murderers, thieves, and drug dealers walking past one of five casual but alert guards. Some inmates, chosen for a strip search, drop their prison blues into little piles and then spin around, bare-assed, to be scrutinized. Once inspected, they dress and walk out into the yard to fill their lungs with oxygen after a long night in the stagnant air of the cellblock. The first Hispanic inmate to put his clothes on walks about 50 yards to a concrete picnic table, sits down, and waits. The first black inmate goes to a small workout area and stares out at the yard intently. A white guy walks directly to a third spot, closer to the basketball court. Another Hispanic claims another picnic table. Slowly it becomes obvious that they have been moving tactically: each has staked out a rallying point for his group and its affiliates.
Once each gang has achieved a critical mass—about five men—it sends off a pair of scouts. Two of the Hispanics at the original concrete picnic table begin a long, winding stroll. “They’ll walk around, get within earshot of the other groups, and try to figure out what’s going down on the yard,” Acosta says. “Then they can come back to their base and say who’s going to attack who, who’s selling what.”
Eventually, about 50 inmates are in the yard, and the guards have stepped back and congregated at their own rallying point, backs to the fence, with Acosta. The men’s movements around the yard are so smooth and organized, they seem coordinated by invisible traffic lights. And that’s a good thing. “There’s like 30 knives out there right now,” Acosta says. “Hidden up their rectums.”"
-The Atlantic via Razib Khan
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Here's a poser: whatever could we do to prevent drugs and weapons from entering prisons?
20 comments:
It's simple.
We need to bring back the chain gangs.
The old ways are always best.
Couldn't the knives up the rectums problem be solved with an X-ray machine?
Maybe we should just let nature take its course and let the drugs and weapons in. Maybe they will all kill each other. Other than some guards possibly getting hurt, what is the downside.
Most of the contraband is supplied by the guards. They need the same treatment they subject the prisoners to.
Contraband comes in via visitation, contractors, staff. Often the staff are non correctional officers who bring in the contraband. Where there is demand there will be supply. As certain as the law of gravity.
Maybe they have the knives in their rectums because they are feminists. "No means no, and if you do manage to fuck me, you will be sorry."
ricpic said...
Couldn't the knives up the rectums problem be solved with an X-ray machine?
For steel knives, a handheld metal detector should work. But remember, Dillinger escaped using a wooden gun.
When men come back from combat regular life can seem lacklustre. I imagine these gang members are having fun in their own way imprisoned in a video game existence.
Sit carefully.
As far as what to do, sounds like a lot more of these types should have a seat in Ol' Sparky.
Life in prison must be mind-numbingly boring. The inmates must feel the need to re-create their own importance, so they gravitate to a base tribal hierarchy. (Certain pols in our government would be proud to see such division!)
I don't know why but it made me think of the movie Shawshank Redemption. It's a depressing movie, but the end is uplifting and satisfying. Revenge! Which is all beside the point that I'm thinking about which is the depiction of the black man and the white man getting along, forming a deep friendship. Also, some of the "bad guys" in the movie are gay. Gay rapists.
Perhaps that is why the movie didn't win any awards?
I imagine life in prison, in real life, as a gay man, is deadly brutal and cruel.
April, Prison is very boring. But, being gay is not necessarily brutal. If you can handle yourself, it can be quite easy. It's all about being to handle yourself. Stand up when needed, and mind your own business when called for, the latter being much more prevalent.
I've yet to hear a satisfactory explanation why prisoners can get drugs and weapons behind bars. These people have lesser constitutional rights than the rest of us but it is the rest of us being unconstitutionally searched at the airport. Both guards and guests of prisoners should be searched before entering and before leaving the prison in addition to regular prisoner searches. It would provide an acceptable use for all the backscatter machines presently wasting space and time at airports. Prison sounds like it has become a destination of choice for certain segments of that population and that should not be. It should be equal punishment, not central headquarters for apex criminals and not survival of the fittest. I wonder whether the prison guards union has an interest in keeping prisoners dramatically dangerous in order to promote themselves and as a defense for their arguably inflated salaries. It seems to me that the current system rewards prisoners who are already affiliated with criminal gangs which would seem to be contra any rehabilitative process by allowing that affiliation to flourish and strengthen behind bars while at the same time forcing non incorporated offenders to either join the criminal enterprise in prison or risk injury or death. The punishment should be the prison sentence, not the judgment of fellow inmates.
Amartel. Where there is demand there will be supply. And, while I despise public unions, your paranoia is showing. There are no unions in Federal prisons and while they are better run than state prisons, and drugs are less prevalent, there is no way to keep them out entirely. What prisoners have is lots of time to devise schemes.
And, NOBODY needs to scheme to make prisons dangerous. They are incredibly dangerous.
Hey, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you!
In light of the sorry facts of prison life it's a legitimate question to ask of the highly compensated prison guard union. What are we getting for our money? Without better and detailed explanation I can't accept the pat defeatism of well they're going to do it and that's just the way it is. Obviously people are going to think up ways to sneak stuff in but for what we pay prison guards there should be far more will to intercept, set up systems to quickly identify and stop gaps in the perimeter and severely punish anyone on the guard side who is party to helping prisoners commit crime in prison, for the sake of the process and of the prisoners themselves. The status quo is unacceptable.
Amartel, I save my derision for lazy ass DMV, and all the other bureaucratic, sit on your ass, scratch your balls, watch porn, never answer your phone, 2 hour lunch, mofo's. Working is a prison is tough.
My comments about not ever seeing a satisfactory explanation for why the prison system is so very permeable should not be viewed as a personal attack on individual hard working prison guards, okay? Anymore than criticism of the educational bureaucracy or trends in policing are attacks on hardworking individual police officers and teachers. I'm an attorney, fer chrissakes! Everyone freely hollers about how attorneys are such scumbags and I don't take it personally and I don't know any attorney that does. For that matter, people (see e.g. our TOTUS) freely assume on a regular basis that people in the corporate world are just greedy. We have got to be able to discuss big issues like this , issues that need addressing, without public employees getting hurt feelings and taking it personally and shutting down discussion with their tears. Your jobs are already far more secure than those of us out in the private sector.
Amartel, I was a hack @ Leavenworth in the mid 70's. We are soul mates regarding the evils of govt. I am a libertarian and rant just like you. I know prisons better than most. Not only did I work @ Leavenworth, so did my bride. She worked for the Fed BOP for 12 years, also in Chicago. Federal prisons have fewer drugs, weapons, etc. in part that they are not unionized. So, we agree for the most part. But along w/ working in a prison, my career as a PI has taken me to literally hundreds of jails and prisons. I don't know what type of law you practice, if it's criminal you know jails and prisons. Does being a guard seem like a cushy govt. job to you? There are millions of cushy, govt. jobs, being a hack ain't one of them. In many county sheriff systems if you want to be a patrolman, you have to run the gauntlet of being a hack in the countay jail for a few years.
We're cool. I don't think prison guard is an easy job. Not my point at all. Still don't know why we can't be better at preventing criminal enterprises from flourishing in prisons. The status quo is unacceptable even though no one cares politically. If there was political will to change the system we'd start hearing creative solutions from knowledgeable people of which I'm not one. Rethink allowing phone calls and other communications? Crazy glue their butts shut and make them shit out their sides?
Amertel, You hit on a good topic, phone calls. Communication via code on phone and mail is a big problem w/ problems both inside the joint and outside. Also, there are now cell phones routinely found in prisons. The solution to this should be simple, just put in place blocking signals rendering cell phones useless. But staff don't want this, because they can't use their cells. On that I'm w/ you, Fuck you, use the land line if you need to call your sitter or vice versa. I think any violations in the joint should cause you to lose communication privileges unless it is w/ your attorney.
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