The Visit Part 2

As we began walking back to the school the principal started to explain what was currently happening at this prison. In 1988 the prison was ordered to downsize by the Federal Government. Being the “largest walled prison at that time,” it was not an easy task. The main prison was divided into 4 separate prisons. More prisons were built as well through out the state to help with the overcrowding identified as one of the main factors of the 1981 riots at this prison. Prisoner porters were washing the sidewalk and with a broom swept the water off the sidewalk as we walked towards the prison school. The principal felt they were cleaning the remnants of blood left on the sidewalk from the assault on the officer early this morning. The school had not opened yet and there looked to be about 500 prisoners mulling around the school yard. I felt like I was on a pirate ship.

We stopped walking and the principal informed me that in about 30 seconds the big yard would open. When that happens, those going to school will enter the building and those going to the yard would proceed there. The school opened and it seemed that for every four prisoners that went to the yard, one went to school. The principal informed us that he would ask the teachers to submit their absences to the school officer as he believed that many of those prisoners going to the yard should be in school. He saw familiar faces. If they were proven to be truant from school they would lose their yard privilege. Through out my career I found this to be an on going battle for the academic school.

The school opened and the principal began introducing me to the teachers. I thought he was very gregarious. I could tell the teachers liked him and he made everyone feel at ease when he spoke with them. He informed them of where I had traveled from. The new prison built on the east side of the state and what he had planned to show me on the tour this morning. He let them know if he was needed they could have him paged overhead. The school itself was old but clean and the teachers were more than willing to give me a few pointers on teaching inmates. There is “school” in the world and then there is “prison school!” The prison school could get violent at times with prisoners assaulting each other or staff. Unfortunately, the prison school assaults seem mild when compared to the blood baths happening in our schools currently. I never had to worry about a traumatized student coming back to shoot everything and everybody who got in their way. That just didn’t happen in prison. So I thought. My experience taught me later that any thing could happen in prison and usually did when you least expected it.

We finished the tour of the school. The teachers wished me well in my new career and we proceeded to 7 block. Entering 7 block we all had to sign in. The principal led me to an observation point where you could see five floors of barred cells and long isle ways he called the galleys. He informed me that they had to install awnings over the galleys because inmates would throw objects at the officers and at other inmates. Later back at my facility I was informed by our afternoon school officer that one of his relations who worked this block had his ear severed off by a mop wringer dropped from the galley above. “He thinks someone was trying to kill him.” I really thought that should have been understood. I was shown the chow hall and the gun turrets with what appeared to be bullet holes in the metal on the walls. One of the chow officers informed me that when a fight broke out in the chow hall an officer would fire a round out of the turret and the sound of the ricochet would put the inmates on the floor. At that point no-one moved for fear of being shot. The officers would then remove the fighters from the chow hall and place them in segregation. The gun turrets made the chow hall manageable when the inmates decided to be assholes. Our next tour would take me to another part of the prison where greenhouses were built many years ago, and much good came from the Horticulture program’s gardens. To be continued…..