Developing a workable horticulture plan for the prison school was much easier than implementing it. I started by hiring Horticulture tutors who had a background in the discipline. I also had to include all the workers who were hired by one of the Deputy Wardens, and they proved to be a real pain. They thought they were better than everyone else because they had been hand picked by the Deputy Warden to work on the prison grounds. When I informed them that they had to report to me in the school at 7:00am Monday through Friday I knew they would test me. I fired 3 of them for not reporting on their assignment within the first week. They complained to the warden who informed them they were technically “out of place” for not being on their assignment and had nothing coming. The other workers showed up on time every day from that point on and followed my instructions. They knew I wasn’t going to tolerate nonsense and the chaos they create playing Machiavellian games.
However, the three inmate workers I fired grieved me for “protocol malfeasance!'” The fact that I had to appear before a grievance committee made up of one prisoner advocate, one DOC advocate, one prison school advocate, and the Warden himself lead me to believe I could be in hot water for firing some straight up assholes. This was uncharted water for me, and the lines of responsibility got awful blurry. I actually felt that when this grievance was resolved I would be the one looking like the asshole. Sure enough, our school principal came to me later in the day after my testimony and said I would basically have to hire them back. I thought WTF is this? He informed me that as the work assignment supervisor I had to show a progression of trying to correct their behavior through written evaluations known as 363’s. I laughed. I informed him they were found guilty of the tickets I had written for being out of place. (not on their assignment a major misconduct) DOC policy states they were to be removed from their assignment if found guilty.
My principal didn’t know I had written them major out of place tickets. I didn’t inform him of it, or the grievance committee. The Classification Director upon seeing the hearing investigators docket and their guilty verdicts had pulled their details for my assignment. When I informed him of this fact he smiled. He knew from that point on they could not report for the assignment without a detail. Being found guilty of a major misconduct on an assignment they didn’t report to had even broader consequences. They were taken off the assignment, had a week of top lock, and could not apply for any other work assignments for at least six months. The principal knew this as well. Smiling he informed me that he could see I knew this bureaucracy better than most.
Working as a management change agent had taught me some valuable lessons about people. Everyone seems to have and angle when it comes to accountability. They usually hold themselves in high esteem and unaccountable because in their mind’s eye they do no wrong. However, everyone else is to be held to a much higher standard of accountability and punished accordingly when those standards are not met. I found this to be the underlying premise of the prison bureaucracy philosophy. The principal thought I had pulled a fast one. I informed him that I only followed DOC policy which gets awfully blurry when there are many layers of bureaucracy pushing their own narratives on how I should manage my classroom. I had heard it many times and through out my career, “Who does he think he is?” My reply was always the same, “I am just a peasant working as a prison teacher trying to develop this prisons’ horticulture plan. That is who I am to day. In this environment it could be changed tomorrow!” To be continued…..
MJ-Way 