Category Archives: Communication

“I knew I was a girl since I was six years old:” PRISON TEACHES US TO LIVE AND LET LIVE

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ARE SOME PREJUDICES ‘Reasonable”?

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If the truth were told, we’d have to admit that we nurture prejudices, and some of these are based on reason.

For example: If you are a woman and mother, you cannot reason away not liking child molesters and rapists. Nor should you, nor should anyone tell you that you have to.

The thing about correctional workers — and I don’t know why this is! — is that they’re nosey, and they’re gossips. They LIKE finding out why a guy’s in prison. I know some of this is simple human curiosity, but some of this is prying, plain and simple. There’d be more professionalism in corrections if we controlled this aspect of our curiosity.

But who knows — maybe for some, knowing the heinous stuff helps them to cope with prison. Gossiping about the heinous stuff smacks of moral superiority to me, and I know moral superiority when I see it, having spent the better part of the last decade trying to exorcise it out of my corrections persona (and I’ve made headway, believe it or don’t).

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I have a lending library janitor who has a nasty conviction of bullying and torturing a mentally ill patient. I made this discovery one day after an officer told me he’d just read the clerk’s criminal appeal in one of the case law reporters.

I made the mistake of reading the appeal. I could not see that man the same way. I actually looked for a way to fire him. My behavior toward him began to change and, of course, he noticed. Each time he’d tease a clerk or engage in regular prison banter, I’d make comments to him, whereas before I’d see the teasing and banter as normal prisoner behavior with coworkers.

Finally, through staff who should know, I learned three things about his post-arrest life in jail that helped me change my thinking: not toward his conviction, but toward the person he’s become:

One — He suffers from depression and has scars up and down both arms from suicide attempts (he always wears long sleeves). Over the years he has eaten himself alive with guilt for what he did.

Two — He feeds reliable information to our inner perimeter security people and, in particular, watches over the libraries.

Three — From talking with him, I learned that he nurtures a spiritual life, and since deciding to do so has made contact with his children and a beloved sister, all of whom dropped him like molten lava when his criminality ultimately resulted in incarceration.

So PERHAPS it wasn’t such a mistake to have read his appeal. I don’t know, except to say I learned more good about the man than if I hadn’t “pried.”

DAMNED IF YOU DON’T / FIRED IF YOU DO

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Regarding the American workplace, many people seem to exercise two separate levels of trust — one for friends & family (folks they care about) and one for their coworkers (folks they don’t care so much about). This dichotomy seems to exist for the purpose of keeping private lives separate from professional lives. Time and human nature have taught that blending the two causes many emotional quagmires that we can all do without — and these quagmires are easily enough avoided if we all just behave ‘professionally.’

Fair enough. Now — What happens when you care about your coworkers? Specifically — what  happens when your ‘coworkers’ are convicted felons, people you have a sworn duty to try and help?

We’ve all noticed that crime is an emotional topic. Prison is an emotional topic. Punishment is an emotional topic.

Getting out of jail is an emotional topic for inmate law library users. Trying to stop drinking and drugging is an emotional topic for lending library users reading self-help texts. The very fact of incarceration is emotional for the Keepers as well as for the Kept.

Where we come into the correctional picture — “we” meaning the librarians and educators  — then socialization itself becomes an emotional topic. Why should that be? Because we’re hired and paid and trained and vested to care. Our job then is, by this definition, an emotional one.

Some prison librarians say, “Trust the inmates to perform their job responsibilities….” Let’s look at that. How does one trust the inmate clerks? How far does one trust inmate clerks? Are inmate clerks worth trusting? Remember, these are people who, on the whole, you’re going to end up spending more time with on a given day then your fellow correctional coworkers. And these are the same people you’ve sworn to correct and socialize. A very bizarre emotional mix for the workplace, not a mix you commonly see. And yet you own it, here in your correctional library. Some of these people also participate in your socialization programs, and these classes as we’ve discussed are fraught with emotional resistance and revelation. Some of the inmates you hire have certain emotional problems that they’re taking positive steps to try to resolve (maybe they’re in group therapy, or trying out a new drug regimen). What happens when they have a bad day? Or a bad moment?

The same librarians then say, “Trust the COs to care for and correct the inmates….” We hope and pray that this can be done daily, consistently, and fairly. We’ve already discussed the important responsibilities of the CO who takes ‘care’ as seriously as he does ‘custody.’ But something always gets in the way of this duty, something called human nature. Officers have bad days. Inmates manipulate. And there are sadistic people, on both sides of the fence. Some officers are just incompetent. And sometimes these incompetents are assigned to your area. There’re few things worse than having to work with a bad officer. It’s embarrassing, humiliating, frustrating…all negative emotions. When inmates feel they’ve been wronged by such a person, they’ll search you out & ask you to lend a sympathetic ear. If you’re willing, there’s more emotion in your day.

The librarians also say, “Trust administration to put security above all other needs,” which is probably the least emotional of the three. Although I can tell you that ‘Security comes first’ doesn’t always happen; it doesn’t always happen consistently; and it doesn’t always happen to the same degree between one Administration and the next, between one shift and the next, between one officer and his replacement. Sometimes this inconsistency can cause its own level of frustration.

The job of providing library services to convicted felons is an emotional one. You take rational and reasonable steps to sustain your professional distance, and still emotion elbows its way in. And I say that it’s not necessarily bad. You need to care about your work. And, in the case of correctional librarianship, your ‘work’ is people — prisoners and their social reclamation.

If each day you went inside as cold as ice, or as an automaton, that would be cause for concern. That path leads to indifference; perhaps not necessarily, but you’re on the right road.

When I tell you it’s a balancing act, I tell you truly. You have to be artful, and vigilant. The sorry consequence of letting your guard down is a level of inappropriate familiarity and bonding that may become injurious to your career and may even compromise your safety.

THE MUNDANE MIRACLE OF KIND WORDS

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I don’t mean to sound trite or apologetic — which means I probably will — but facts are facts. Prisoners are told:

  • What to do
  • What they’ve done wrong
  • What punishments they must suffer as a result of their bad behavior
  • What problems they have  and how to address them

And they have friends who (in the American vernacular) ‘bust their balls’ or (in the British vernacular) ‘take the piss’ out of them. Only occasionally, as a prison employee, do you hear a thank-you, words of encouragement, or praise from one inmate directed at another.

In my workplace, I emphasize praise where it is due. On my better days, I emphasize praise where it is needed.

It was a lifer who taught me this about myself. About four years ago, my Inter-library Loan clerk came to my office with a comic he clipped from a newspaper. In the comic, the main character was saying ‘thank-you’ over and over to one of the other characters. I’m sitting there wondering, “Why is he showing me this?” I finally asked, and the clerk said, “I saw this and immediately thought of you. I said ‘What does Bill say all the time?’ ‘Thank you.'”

Well, that gave me pause. I never thought of myself as particularly grateful, and would never say that I showed my gratitude out of the ordinary way. And the more I thought about this, I realized that this self-examination was true. I never thought that I went out of my way to say ‘thank you.’ But I said it enough so that it made a good impression on this man.

And that was my lesson learned. The incarcerated women and men working for you are so starved for sincere words of courtesy and gratitude that the smallest amount makes a positive impression.

As correctional educators, we were always talking about making a positive difference in the lives of prisoners, and here in our daily power were words — simple words that uplifted and encouraged and were gratefully received each time they were spoken.

Some nights I used to leave the prison and self-indulgently worry if anything I did could ever help anyone there. With this new knowledge, all I could do was remember those times and feel ashamed. Common courtesy was all that was required, and I was too stupid to know it.

I looked up at this very tall man — with goddamn tears in my eyes! — and said “Thank you.” He laughed and said “Thank you.”

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SEQUEL

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Well, it’s here again, and I have to spend the majority of it up in the Segregation Unit library, moving about 2,000 law books off the shelves and back to our building to be picked up by State Surplus later on in the year. Wish me luck (did I really say that…?)

I have returned. I’m tired, my legs ache, I keep drinking glasses of water to hydrate me. This is the most exercise I’ve had in a year — understandable for a sedentary out-of-shape 48 year-old.

The moving of the segregation law collection couldn’t have gone any better than it did. All the books were moved, all the books were boxed, all the boxed books were moved to the 1st-floor balcony of the law library. And no one got hurt. The only thing we did was to break a wheel on a property cart. We reported it and then took it over to the Maintenance shop.

Between 8:30-4:30, I had the help of 15 hand-picked, muscle-bound strongmen. And people complain that inmates lift weights in jail! I’ll not hear a word against a prison weight room as long as I live.

The best part of the whole day was the communication. People in power actually worked together to see this thing done right. Unheard of! Incredible! Preposterous! If this sort of thing keeps up, the prison’s apt to give corrections a very bad name indeed. Never in my 23 years have I been part of such a well-organized, thoughtful plan of action. Moving 2,000 law books ain’t the easiest thing in the world to do. Compound that by the confinements, restraints and vagaries of a medium-security adult male prison, and you’ve got some real problems to overcome.

THE ESSENTIAL & NONESSENTIAL: A BALLET OF MUTUAL RESPECT

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Is it necessary for an officer assigned to the library to care about rehabilitation or the library’s socialization mission in order for the library to thrive?

I’ve actually never thought of it that way.

Can you do your librarianship without the officer’s blessing? Yes. Can you be a competent prison employee? No.

You cannot waste your time running around a prison shouting to all and sundry “The work I do is important and necessary!” That’s a waste of time & energy.

You also shouldn’t squander your opportunities to remind your colleagues of your correctional function in the prison. In this respect, you’re not trying to ‘convert the heathen’; instead, you’re trying to educate the ignorant.

I’ve always seen a sweeping generalization from an officer — “Convicts never change” — as an opportunity to describe just what it is that I’m doing in that classroom when he goes home for the night. Most will listen if I start out by saying “I’m not trying to change your mind, but respect my experience, too,” then I blather on. When I finally shut up, if they don’t despise me, they usually respect me a little more. It’s a risk well worth taking. How else can they learn?

Ten years ago, I taught a class at our Training Academy called “Prison Law Libraries: Why They Are.” When I told her the course title, a friend of mine — who used to be a correctional librarian — said: “Oh, I get it: “Get Off the Law Librarian’s Back.” Ten years later that still makes me laugh, because instantly she understood that I got fed up with having to explain my reason-for-being so often, I created a program and made them come to me!

It most certainly IS important to show officers the respect they most certainly deserve.

It’s my experience that bad officers are also bad people. I’ve never yet seen a bad human being make an honest, caring, respectful, competent correctional officer. But s/he is there, and has to be dealt with. If you cannot avoid these people, learn something about them to like or admire. The only way to do this is to talk with them. Don’t avoid them, or see them as your enemy. Or, if you must: “Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.” If they truly want nothing to do with you, at least you know you’ve tried. It’s important that you make the attempt.

It’s also my experience that good officers are good people. Even the good officers may not see eye-to-eye with us but, because they’re good people, they will show us the respect we deserve.

A library officer who also believes in human redemption is the best of both worlds. I say that type of attitude makes a true ‘correctional’ officer, and mirrors my definition of a ‘correctional’ librarian.

The overwhelming majority of correctional officers are good people. I love the officers I work with. I owe them my living, I owe them my life, and I owe them my allegiance.

CRIME? OR MISDEMEANOR? DEPENDS ON WHOM YOU ASK

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A fairly recent self-help title admonishes all to “don’t sweat the small stuff.” I’ve often imagined the author of this advice working in a correctional library. My edge-you-muh-cated guess is that after a few years dealing with the sociopathic personality, his book might’ve had a very different title and focus, more along the lines of, say, Hunter Thompson’s summation of Sonny Barger’s crew at the end of his Hell’s Angels: “Exterminate all the brutes!”

Rules abound in the correctional library. There are library (internal) rules, and prison (external) rules. Often the external rules of the prison compel the Librarian to make a new library rule–or at least modifications of an existing rule.

One of these prison rules is a concept called “accountability.” For obvious reasons, the administration must know at all times where each inmate is. To fulfill this mandate, it is incumbent on the inmate at all times be where he says he will be. When the inmate fails to reach his stated destination, he is said to be ‘out of place,’ and he is in a world of trouble.

A few months ago while working a late shift in the law library, I was at the photocopy counter reviewing inmate legal copy requests. It was a little after 6PM, which marks the 1st evening movement. A law library ‘regular,’ a Mr. Joseph Shmoe,  came in, wished me good evening, and took a copy request form from me. Since we average 15 requests per shift, I continued reviewing requests.

Several minutes later, I came to the place on the counter where Joe Shmoe left his legal copy request. Upon reviewing his request, I had some questions about a few papers. I called Mr. Shmoe to the counter. No response. I called again, a little more insistently. Still no response. I then asked the men in the room if anyone had been designated the drop-ff person for Mr. Shmoe’s copy work. It looked like 15 deer in the headlights.

Now, Mr. Shmoe has a problem. He’s no longer in the library, which is where he should be. The rule of the building is that if you come in at 6PM, you must stay until the next scheduled movement, unless you are called out on legitimate prison business. So Mr. Shmoe is now ‘out of place.” It falls to me to notify the officer’s station that this inmate is no longer accountable at the law library, his stated destination before leaving his housing unit.

But a funny thing happens on the way to the officer’s station — a Twilight Zone moment, if you’ll indulge me. Because between the copy counter and the officer’s station, I  step into a criminal justice alternate universe, where the known laws of corrections as I’ve come to know them no longer apply.

To wit: I reach the officer’s station, and there is a lieutenant whom I’ve known for years talking with a relatively new sergeant who’s still learning the ropes of the place. I tell my story. The Lieutenant listens. He then recommends that I call the inmate back up to the library and ask him about his disappearance. Now, it’s here that library responsibility and security concerns begin to clash, and I point this out by saying, “Since he left the building, doesn’t that fall to you?” When these words leave my lips, they are seized by some apparently bored-but-enthusiastic wind sprite, who gives each one a fierce twist, and coats them with holier-than-Thou attitude before hurling them into the ear canal of my colleague, who apparently receives the message, “Do I have to tell you how to do your job?”

We all can agree that there are much better ways to start your evening.

The officer balks. “I’ve got more important things to do than chase down an inmate for his copies. This is petty.”

The Librarian balks. “Since when is inmate accountability ‘petty’? He left the building, which he’s not permitted to do.”

“Who says that? Inmates can come up here and leave. They just have to do it before the end of movement.”

Now I am convinced that I am a marionette and Rod Serling’s hiding somewhere up in that drop-ceiling manipulating and giggling away. “Then there’s no consistency here. Because the other officers who run this place at night run it that way.”

“The guy is not out of place. Do what you gotta do. I’ve got other things to take care of.”

When I left the library three minutes ago, I was a confident Librarian, sure of myself and of my duty. I now turn and walk back to my post, dazed and confused…

…and this ain’t the first time. Consistency in applying the rules is a problem that corrections seems powerless to solve. I suppose all workplaces suffer from this to a greater or lesser extent.

At the second movement an hour-and-a-half later, Mr. Joseph Shmoe returns for his legal copies. I interview Mr. Shmoe, who tells me that he entrusted his copy work to a man we’ll call ‘Freddy.’ Well, “Freddy,’ he no speaks the English so good. Mystery solved.

You’re only as good as the information you have. In prison, that’s doubly important. And you don’t always have the information you need in prison.

¡Ay, caramba!

“What we’ve got here is failure to…um….”

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Didja ever notice, in this swinging Information Age of ours, that each time you’re compelled to communicate in a slightly different form than that to which you’ve grown accustomed (e.g., iPhones, PDAs, Facebook) you have to learn how to cry/crawl/toddle/walk/run all over again? Kinda defeats the need and desire for immediate, concise communication, don’tcha think? Me too.

Take this blog. Please.

Because if I have to learn one more line of ASCII characters, HTML code, or  cPanel jargon, I will never actually communicate — talk/ write/ gesture — again. All we do is read manuals, watch tutorial videos, and email the computer gurus in our lives whose sad lot it is to hoist us out of whatever learning-curve quagmire we’ve fallen into face-first after misunderstanding what we’ve read /watched/ been told.

[audio:failure-to-communicate-boss1.mp3]

Now I know why the Yellow Pages are crammed to overflowing with web site design businesses. It’s ’cause everyone wants a web site, but no one has the time to learn how to build one. These designers are the first to say, “All this code stuff is easy. Anyone can do it!” So you take their word and you look at the code and a half-hour later you’re still looking at the code and then you suddenly channel your kindergarten Reading class when first you cracked a Fun With Dick and Jane text and start weeping & shaking the same way you did all those happy, care-free years ago until your teacher got disgusted & sent your crying a$$ out in the hall.

Communication in corrections is a lot different. More stable. Traditional, if you will. The librarian’s communications arsenal consists of an impressive contemporary array of techno-wonders, including:

1     A corded land line

2     A battery-operated two-way radio secured to their person from a belt clip

3     A ‘panic button’ alarm, either mounted to the librarian’s desk or to the wall behind the office chair

4     A God-given ability to yell, scream, or holler

Recently, corrections has made communications advances that have launched all Departments into the latter half of the 20th century. These include:

1     An email system for staff to annoy each other with

2     Voicemail (in case email isn’t annoying enough); and

3     A severely-filtered internet portal, allowing librarians the whole of the commercial web at their fingertips, provided that the web they use is limited to certain government home pages, the Google search engine, and Wikipedia. This is because Security Comes First.

I’d tell you more about communications technology in the prison library, but I have to go watch a WordPress video on how to save this blog entry.

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