Category Archives: Inmate Library Clerks

JUST GOOD, DUMB FUN: Or “The way to a sociopath’s heart is through his stomach”

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When it comes to jailhouse humor, you either get it, or you don’t.

I get it. The fact that I get it makes me a warped individual. But please consider the truth of this next statement of self-evaluation — I was warped before I ever set foot in any prison. I truly believe that there’s a certain personality type that is drawn to corrections. It’s folks like me. I yam what I yam an’ that’s all that I yam.

Today, two amusing things were said that were too funny to forget, so — as is my regular habit — I took time to write them down.

The first happened at the circulation counter in the lending library. We’ve been doing our annual inventory here all this past week, and one of my circulation clerks was assigned to the computer to check circulation records when a shelf list card is found but not the corresponding book.

My cataloger — one of the Library’s more enthusiastic ball-busters — comes over to me holding a Complete Idiot’s Guide text in his hand. Gesturing to it, he says: “Maybe you can ask them to write one on prison libraries so you can find out what you’re supposed to be doin’.'” Then he quickly backs away, tittering like a school-girl.

I appealed to my inmate clerk manning the circulation computer. When I think of this man, the phrase ‘tiny mountain’ comes quickest to mind. At 6’1″ and nearly 300 power-lifting pounds, he sports a ‘Mr. Clean’ bald head that looks like it’s been staved directly into the center of his massive torso because he has no neck. This clerk also suffers from PSTD as a result of extensive combat experience. He has been trained to kill, knows many ways to kill, has seen many people killed, and has killed many times. And we in the library all know this.

I say: “Do you like me?”

In response, the clerk purses his lips to me suggestively, and wiggles his eyebrows in a most inappropriate manner (well, he’s been in a long time).

I say “Good.” Gesturing toward Mr. Ball-Buster, I say “You think he needs to be slapped?”

The circulation looks at his fellow clerk, then at me, returns his attention to his computer monitor and, as he resumes typing, says: “A pound of linguiça and I’ll do him any way you want.”

If the response you just finished reading struck you half as funny as it did me, then right now you are piddling in your pantaloons. Because I swear on a stack of flapjacks that I laughed for a full 30 seconds. The reason? You’re not supposed to encourage violence in the prison. Prisoners aren’t supposed to solicit goods for services rendered. And — usually — prisoners aren’t as up-front about their feelings toward each other. All these taboos taken together makes the clerk’s response not just funny but hilarious.

*

A little while later, I’m standing in our book-binding work area. There are four inmate clerks with me, including the book binder. One of my clerks — a heart disease patient for decades and who’s suffered several heart attacks in the last three years — is telling me about his recent chest pain, which compelled the prison to send him to an outside hospital. He says:

“They tested me, they found nothing wrong, and said ‘Don’t worry about it.'”

Another clerk (a friend of his for the past 40 years) says with concern in his voice, “Well, then, you must have angina.”

The heart patient replies “No. I’ve never had angina.”

At this, another clerk — in his Puerto Ricaῆo accent — quietly says to the book binder, with a wink: “He says he never had vagina?”

*

Jailhouse humor. You either get it, or you don’t.

“To tell you the truth, I never looked!” Or: THE ENTERTAINMENT VALUE OF IGNORANCE

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Interlibrary loan clerk ‘Narc’ Moocher is a head case, not least of which because the eyes in his head are barely usable, requiring his constant use of thick-lensed glasses which are rumored to have been manufactured in the same optical plant as Mr. Hubble’s orbiting telescope.

Narc’s mind – if one may take that liberty – engages the world in a decidedly literal light. His operating credo for the whole of Creation and its creatures is this single, irreducible principle: ‘A thing must be black, or it must be white.’

Paradoxically, he is a man of keen thought and insight, often catching nuances in people and situations which elude mere mortals. This is why it’s curious to the point of irritation that frequently he’s capable of missing The Painfully and Mind-Bogglingly Obvious.

Narc has worked in the Norfolk library for eight years (in prison terms read: “Since the dawn of recorded history”). Eight years is a generous enough stretch to learn about certain library truisms, such as:

  • • Shelf list cards stick together during Inventory
  • • Patrons rarely know what they need
  • • When looking up the title of any library material, always truncate the lead preposition (e.g., A, An, and The)

The observable Universe has conspired against Narc in this regard, for certain of these facts have managed to escape his powers of apprehension, retention, or both. To wit: on this cold, sunny day, we are in my Lending Library office discussing The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. We get stumped trying to name all the lead male actors. Narc, sitting at his work desk, reaches for an out-dated copy of the Videohound Golden Movie Retriever and says, “I’ll find it.”

We continue talking. Minutes pass. Narc’s still looking. Narc appears to be floundering in this book, whose entries are arranged alphabetically. I also notice that, rather than searching toward the front of the book, he’s somewhere toward the back. I sidle over to him: “What’s wrong?”

“It’s not in here.”
“Of course it’s in there. It’s a world-famous movie.”
“I’m tellin’ ya, it’s not where it’s supposed to be.”
I look over his shoulder at the page he’s on. I see the entry Thelma and Louise. “Narc, you’re in the T’s.”
“I know.”
“You should be in the G’s.” Some clerks stop talking and turn toward us.
“No. I’m lookin’ for the title.”

The horror of what’s happening strikes me.

“The title begins with ‘G’,” I say softly.
“No, it doesn’t. It starts with ‘T’.” Utter silence in the room.
“You’re looking under ‘The’?”
“Right.”

The other clerks hear this. The other clerks laugh. The other clerks laugh a boisterous, derisive laughter of which we’re assured Hell is filled. Some clerks laugh until tears stream down their pained, weathered faces. I’m laughing, too.

Even Narc smiles. “Yeah, keep laughin’, you fuckin jerks.” More laughter. “It’s the first word of the title! Go blow yourselves!” This sets us off again.

Steven, my typewriter clerk–-This years’ hands-down winner of the library’s “Little Sammy Sunshine” award-–points an accusatory finger at me and shouts, “This is your fault, ‘cause you hired him!” Jailhouse logic is, at once, bemusing and tiresome.

While this gale of unholy merriment at another’s expense continues, I explain to Narc how many book, play, and movie titles begin with A, An, and The, and the necessity for truncation. Narc says he never knew this, and I feel bad that it never occurred to me that he needed to be told. My first impression (How stupid can he be?) has now tempered to compassion (Not everyone knows the same things), and I realize that I’m just as much an intellectual snob as these other chuckle-heads in the room. It’s a self-revelatory moment that I’d do well to heed.

Of course, someone mentions ‘The’ at least once a week; sometimes, twice a day. It’s not fair. In addition, it’s juvenile, immature, and mean. And that’s why it’s funny.

And these days, Narc joins in the laughter. Narc’s sense of humor pivots on the self-deprecatory, smacking himself down before the world can land one, a kind of emotional self-preservation that has stood him in good stead for many many incarcerated moons.

But we’ll still bust his balls about this. Probably forever. I think of it as “THE CASE OF THE PERILOUS PREPOSITION.”

File under: ‘The.’

“It’s all about me!” INMATE CLERKS AND THE BETRAYAL OF TRUST

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I sometimes forget I’m in jail.

In the free world, we naturally and necessarily place trust in the people we work with. We study the character of each, and we trust one more over the other, as Time and discernment help to reveal the true selves of these relative strangers.

Corrections tells you to be wary of inmates. You sometimes hear that you can’t trust any of them. You sometimes hear that you can’t let your guard down. You sometimes hear that inmates are like children, and will get away with anything they can get away with.

And then corrections tells you: “Here’re the prison’s libraries, here’re the services we want you to provide, and here’re the inmates who are going to help you.”

“But you just told me I can’t trust them….”

“Well — let’s say that you shouldn’t. This is jail, not Yale.”

“But I’m the only professional you have supervising them — I can’t be everywhere at once. i HAVE to trust them.”

“Just do the best you can.”

What follows is an account of what can happen while you’re busy doing the best you can.

I rely on 19 paid library clerks to help run library services in a population law library, a population lending library, a segregation unit law library, and services to the Hospital Services Unit as well. I also have classroom assistants for a law clerk training program, a book discussion group, and a literature-based consequential thinking seminar. That’s a lot of responsibility, and a lot of clerks to supervise. As you can imagine, I can’t be everywhere at once. Because of that, I have to place an extraordinary level of trust in the library clerks who work for me. At times, that extraordinary level of trust is betrayed. That happened recently, when I had to fire a clerk for using his clerk computer to write his legal work.

Well, he shouldn’t do that, you see. This is because the computer he’s been entrusted with is for library work only. Well, you gotta have SOME limits, and that statement certainly rings true in a prison. The morality of some men become warped and perverted to the point where they actually believe that if there is no written rule prohibiting a specific act, then they are free to do it! Strange and dangerous thinking for an adult to travel through life with. Why, that kind of thinking could land you in prison!

So one recent afternoon, I entered one of the offices just off the lending library floor and caught site of my computer programmer (he builds databases in Access) with paperwork spread out over his desk, and he’s typing on his computer. I say: “What are you doing, George?”

George looks up from the screen and says, “My legal work?”

Now understand — this is happening in the same month precisely one calendar year ago when all 19 of my clerks were fired after it was discovered that some of them were — among other things — using their clerk computers to make greeting cards and writing college papers. This fellow George here was in that number. He didn’t have his job returned to him until four months later. But now, one year later, he’s at it again.

I said to George, “For God’s sake, George, been there, done that, remember? You’re not allowed to do personal work on these machines. Stop what you’re doing.” Then I walked back to my law library office.

Notice I didn’t stand there until I made sure that he made a move. That’s because, even given the circumstances, I put trust in him that he’d do what I directed him to do. This is because of the character I know him to have. Yes, he’s just been pinched for breaking the rules. But he’s worked in the library for seven years, and in that time he’s succeeded in heeding the rules. That’s the character I’m drawing from.

I have a friend who is a recreation officer assigned to provide security in the library of the Walpole State Prison. He once admonished me thus: “Billy, you and a con can be golden for five years. But the first time you have to tell him ‘No,’ he’s a different person.”

Well, that wasn’t exactly the situation here, but it bears repeating. The situation here was born of selfishness. This clerk decided that his desire to use a word processor on his work computer to complete his legal writing outweighed his chances of getting caught, losing his job, and damaging his credibility with me. All this I found out only because I brought him into my office later that evening and asked him just what the hell he meant by throwing a good job away?

When this kind of thing happens, it’s hard not to take it as a personal betrayal. In his case, I had him working for me for seven (7) years. Seven years is a long time to hold a job in jail. What it tells the Administration is that you’re very well satisfied with the job performance of this individual. And this certainly was true. The man did much good for his library in that time, so much that, hours after this first happened, I had to sit still and imagine library services without him. I actually considered turning a blind eye so I could keep him. Because of his past work, peaceful demeanor, good sense of humor, and ability to forgive my many faults, this was one of the toughest decisions I’ve made in recent years.

But good sense outweighed sentimentality. If last year hadn’t happened, MAYBE the blind eye could’ve been justified. But not this time. He was suspended. I wrote an Incident report. The Administration read it & asked me to write a Disciplinary report, which I did. The man had his hearing, during which he pled guilty. And one of his sanctions is that he lost his library clerk job.

Trust had been betrayed. I made that clear to him in our talk. He actually felt shamed by what he’d done.  But his earlier choice was to take the chance that I wouldn’t catch him, and would never know that trust had been betrayed.

They say, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”

When it comes to trust — do those words ring true?

GRIST FOR THE BLOGGING MILL: Or, “Hold your tongue with both hands”

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Narc, our intrepid interlibrary loan clerk, found himself in a discussion with a patron over which date to place on the date due card. The patron said it should be the date that the book is due. Narc said it should be today’s date. This I couldn’t believe.

I asked him:

“How many years have you worked for the library? Ten? Twelve?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Narc, what is this card called?” The card is clearly marked DATE DUE.

“The sign-out card.”

“Close enough. How long can patrons have a book for?”

“Two weeks.”

“Correct. You mark down the date that the book is due, which is two weeks from today.”

“No. You mark down the date the guy took it out.”

“Narc, listen. Your patron is right.  The card isn’t called THE DATE THE GUY TOOK IT OUT card. It’s called a DATE DUE card. You write the date the book is due, so you know when it’s supposed to come back. Why do you think you need to record the date the book was signed out?”

“You said to.”

“I never told you that!”

“Yes, you did.”

“Didn’t!”

“Did!”

“You’re hallucinating actively. Please take your meds. Lose this cockamamie notion and record the due date on these cards from now on.”

hold-your-tongue

The other clerks are laughing. Mark says: “Yeah, keep laughin’, assholes. You’ll be next in that goddamn blog of his.” They know I write a blog, because I’ve told them.

Names have been changed, to protect the adjudicated. Although why we SHOULD protect them is way beyond me. But I’ll hold my tongue.

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.

“Stop it, you’re killing me!” THE IMPORTANCE OF JAILHOUSE HUMOR

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One truism about humor in the jailhouse workplace: it’s not so much the funny situations as it is the funny comments; imagine a room of stand-up gunslingers trying to outdraw their opponents–forgive the trite analogy, but it’s that kind of thing.

It’s boring, being in prison. Things don’t change. The routine is horrifyingly routine. One of the few things that can change is how the sameness is perceived. That’s where prisoner’s humor is important. The incarcerated seek to combat the Mundane through their funny observations of the day and of the people in it. It’s a way of marking one day from the next, and it’s a way of getting through one day to the next.

One changing Constant that prisoners can rely upon to make the day bearable is the mistakes that people make. And when you make one–boy, do you hear about it. Mistakes are entertainment; they also give prisoners something new to think and talk about. Because the prison’s regimen requires them to behave perfectly, they take delight in pointing out the human frailties of others, especially those of their keepers, the very ones imposing the high standards of prisoner conduct.

Last year, I brought in eight boxes of books from a book buy that took me three separate trips to finalize at a local store called the Shire Bookshop. I had $2,500 to spend, which goes a very long way at this wonderful store.

__Shire

So, two of my clerks are receiving books and checking off titles from the packing list I generated on my laptop while working at the store. When they’re through, they report that 80 titles are missing. I check the titles against the packing list; sure enough, they ain’t lyin’. Now I know that I packed these books and put them aside, yet they’re not here. I only recall packing eight boxes of books, and eight boxes of books is what we’ve received. Now the clerks start ragging me:

“Someone managed to lose 80 books all by himself!”

“Would he lose his head if it wasn’t attached?”

“I may be a scumbag convict, but at least I can f**king COUNT…” And on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

I called the store. I tell my tale. They say “Hold, please.” They take a look. They find an additional four (4) boxes of books that I’d packed and set aside on some wooden pallets at the back of the store. In my defense, these boxes had been covered with a plastic tarpaulin and therefore were hidden from view.

I won’t live this down. Ever. Each time that I announce a future book buy, it’ll be:

“Do you remember how to get there?”

“After you box the books, remember you have to pay for them.”

“Maybe we should pin the prison address to his coat so he can find his way back?”

“Take me with you–I’ll make sure those books get here!” Helpful stuff like that.

schadenfreude1

In the free world, humor is seen as a delightful diversion; in jail, it’s a vital coping mechanism. By encouraging healthful, nondestructive humor, the Librarian can help the incarcerated in their unstructured socialization efforts. It’s certainly socially acceptable to share a laugh, particularly when the level of intimacy is high and the comments take on the form of good-natured teasing.

Some correctional employees object to allowing themselves to be the butt of inmate jokes; they believe it’s beneath their dignity as a member of staff to permit their inmate workers to make sport of them. Well, I don’t agree. Even if I did, it would matter not one jot, because I make lots of mistakes. Noticeable ones. Public ones. To pretend that I didn’t and then attempt to carry on a facade of false dignity and stature would be funnier and more entertaining than the brief comments made at my expense. I think, if you’re lucky, prison teaches you that most things aren’t as serious as they appear. Someone (probably a Greek Stoic) said, “Laugh at yourself: you’ll have a constant source of amusement.” That’s I’m talkin’ ’bout: humility — and mental health — through humor.

Studies the world over are discovering the physiological as well as emotional benefits to good, solid belly laughter. Take advantage of each chance you have of sharing humor with your inmate staff, the library users, your boss, and fellow employees. Why? It’s for your own good, as well as theirs.

A CATCH-22 IN THE HOOSEGOW

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Then there’s the apocryphal statement, invented in the 1960’s by war correspondent Peter Arnett, of a fictional US soldier explaining to his commander about the flattening of Vietnam’s Ben Tre : “Sir, it became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”  Arnett must have read Joe Heller’s Catch-22 one too many times. Although this statement was a product of Arnett’s shell-shocked imagination, absurdist language like this allowed folks like comedian George Carlin to carve out a top-grossing social satirist career for over five decades.

Approximately 35 years after the fall of Saigon, something akin to Arnett’s dubious attribution happened in my library. Prison security discovered that certain of my lending library clerks had been writing personal letters and completing homework assignments using word processors on their work computers. They’re not authorized to do this, and an investigation ensued.

While the investigation was in progress, a decision had to be made: how do we suspend these workers and get new clerks for the librarian to train? It was decided that the clerks would be fired pending investigation, and new temporary clerks would then be hired. The caveat would be that, if any of the original clerks were vindicated, they’d be returned to their former positions and the temps would have to hit the bricks.

Putting a new spin on his old fabrication, Arnett could write of this situation: “Sir, we had to fire everyone to keep them on the payroll.”

Administratively, it was the sensible solution, because:

* The original clerks were suspended pending investigation

* The library can’t provide services without clerks

* Temporary clerks won’t work without pay

When you run a one-person library, you’re only as good as the people you have. Between the lending library, law library, and segregation library, I have 24 clerk positions to fill:

Legal research – 5  *  Janitors – 2

Regulations/legal forms – 1   *  Accounts/Receiving – 1

Book binder – 1   *  Typewriter loaner program – 1

Interlibrary loan – 1   *  Cataloger/ classifier – 1

Circulation – 3   *  Spanish-language – 2

Legal copiers – 3   *  Segregation janitor/shelving – 1

Classroom assistants – 3

What are the real-world job pool logistics of a medium-security adult male prison? Most inmates have never:

*  Owned a library card

*   Walked inside a library

*   Checked out a book

*   Developed a ‘read-for-pleasure’ habit

*  Finished high school

*   Used computers

*   Served the public

So what kind of library staff can you realistically expect to end up with? I will now pass on a prison employee secret of how to find good correctional library clerks who care about doing a competent job — Hire lifers. Lifers make the best library clerks, because lifers make the best prison clerks, period. Their maturity level is higher, in general they’re more intelligent, sensible, and creative, and they’ve had more time to make peace with the prison routine. They’re invested in their work, and self-motivated. Personally, I’d put these men up against any library staff anywhere in the world.

Another aspect of inmate library clerk hiring that cannot be ignored is staff chemistry. Everyone has to get along with each other. It doesn’t have to be overt displays of brotherly love, but cooperation, reliability, and a good healthy dose of self-effacement goes a long way.

Here’re some things to find out about a potential hire:

1    Does the inmate get along with the librarian?

2   How long has the librarian known the inmate?

3   How well does the inmate know the other library clerks?

4   Will there be any racial tension?

5   What kind of prison work history does the inmate have?

6   What is the inmate’s disciplinary history like?

7   Will the inmate’s criminal history be a problem?

8   Does the inmate have a sense of humor?

9   Is the inmate a thief?

When it comes to correctional libraries, staff chemistry might be more important in jail then in the free world. Prisoners have a social pecking order based on a person’s conviction. Depending on what the guy’s doing time for, he can be ostracized or even hurt. Race can be a polarizing issue. Whether the inmate is seen as a standup con or an informer is important. If you know that the inmate hates corrections staff or talks bad about the department, you probably don’t want him around. And if the guy doesn’t play well with others, let him be somebody else’s headache.

So the only way to temporarily replace lifers was to — hire more lifers. Which is what I did. A bunch of inexperienced men who never worked in a prison library before. And then I truly had a problem, because two of them eventually worked out so well, I dreaded the thought of losing them!

Ah, well. Feast or felons. I mean famine.