From watching all those prison films:
Remember, it’s probably just fiction. At least I hope it is. In Wolfe’s novel, one of the main characters spends a good stretch of time in a rather terrifying jail. The cells in the jail have concrete walls, but a wire ceiling, which means that inmates can toss stuff at each other (with a dubious amount of accuracy, one imagines). Anyway, inmates who annoy other inmates (usually by moaning and whining all night) risk taking a few blasts from the pizzooka. To make a pizzooka, an inmate will get a squeeze bottle of any type (condiment, liquid detergent, whatever) empty it and then fill it half with syrup from the kitchen, and half with their own urine. Then, when the moaner won’t shut up, he gets a few big shots of maple syrup urine screaming in through the overhead wire ceiling.
As I say, I’m hoping this is entirely fictional.
Is there any reason why prisoners are allowed to do body building? A law or something.
Because it’s creepy to think they are just prepping for the day they get out to go back to their gang all buff.
My husband works in a prison in the maintenance area, with direct supervision of inmates, and I have a friend who made a very bad mistake and is in prison as a result. So I think you guys for this thread. My husband shares stuff with me, and so does the friend, but it’s interesting to see things through a CO’s eyes.
One thing I can verify, there is OFTEN a lot of friction between security staff and adminsitrative/maintenance type staff at correctional facilities. (There are some security staff who think it’s funny to steal food items from the lockers in the maintenance area and then rag the maintenance people about the quality of said food. And no way at present to prove it’s happening.)
Yes, although wearing make-up is a violation of facility rules. But some prisoners do it anyway, using pens and kool-aid as substitutes for commercial cosmetics.
Not as common as they used to be before AIDS. But they still happen.
In NY they have zero access to the internet or email. It’s very prohibited. There was an incident about a year ago where we found a copy of what appeared to be a response to an email sent by a prisoner. We had a big investigation and found out that he was carrying on an online relationship with a woman via his brother. The brother would receive the emails from the woman, mail (or telephone) them in to the prisoner, the prisoner would send his responses back to the brother, and the brother would email them back to the woman.
If that’s what a pizzooka is, then it’s real. We don’t have wire ceilings but I’ve seen prisoners use squirt bottles to fire urine and feces at each other or at guards through their cell doors.
Not a law but prisoners love weight lifting equipment. In general, we like the idea of rec - it’s like recess in an elementary school; let the prisoners run around and tire themselves out and things are quieter the rest of the day. However a lot of arguments have been made that body building is a bad idea for the reasons you’ve mentioned. But in general nobody’s banned it.
Like I said before, some people are just assholes by nature. I’m surprised that maintenance people are having problems with security. In my experience, even the guards who generally dislike civilian employees usually get along okay with maintenance employees. I guess they’re perceived as “regular guys like us doing real work” rather than “those suits up front who are only here to do favors for the inmates”.
This is not meant to be snarky. Do you find that I high percentage of COs would prefer to be police officers? I know a number of COs (mostly through the National Guard) and most of them were trying for cop jobs at the same time. More openings in corrections. A lot of them are still trying to be cops and will jump ship if they get the chance. Here in New Jersey cops generally get paid a bit better but there is more overtime in corrections so it sort of evens out over time. But cops only have to deal with criminals in small doses, not every shift all shift.
They certainly are some (in a few cases desperately so). We’re the low status end of the law enforcement field - I think we rank around mall security in terms of public prestige.
As I said above, we have the advantage in that we can go to work, enforce the law, and then go home and leave it behind us. Police officers tend to always be partially on-duty and can end up feeling job-related stress twenty four hours a day.
So what do inmates do all day? Do they work? Does it depend on the facility?
At your facility, do they have the cells with bars or the little rooms with the door with a window in it?
How many inmates to a cell? Has that been an issue where you are?
Do you look at prisons in movies and evaluate what you see? I mean, do you watch Star Wars and think, “They’ve got the CO’s in identical uniforms that mask the face and then they’re surprised when two guys sneak in? Jeez. And everybody knows that Wookiees are Category IX Dangerous Creatures… they would have at LEAST three officers escorting the transfer at all times…” 
I don’t find this true at all. I have no trouble leaving work at work. There have only been a few isolated incidents that I have thought of later, such as particularly bad fatal accidents. I am definately off duty after work. I haven’t carried a weapon off duty for years. I purposely moved out to the country so that has a lot to do with it. Conventional thought is turning from intervening in something off duty to being the best witness you can be. I agree with this thought.
Great thread! I wonder:
Is there a chapel in your facility? What religious observances, if any, are offered? What accomodations have you seen made for inmates’ religious beliefs?
Do you routinely carry a sap or baton? How often do you have to use it, if so?
Can you tell us more about the inmate-on-inmate murder you saw or heard about?
Have you ever had to carry or use a firearm in the line of duty, such as during a riot? How often?
Do you think the U.S. needs more prisons, or are inmates held about as long as they need to be, in your opinion?
What percentage of your inmates do you think are actually rehabilitated by the end of their prison terms?
What contemporary politician makes the most sense to you on criminal-justice issues?
Are you aware of any lawyers having smuggled contraband in for clients?
Are there gangs in your facility? What kinds? What percentage of the inmate population are members?
Perhaps related: Is there much ethnic tension in your prison (white/black, black/Latino, etc.)?
What is your opinion of capital punishment?
Does any state have a reputation for particularly well-run, or particularly hellish, prisons?
What’s the nicest thing an inmate has ever done for you?
Have you kept in touch with any inmates after their release?
Thanks!
Thanks for the responses. Yours seems like a difficult job at best but one that must be done by someone. I’m glad to see that you approach it with an even hand and treat men with respect unless they dont want it.
What is the typical life expectancy for a prisoner serving a life term? Does prison life significantly shorten one’s life expectancy? What factors would you consider to shorten a prisoner’s life expectancy (stress, apathy towards one’s own well being, diet, etc.) What are the most common ailments and diseases amongst inmates? (Maybe QtM can chime in on this one). What do most prisoners die from while incarcerated? How old was the oldest prisoner you had known of?
How common is recidivism? Do inmates usually return to prison because they are not able to function in the outside world or that they cannot get honest employment due to their criminal history and thus resort to crime to get by in the world? How do you try to prevent recidivism?
Allowing prisoners to work out is useful, it seriously keeps a lid on things, take away this facility and most UK prisons would be rioting, I suspect the same is true in US prisons, it certainly helps keep them more manageable.
It may come as a big surprise, but in terms of drug use in prison, one of the most common is that of steroids.
Life expectancy of prisoners tends to be lower than that of the rest of the population, however not all this can be laid at prisons themselves.
Prisoners are very often risk takers whose lifestyle choices put them in harms way, both from violence and accidents -drunk driving for example - and drug taking which introduces diseases such as AIDS HepC, and overdose.
Add that to frequent inadequate and poor diets and you soon have a population with a shortened lifespan.
In addition, it is also recognised in employment actuarial charts that the lifespans of prison workers especially Prison Officers is lower than national averages, and prisoners themselves are considered to be elderly at 50, but prison medical practitioners are allocated higher funding for medical treatment in UK prisons at age 45, where the same point is reached in the rest of the nation at around 60.
One thing that is a large differance, perhaps, is that everything I have seen relating to US prisons, apart from the Supermaxes, is that prisoners are housed in cages instead of walled cells.
In the UK there are no such accommodation units, and the vast majority of prisoners are kept in individual walled and roofed cells., there is a small number kept in double cells and a tiny number in 4 person dorms which are being replaced.
Individual cells have some big advantages when it comes to keeping and controlling prisoners, the idea of dropping urine from an upper level into a cell on a lower level just cannot happen in the UK.
Fire is far more easily controlled, prisoners cannot pass items to each other when locked up, and it is felt that individual cells give more of a sense of personal identity and may reduce the effects of institutionlisation.
That privacy can also work in favour when it comes to staff addressing an individual either in ad hoc counselling or many other security issues.
Cages do allow for easier supervision of large numbers, you can see everything going on including suicide attempts, and I guess it means you can have fewer staff.
I’d be interested on your views on UK types cells compared to US ones.
Pretty much every inmate has a program which is either working or taking classes. We have a program committee which assigns prisoners to a program. They can request a specific program but some of the more popular ones (vocational programs like carpentry or engine repair are always popular choices) are always filled. Prisoners are required to take classes if they don’t have a high school diploma or GED. We have various jobs throughout the prison. The most common is being a porter which is janitorial work.
A program in theory last for three hours (although most actually take less time) and a prisoner has two programs a day. There’s also meals and sleep time. If a prisoner has nothing else to do he can often go to a rec area. We have rec rooms which have TV’s, card tables, and some cooking facilities. We also have TV’s, outdoor yards which have basketball and handball courts, weight lifting equipment, and a baseball field. And we have a gym which has most of the same equipment as a yard but has the advantage of not being open to outdoor weather. The rec areas are open for certain hours of the day.
We also take counts six times a day. During a count, there’s no prisoner movement between areas in the prison.
Neither. Being a medium we have mostly dorms, which are big open rooms divided up by four foot walls. Each prisoner has his own cubicle with a bed, small locker, some shelves, and a chair. We also have some rooms, most of which are shared by more than one prisoner. We have a few small single man rooms which are the most popular. And we do have some units with cells for disciplinary problems.
It used to be “one man one cell” for the most part. But about ten years ago, New York decided to start putting two prisoners in most cells. It’s more of a problem than one man cells but by now most prisoners have gotten used to it.
I remember watching an episode of Star Trek: Next Generation once where they had a Borg prisoner in their brig (their cells had force fields instead of bars). Everytime they had to feed the prisoner, one guard would point his phaser at the prisoner while they shut down the force field and another guard put his food in the cell. I was thinking that was a stupid plan - they should have made a double force field and when it was meal time they’d turn off the outer force field, put the food down, then step back out and turn the outer field on and turn off the inner force field so the prisoner can get his meal. Then reverse the process at the end of the meal. No need to point a phaser at anyone this way.
Okay. I’ve never been a police officer so any opinions I have on the subject are those of an outsider.
We have several chapels and chaplins. New York recognizes a number of religions - Buddhism, Catholicism, Gai’wiio, Hindu, Islam, Judaism, Nation of Gods and Earths, Nation of Islam, Protestantism, Rastafarianism, Santeria, Wicca - maybe a few others, I don’t have a list in front of me. Prisoners are allowed to have services and practice their religions within some restrictions. For example, we have a Sikh - he’s allowed to grow his beard and wear his turban and ritual bracelet but we don’t allow him to wear his ritual sword.
We don’t use saps. We do have batons. I personally don’t carry one nor do most of the officers where I work. They are often worn in maximum security prisons. Their actual use is fairly rare. Any use of force, even without a weapon, must be reported and documented. If I grab a prisoner’s arm and put handcuffs on him, I then have to spend a hour or more filling out reports.
Without getting into names and dates, it happened in a maximum security prison I used to work in. A group of prisoners were assigned to clean up a kitchen and didn’t like the officer who supervised the group. So one prisoner tried to start a petition to have him reassigned and was asking all of the other prisoners in the group to sign it. One guy refused and said he had no problems with the officer. So the first guy slapped him and called him a pussy. A couple of hours later we were letting the company out to go to the yard and the second guy had a knife and sliced open the first guy’s stomach.
I personally handle a gun once a year during my annual requalification. Other than that, the only people who carry firearms are our tower officers, our perimeter officers (they drive SUV’s around the outside of our fence), and officers taking a prisoner outside of the prison to go to a hospital, a court appearance, or another prison. If we’re going into a riot (which is unlikely in my current facility) we use armor, helmets, shields, batons, and tear gas but no firearms. We never take firearms into the prison.
We don’t decide how many people are going to prison. The legislatures and the courts do that. So I figure they should build enough prisons to hold the amount of prisoners they want to send to us.
Beats me. We try to rehabilitate them but we can’t tell if it’s working until they get back on the street and then we don’t see them unless they screw up and come back to prison.
Criminal justice issues are really a state issue. I like Spitzer and I also liked Pataki. Both seem to have mostly good ideas on this topic.
Not specifically but it’s hard to tell. We very restricted on our ability to examine any legal material being brought in or mailed in from an attorney. So lots of stuff might be coming in we don’t know about.
I do recall one situation where a prisoner’s wife was working in a lawyer’s office and was using the lawyer’s mail to send her husband personal letters, which we were prohibited from examining because it was theoretically legal mail.
Yes. Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings, Neta, MS13. Most of our gang activity has been fairly low key.
We do have occasional racial incidents but it can be hard to define sometimes. If two guys get into a fight over what TV channel to watch, we have to figure out if it was just a fight over TV or if the fact that one guy was white and one guy was black was a factor.
I’m surprisingly ambivalent. I’ve seen a few people in maximum security prisons that I would have no hesitation in saying should be executed. But I’ve also read to many accounts of situations where capital cases were totally mishandled. It’s really a moot issue in New York where we haven’t had an execution in my lifetime.
Actually New York is considered one of the better run systems.
I’ve found it’s better to maintain some distance. If an inmate offers to do me a favor I thank him and decline.
The same as above. I’ll wish an inmate good luck when he’s getting out but I don’t want to create an opening for him to feel he can call me up looking for favors.
I could tell you the statistics but it’s certainly true that prisoners have a shorter life expentency than non-prisoners. And they get old quicker. I’ve seen prisoners in their fifties who look like they’re eighty. But as casdave said, I think the big factor is their street life not their prison conditions. A lot of these guys would probably be dead already if they hadn’t been arrested and sent to prison. At least with us they’re getting fed and sheltered and receiving regular medical care as well as being kept away from drugs and alcohol as much as we can. As far as serious diseases, diabetes has to be up there - as a rough guess I’d say the diabetes rate is probably ten times higher among prisoners than among a group of non-prisoners of the same ages. That said, we do have some prisoners who beat the odds and live very long lives. I’ve seen prisoners who are in their fourth or fifth decade of confinement and some who are past seventy or eighty years in age.
As I’ve said before we don’t generally track a prisoner’s criminal history including his past convictions. I see a lot of prisoners who have served several sentences but you’d be better off getting the statistics somewhere else - anything I’d have would be anecdotal. When they’re in prison, we try to rehabilitate them, help them deal with any drug or alcohol problems they have, work on their education, and treat any medical or mental health problems. But the reality is people don’t just happen to show up in prison one day. Most of them had pretty much screwed up their life before we saw them for the first time and there are limits to how much we can straighten them out. I’ve always said that you can’t rehabilitate anyone else - you just offer them opportunities to rehabilitate themselves. And some of them can’t or won’t.
From my point of view, the ideal would be every prisoner having his own room. We could keep everyone seperate and that would avoid a lot of personal problems. And any problems that did arise could be dealt with individually. But for cost reasons, that’s never going to happen.
You mentioned diabetes. Has anyone asked about obesity? I assume a certain percent of prisoners enter obese. Are they put on any sort of weight loss program? If not, do they lose weight anyway, or is it possible to remain obese on prison food? Can people eat as much as they want during meal times or are there limits?
Some prisoners are overweight. It’s not generally an issue unless it’s immediately life-threatening. I do recall one prioner who was massive - as in weighing over six hundred pounds - who was put on a special diet. It sort of worked - he lost about a hundred pounds but he was still huge.
It is possible to gain weight on prison food. We serve a lot of starches and sweets (which certainly isn’t doing the diabetics any good). The food is not unlimited however. Prisoners can go through the line once, there are maximum serving sizes, and no going back for second helpings. But prisoners can also buy their own food in the commissary or get it sent in by mail.
Fascinating stuff. Thank you for your thoughtful replies. To follow up:
Just FYI, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled a few years ago that Sikh prisoners in our prisons must be permitted to keep their ritual (small) swords in their sashes, as their religious beliefs demand. The court noted that the swords are typically blunt-edged. I presume if a Sikh prisoner used one as a weapon, he’d lose that right.
What happened to the inmate who killed the other inmate who’d slapped him?
How many prisoners have you seen return to a prison in which you’ve worked? In other words, what personal observations do you have about recidivism?
What percentage of the inmates in your facility are members of gangs, would you estimate?
Does your superintendant have a policy as to dealing with/negotiating with gangs, as such, or is that not an issue?
What do you hear on the grapevine (or in training) about other states’ prison systems, pro or con?
What range of punishments are routinely imposed against misbehaving inmates? Solitary, bread and water, no TV, etc.?
Have you ever seen an former inmate on the outside, like at the store?
I used to date a prison guard, and he said he could always tell who has been to prison. He said there’s a certain look. Can you tell?
Do you tend to want to control your household, friends, and/or family in the same manner as you maintain control at work, or are you different at home?
Do your prisoners have certain phrases that you never hear on the outside, such as “hey now”?
Is it true that there’s a pecking order based on what crime you’ve committed? How much does this affect behavior? If you’ve committed an unpopular kind of crime like rape or child molestation, are you pretty much guaranteed to be a pariah, or can you still earn some respect from the other prisoners? How hard is it to keep the nature of your crime from the other prisoners or the guards?