Sunday August 4, 2024 – Correctional Officers “COs”
Yesterday, the correctional officer “CO” on duty decided to do a “shake down” of every cell and collect any extra shirts, boxers, pants, towels, etc inmates had in there cells. I touched on previously that if this place would just give us clean clothes, linens, and towels routinely, as they are supposed, to this place wouldn’t be so bad for a transit facility. The CO took extra clothing I had accumulated over my 27 days here so I am able to shower routinely. Apparently, the CO couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that I have been issued two replacement pairs of pants in 27 days here, no replacement towel, no replacement linens, and have to wash my clothing routinely in the shower. She was insistent everyone could have only one pair of clothing even though we are lucky if they pass out clean shirts and boxers once a week (they have been out of pants every week except the first day I came in). Despite numerous inmates trying to explain we have to have a second set so we can shower, thus washing the first set in the shower, she could not wrap her head around this.
Situations, similar to the one described above, happen routinely in prison and I would be lying if I told you it did not really frustrate and anger me. Most of the time, I don’t let it get to me. I have to remind myself routinely that my goal is to survive each day here, one day at a time. In doing so, I try to maintain as much self-respect and dignity as possible but often the COs try to rip that away from you. It is when the COs try to infringe purposely on your self-respect and dignity that I do let it get to me. The “micro-aggressions” you encounter in prison are frequent, and I have become adept at blocking them out. However, I am human, and I must admit it is tough to block out CO behavior which goes out of its way to treat inmates like scum and nobodies. Most COs are former cops or former military who weren’t successful enough in these endeavors to warrant advancement within those groups. That, or they are individuals who were frequently picked on and bullied in their childhood who now view this as their opportunity to “get theirs” and now are able to exercise some type of dominance, superiority, and power over other human-beings. Don’t get me wrong there are some good COs but they are few and far between. The one that are bad, we just have to bite our tongues, and take it in stride, because they are superior to us and complaining or pushing paperwork/complaints upward will just invite more attention to us individually which leads to direct retaliation. It is no surprise that the Federal Bureau of Prisons does not allow cameras in their facilities. If the general public or our elected representatives so what happened in these prisons and the way inmates are treated they would be shut down or at minimum our prison population would be drastically reduced.
As inmates the cardinal rule is to avoid interaction with COs if at all possible, and as much as possible. A lot of inmates, if they absolutely must talk to a CO, bring another inmate with them as a witness. This happens for two reasons. 1) It prevents other inmates from thinking you are snitching if you have another inmate with you during the interaction, and 2) it acts as a deterrent to the CO from acting out and/or being a complete ass to the inmate because there is a witness. Being a white-collar offender, like myself, is even more challenging because I am educated. I have a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Accounting from the University of Texas and was a licensed Certified Public Accountant in the State of Texas. This is two more degrees and one State license more than most of these COs have and believe me they know it. They know everything about their inmates as it is readily available to them on the computer. I frequently, take a deep breath and try to take a step back, in order to remind myself of the big picture and my goal, which is to get out of prison as quickly, and as fast as possible.
Now I am off to find some clean clothes.