Published: April 23, 2008 09:00 am         

LION AND THE LAMB: Prison is not the answer

I don’t know what hits you first – the smell, the noise, or the enormous size of the place. The smell is a mixture of disinfectant and human waste. The noise is the slamming of doors and numerous people shouting, talking, and generally making noise of any kind. The size of the place is about an eight or ten block area in the middle of the city. In this area are four or five large buildings housing at least 300 to 500 inmates. The place is the Maryland State Penitentiary in the heart of Baltimore. It is 1965-66, and I am just starting my first day as a C.O. (correctional officer) at the prison. It is a maximum security prison so all the really bad guys are here.

Having worked mostly in hospitals with the mentally ill, I was impressed by the training the prison system gave us. We would spend four hours in class and four hours “inside.” We spent four weeks in training that included how to use the weapons we would have and how to defend ourselves. The rest was like a basic psychology course.

The funny thing was that everything we learned about how to treat the inmates was not practiced inside the walls. Inside the saying was, “If an inmate likes you, you are not doing your job.” From what I saw the job of the C.O. was security first, and if that meant being hard and cold, so be it. Another thing is that the inmates run the prison. The day I processed in, everything was done by inmates. By the time I reached the population, they knew everything about me: where I lived, how many children I had, what my past jobs were, etc.

I worked at this institution for about two and a half years, and my impression of it was one of “ain’t no way I’m ever going to prison.” For those that say prisoners have it too good, I ask this question: “How can you live in a place 24/7 where you have no privacy; no freedom; are told when to get up and when to go to sleep; eat what is served, when it is served; are not able to go from place to place without a permission slip; where you can be strip-searched at any time, any place, by any C.O.; and where your cell can be searched at any time of day or night?" Add to that that the law in population is that the strongest rule. If you do not have money or other resources, you either fight to survive, join a gang, or go into protective custody where you are in a cell 23 out of 24 hours a day. Rapes and sodomy are rampant in prison. Removing advantages (like the weight room, TV, and good time) only puts the C.O. in jeopardy since taking away these privileges is one of the ways to control some prisoners' behavior.

Segregation is a building of its own. Here they keep the worst offenders. They are out of their cells one hour a day. There is one man to a cell. They get to shower one or two times a week.

At first I worked just about all the different dormitories; but as time went on, I worked mostly on the wall. I heard it was for my own protection as I was too friendly with the inmates, and the higher-ups thought it best I stay out of general population. I guess they might have been right. I would talk a lot of sports with inmates. They were all Baltimore Colts fans as I was. They would have some of the roughest football and basketball games you will ever see. All the anger and frustration came out in the games.

It’s difficult to write everything I saw, did, or experienced in this time, but the thought of living in such an atmosphere, knowing that the outside world goes on, would drive me crazy. With all the other freedom we take for granted denied, prison is not someplace anyone would want to be.

As time went on, I worked in two different prison systems. Nothing I saw there changed my mind about prison not being the answer. In a maximum security prison, there is little or no rehabilitation. If anything, convicts come out worse – more knowledgeable on how to live a criminal life and more hostile and angry. Prison is not the answer, but I don’t know what is.