prison. huh. yeah. what is it good for?

All I knew about prison guards before I read this book, I got from The Shawshank Redemption, Oz, and a bunch of much lesser TV shows/movies. They all portray prison as a big gangrape and the guards as sadistic people who enjoy beating the crap out of inmates. While movies always portray inmates as mostly pretty swell guys, I've never seen any piece of media portray the guards in any kind of favorable light.

I got a much more realistic view of prison from Ted Conover's book Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, and heard the story of the most neglected people in prison: the guards. The story of how Conover even got this story is quite interesting. He asked the New York Department of Correctional Services if he could shadow a new recruit (called a "newjack") around the maximum security Sing Sing prison. His request was refused. To satisfy his journalistic urges, Conover then applied to become a guard himself. Actually, they're not called "guards" anymore, they're correctional officers. It's kind of like "stewardess" and "flight attendant". So anyway I will refer to them as COs from here on out.

Conover, by becoming a CO himself, gets a true "inside look" into the Sing Sing maximum security prison. He finds that training is either dreadfully boring or extremely harsh. One drill the trainees had to do is when they get herded into this area and just get sprayed with tear gas. The rationale is that it could happen on the job, but just seemed like hazing to me. As a newjack in Sing Sing, they pretty much get thrown to the wolves; veteran COs are quite indifferent to newjacks' troubles and are often nowhere to be found. Inmates can smell a newjack a mile away, and Conover learns that getting them back to their cells isn't exactly the easiest thing. He's got to keep track of who is keeplocked and thus don't go out to rec with the rest of the inmates. He's got to keep track of porters, inmates who get to somewhat freely move around to sweep and stuff. Conover learns that if you're a newjack, every single inmate says he's a porter.

The real thing contrasts so sharply with training because training was all about rules and discipline; you had to make your bed a certain way and even walk and turn a certain way (pivot on your inside foot, don't break your stride). On the job, Conover meets general apathy when he tries to report minor offenses. In one case, other COs actually stick up for the inmate, when he tries to report some minor contraband.

COs do often beat up inmates, but Conover gets the reader inside a CO's head real well. By the end of the book, I was rooting for the CO's and can understand why CO's act with excessive violence at times. Inmates tremendously outnumber the COs, who are only armed with plastic batons. The inmates aren't all exactly swell guys. I have to give Conover credit for keeping his book honest; he admits to being excited about a forcible cell extraction and feels excited about showing the inmates who's boss. He gives one account of CO's who were tried because they beat up an ex-con (even after they handcuffed him) while they were off duty in some club or something. While the average American who sits at home watching the evening news after a day of pushing papers would be horrified at such a story, I could sympathize with the COs. While I certainly don't approve of what they did, I also can't say that if I were in their shoes, I definitely wouldn't lay a finger on the ex-con. Conover does this real well; just by recounting his experiences as a CO, he gets his point acroos with minimal editorials. Anwho, the COs lucked out because the case didn't get much media attention because no one cares about black-on-black or white-on-black crime! Black-on-white crime though is so hot right now!

Conover does go off on tangents; once he observes everyone behind bars and in a very liberal touchy-feely moment wonders if the government does anything to cure the inmates' soulache. But he does it much less often than the author of a similar book, Barbara Ehrenreich and her book Nickel and Dimed, where she works various blue collar jobs. I hated that book because she didn't focus enough on her actual experience. Instead she would brag about how great of a maid she was and talked about global warning. God, I hated that book.

Oh, so anywhoo, Conover doesn't go too much into liberal editorials. He has a short section at the end where he talks about some simple steps to improve our prisons, but he mostly focuses on the experience. Sometimes he does exaggerate things and blow them out of proportion. He makes a big fuss about a classmate in training who forgot a rule and had to do 40 push-ups or something. Hey, I might even be able to do that and I'm no CO. It's something you should be able to do if you want to be a CO; I was shocked that there was no kind of mandatory fitness level.

Anyway, anyone aware of the current imprisonment binge (even as crime declines) should find this a nice read. And anyone who ever wondered what the life of a CO is like. Conover gives a voice to the previously quiet COs and it makes for an interesting read. It's written in a straightforward journalistic manner, so it's a breeze to get through too.

Conover himself actually came to our class and he's a small, frail looking guy. He also told us that sex between guards and inmates are more common that inmate-on-inmate rape. So there. Prison is not one big gangrape. I don't know how to end this review so I guess this will do.


xo,

underdawg