Prison Puzzle Pieces 2: The realities, experiences and insights of a corrections officer doing his time in Historic Stillwater Prison

stories."

THE SHORTEST CHAPTER EVER

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PROTECTION ORDER, YEAH RIGHT!

FALSE ESTEEM

Inmates will often call us lower level corrections officers, sergeant or even lieutenant in order to suck up to us. Some officers don’t catch on to this, but as soon as I heard this my radar would go up. I’d be waiting for the request that they would want me to ignore a policy. My response would be something like, You know I’m not a sergeant, so what is it that you want me to let you do that you know you shouldn’t do? They would smile, sometimes continue on and sometimes just walk away.

Sometimes I would tell them that I was just a pee-on. I would point to a spot on the floor and say, See that little piece of crud on the floor? That’s me. I’d point to my foot and say, That’s the DOC. I would smash my foot on the floor on the spot I pointed to and grind it around on that spot. That’s how significant I am. This got them laughing and made my point.

Eventually, things changed. When I gave them my You know I’m not a sergeant response, I would get answers like, I know, but you’re my sergeant. You are to me. You know you’re the one that really runs this place. I’d just smile. These things were good to hear. These perceptions were out there because I was aggressive in doing my job and taking care of any problems that arose. I wouldn’t just brush them off like many other officers.

WHY ME

One day an inmate who was the top man in one of the major gangs approached me. He said there was a protection order out on me. I had to laugh at that one. I was wondering what the heck this guy wanted. He told me it was legit. He explained that he and all of the other gang leaders got together and decided to put a protection order out on me. (This was not necessarily all at one time or place, basically they achieved communications with each other and reached this consensus.) He said that because of the way I did things, the way I handled myself and the way I treated everyone that they wanted me to stay around. He said that they knew I would do my job and that if I found a violation, I would address it. They knew I would be writing people up and sending them to the hole and they were fine with that. They knew if I issued out discipline to anyone that they had it coming. They knew that anything I did was on the up and up. He said that they couldn’t rely on that from anyone else. He said that if someone came to me with a problem, they knew I would do my best to solve it. In short he said, We know that we’re better off with you here than without you here.

He said that they couldn’t protect me from the crazy inmates or those not affiliated with any gang, but other than that, I would have no problem with anyone from any gang. It was ordered by all of the gangs and that no gangster in their right mind would dare to defy this order.

What caused them to do this? Well, I was being me. I was enforcing policies, writing up lots of reports and pissing off lots of people that wanted to get away with things. I was writing up several people a day. Not necessarily full reports, but at least documenting violations in their files. Some of these people were starting to organize to take me out; and not on a date. The gang leaders knew they didn’t want this to happen, so they squelched it by issuing their order.

In order to make me believe what he was saying, he spoke about a problem I had solved for an inmate. This inmate came into the institution and into my block the beginning of April. He got a job out in industry. You had to go outside to get to an industry building. He came to me and asked if I could get him a coat. He said that he wasn’t issued one and that when he tried to get one from laundry, they wouldn’t give him one. I called down to laundry. They told me that they don’t give out coats after March 31st. Nobody entering the institution April 1st or later gets a coat until fall. This was an exceptionally cold April. As officers, we had coats and most were wearing them inside the institution. After stating these facts, they still wouldn’t do it. I informed the inmate of what had transpired and told him I wasn’t giving up. I went down to laundry to speak to the sergeant. I told him this would be one less coat he would have to issue in the fall. He instantly became real angry, started yelling at me and turned red in the face. This guy was flipping out on me. As I was leaving, I could hear him continue to yell and swear at me.

It was time to try a different approach. I started making phone calls to those higher and higher up. I tried anyone who I thought might have the remotest chance of helping. I ran into the warden in the hallway and was turned down by him. This was my last shot.

The only thing that I could find on the institutions jacket policy was that they were issued between October first and March thirty first. I found nothing stating that an exception could not be made for situations of an extreme cold spell and an inmate receiving a job outside after March thirty first. Common sense would seem to dictate that we treat people humanely. I found that my views and the views of those controlling this place were often quite different.

All along, I had kept the inmate informed of my failures. He was appreciative, but frustrated and cold. He was able to see officers and inmates wearing coats inside the institution and he was being denied. All we needed was for this guy to contact some civil rights activist and there would be hell to pay. It just so happened that when I thought this guy was screwed; I wound up having to send someone to the hole. My assignment was to pack up the property in that guy’s cell. He had a coat. Linen, towels, coats and such were not personal property that got packed up and inventoried. It was just tossed into a bin and returned to laundry when the bin was full. People took items out of this bin all of the time; they weren’t supposed to but it happened a lot. I placed the coat in the bin, informed the inmate, and opened his cell so he could retrieve it. This way I was covering my ass, because I didn't actually give it to him. Anyone could grab it. I was just making sure he had first dibs.

The gang leader informing me of the protection order, and other inmates, were aware of this and other things I had done. He said that when I caught them at something, they expected to pay the consequences. They knew with me they would get fair treatment.

This protection order thing seemed unbelievable, but I thanked him and went about my business. What made me believe it, was that immediately my reports went down drastically from a few a day to just a few a month. When I gave people a heads up on a violation, they listened, complied and didn’t get all up in my face about it. I was amazed that one guy in this place held so much power that he could align all of the gangs on a common issue like this.

This guy never asked for any favor or expected any. He just appreciated an honest hard working officer that viewed his job responsibilities the way I did.

INMATE CODE

There are a lot of inmates in this joint that I gained a lot of respect for. With the training I got from my Inmate Mentor, I knew a lot of what these guys had to deal with in order to get by in this place. I also realized that there was a whole heck of a lot more that I would never know. I could appreciate their convict codes. I could appreciate that they had the common sense to make exceptions to them at times. It is a strange world that exists behind these walls. At times they had to take care of business that was in violation of institution policies. The inmates knew the rules and knew they would be fine if they followed them.

An example of a time someone broke a rule was when they had smuggled cheese into the unit in preparation for a celebration. The guy was supposed to make someone else hold the cheese until the day the celebration rolled around. He chose not to do that. By holding it himself, he was able to eat some of it whenever he wanted some. Unfortunately for him, because of his reputation, it was likely for his cell to be inspected. His cell was inspected. The cheese was confiscated for evidence. He was taken to the hole. The celebration pulled off but without the cheese. The consequence for him not following their code was to be beaten. He did not try to stay in seg to avoid the beating. He did not try to assault an officer in order to get sent to Oak Park to be locked up in a box and avoid his beating. When he was released from seg, it was phrased to me that he came in and took it like a man. Instead of being looked down on, he gained credibility because of accepting the consequences rather than trying to find a way out of it.

THEY KNOW MORE THAN WE DO

Because of how the gang leaders thought of me, they wanted me to have more power. They wanted to see me get promotions, so that I could lead others in adapting my style. One day, the man that headed up instituting the protection order, approached me and told me that he had information that he would give me if it could get me promoted to sergeant. I told him that becoming a sergeant was strictly done by seniority and that I would probably not be around long enough for that to happen. I said if he wanted to inform me of what it was, I would deal with it appropriately. He declined. He said that the information was mine only if it would get me promoted, but that after it went down, he would let me know that was it. He assured me that no one was in danger.

Months later, half a year or more, it went down. A group of officers had been bringing in marijuana. One guy had started bringing it in. Inmates that weren’t getting any found out about it and wanted some. The officer was told that if he didn’t bring some in for them that they would snitch on him. More and more inmates found out and wanted his pot. The officer took in another officer to help with his business. This kept growing. More officers became involved. Many more knew of it and kept their mouths shut. This was all happening on third watch, the 2pm to 10pm shift.

On my watch, 6am to 2pm, the smell of pot was intense in the unit. It was so bad that I would invite officers from other units to come into my unit and walk through inhaling deeply so they could get high. Obviously a slight exaggeration, but you could almost always smell the pot somewhere in the unit. Just walking through the cell block, you knew we had a major problem.

At one point, the institution had enough evidence that when the officer that had started this smuggling endeavor came in, the police were there, cuffed him up and hauled him out. Instantly another officer that had been involved decided he was too sick to work and went home, never to be seen again. This effectively stopped this flow of drugs.

The inmate that had approached me about being a sergeant told me that this was the information that I would’ve received. Only he told me that there were four others involved and that one of them was a sergeant.

DRUGS, HOOCH, GAMBLING

LIGHT THAT DOOBIE

The power went out in two cells next to each other on a Friday night. The captain directed the officer reporting the situation to put in a work order. This meant that an electrician would check out the problem on Monday.

The next day, Saturday, because of the perceived long delay in getting the power back on, we were forced to either move the inmates to different cells or just continue to have to deal with them being upset.

The electricians had explained to us that the most likely cause of power outage in a cell would be due to sparking. Sparking is when someone tries to create sparks off of an outlet to try to light a cigarette or to create some other type of a fire. They said that all cells were rewired with reset buttons and that whenever there was a power surge powerful enough to bypass the cell reset button, a stronger breaker in the tunnel underneath the cellblocks would be set off.

It is possible that inmates in both cells were sparking. However, there were times when power went out in one cell that it would go out in an adjoining cell.

The inmates in one of the cells were major trouble makers. I could definitely see them sparking and then bitching about having no power.

My solution; do just as the lieutenant said; wait until Monday. If they have to sit through a weekend with no power, because they were sparking or had altered some electronics, tough luck. Let them sit there. If they become disruptive, send them to the hole. This is not a hotel. They are not paying us. Tax payers are paying for their housing and for people to watch them. I could not begin to count how many times the power had legitimately gone out in places I have lived or worked and the problems it had caused. I just had to deal with it. Here, they created the problem themselves and get coddled.

An example of a sparking device found in a cell was a pencil that had two wires taped to the end of it.

GAMBLING

A form of extortion, if you do it right, is gambling. Or as I call it, preying on those that think they will actually come out ahead. OK, a few might, but a lot of others are losing in order to make someone a winner. Over time, only a few may come out ahead.

A couple of gamblers running football boards were found out due to their hooch making. We saw these guys with hooch making materials. When their cell was shaken down, hooch made from fruit was found. Upon shaking down the cell, two different football boards were found with 18 playing on one and 17 playing on the other. An Owe Me list was found, gambling tickets and an address book with 2 pages of guys listed that were involved in the gambling.

A different inmate was caught typing up a list titled Master Sheet with 34 monikers on it. At the bottom was typed 33 people = $66.00. Many gambling boards were found in this cell.

A group of guys were caught gambling at a table on the flag. They had a container full of about 800 cards that had been marked with a magic marker. These were being used as poker chips.

Gambling has always created problems in prisons and always will.

Gambling was getting quite refined in this place. An inmate was caught walking around with some papers. An officer asked to see them. One sheet had nicknames and numbers on it. The other sheet had the heading House Rules. These were rules for gambling that the inmates in the block had established.

HOOCH SUPPLIES

An inmate was let out of his cell to go on a visit. His cellmate took this as an opportunity to go socialize. When the officer asked him why he was out of his cell, he said he wanted to get bread. This was not a valid excuse. However, it does bring up a major point. We had a major problem with inmates making hooch, getting drunk and creating problems. The institution was supplying them with everything they needed to be able to brew like crazy. We grouped the institutions worst inmates in one cellblock. We had food brought to them in the cell hall. We even had numerous extra bins of bread brought into the block in the evening so they could have extra hooch making supplies. The goodie goodie mambi pambi people that come up with these ideas really don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground; not that I have a strong negative opinion about some of the people that make decisions in this place.

NO MORE HOOCH INGREDIENT

The warden sent us an email.

Here is the email.

Please post the attached document on offender accessible bulletin boards. This memo advises offenders that the practice of providing bread in the evenings will be discontinued effective August 1, 2005. We have been talking this up in rep groups so the information should not be a surprise.

Here is the memo.

Effective August, 1, 2005, the practice of delivering bread to the cell halls will be discontinued. For well over two decades, this facility has delivered several containers of loaves of white bread to the cell halls on a daily basis in the evening. Anecdotal information indicates this practice started in the early or mid 1970's, perhaps beginning after canteen began selling condiments which could be used on the bread. Other information indicates that the bread was provided specifically as a required supplement for in between meals.

Regardless of the reasons why MCF-Stillwater initiated the practice, there are several reasons that this facility has decided to discontinue providing the bread to the cell halls.

First, the facility menu provides all the nutritional requirements needed on a daily basis. According to the DOC dietician, the bread in the cell halls contains extra carbohydrates and sodium, but very little vitamins, minerals or fiber. Mostly, the bread is empty and unneeded calories. Furthermore, the bread is the vehicle for additional calories or fat to be ingested when eaten with toppings.

MCF-Stillwater is also the only correctional facility engaging in the practice.

The cost to provide the bread is over $55,000 per year. These funds will instead be used to provide healthier alternatives in the dining hall.

In summary, the elimination of the bread in the cell halls will contribute to a healthier diet and will result in making additional dollars available for food items in the dining hall.

This will be an adjustment for all of us but we believe the change will be offset by improved food service in the dining hall. Thank you for your cooperation.

Here is my take on it.

There was no fair way to distribute this bread. When it came into the cell halls, an announcement was made. It was first come, first served. It was like pigs at a feeding trough. This instigated assaults on those that nabbed a lot verses those that got none.

The main reason this bread should've never been brought into the cell blocks is that it was one of the main ingredients in making hooch. We don't want them making hooch, because drunk criminals are dangerous to everyone, and here they were being assisted by the institution in being able to make hooch.

STAND UP CON

An inmate decided to have a little fun with an officer. As officers were passing by his cell, he said, I have a pass. He thought an officer would pop his door open without checking.

For what programming?

Just kidding.

The officers felt something was up, so they decided to shake down the cell.

As the one officer began to open a footlocker, the joker said, Call the squad now.

Why?

I have a footlocker full of hooch.

The officer finished opening the footlocker and found about 15 gallons of orange hooch.

He stated that it was his and that his cellmate had nothing to do with it.

He went to seg and his cellmate went back into his cell with no charges against him.

You can guess about this one. Was it really his and was he a stand up con? Would he be in trouble with his cellmate for causing officers to find it, so he took the blame rather than a beating?

Was he being forced to hold it and found this as an out to not be put in that situation again? If you get caught once, the odds are that you will get checked more often than most.

TRIFECTA

At four o’clock in the morning, while an officer was doing count, an inmate handed him a note.

The note stated that he had been assaulted by his cellmate and that his cellmate was drunk and high.

The officer called for the A-Team. The victim was taken to the security center and the assailant was taken to seg.

When they shook down the cell, they found marijuana in a shirt pocket and a homemade marijuana smoking device made from a playing card.

They found hooch in a large jug wedged between the bottom mattress and the wall. They also found three plastic Folgers coffee containers wedged underneath the sink with all of them smelling like hooch. Inmates received coffee from canteen in these red plastic Folgers containers. As anyone buying these containers from their local grocery store knows, these containers are excellent for many uses. Now you know of another use for them.

Assault, hooch and marijuana would keep this guy in seg for a while.

SOME GUYS WILL SWALLOW ANYTHING

Pill popper, pill popper give it a whirl. There are some guys in this place that will take any pill they can get a hold of, whether they know what it is or not. They will get pills from guys that are getting released. They will buy pills from any one that will sell them their prescribed medication. They will buy them from guys that get them smuggled into the prison. They like testing pills out to see what will happen. They like to try different combinations to see what the experience will be. Some people like going out to restaurants and trying different kinds of food. These guys do that with pills. Whether it’s a hobby or a life style, it’s their thing that they enjoy.

However, some of these guys really know their pills. They can look at a pill and be able to tell you exactly what it is.

An inmate stated that he was lightheaded and dizzy. He had to be taken to Health Services in a wheelchair.

When he got there, he said couldn’t stop staring at the floor or his shirt sleeve. He admitted to taking 5 peach colored pills the night before and that they were not his. The nurse showed him some pills that matched what he described. He pointed to the one he took. They were 5mg tablets of Haloperidol; a typical antipsychotic medication used in the treatment of schizophrenia.

He was treated and taken back to his cell and locked in for disorderly conduct and possession of contraband.

KNOWLEDGE CAN BE DANGEROUS

Knowing how to make methamphetamine is not necessarily a good thing in prison, especially if you won’t share the knowledge.

An inmate named five inmates that had threatened to kill him if he didn’t teach them how to make methamphetamine. He stated that these guys were not the ring leaders but he refused to name the big shots.

He was to be interviewed by a psychologist and then possibly be admitted to the chemical dependency program.

He was not permitted to have a swamper job that gave him access to the chemicals in the supply closet.

PARTY ON DUDES

The inmates in a cell had lost all of their inhibitions by the middle of the night.

Earlier they had been given a warning to either turn their radio off or use their headphones because they were disturbing the unit.

Later, two officers were on a security check. Those two inmates were talking loudly. The officers could smell what they believed to be hooch. The officers returned to that cell after completing their security round to determine if they had been drinking.

Could you guys quiet down?

One inmate kept repeating, Stop giving me the blues. I’m not giving you the blues.

Have you guys been drinking?

No. The inmate was holding a glass with an orange liquid in it.

What’s in the glass?

Coffee.

The officer asked for the glass, but the inmate refused to give it to him. The officer asked three more times what was in the glass. The answer continued to be, Coffee. The Watch Commander and A-Team were summoned to the cell.

Set the glass down on the desk.

He refused, took a drink and handed it to the other inmate.

Do not empty the glass into the toilet.

Go fuck yourself. He emptied the glass into the toilet.

When the A-Team arrived, the inmate became angrier and even more inappropriate with his vocabulary. He told the officer that he was going to kick his ass when he got out and that he was a faggot. He looked at the other officer and told him that he was going to kick his ass too.

They were both taken to seg.

DISOBEYING IS WORSE THAN POT IN THE POT

I observed an inmate smoking while passing by his cell. There was the strong smell of marijuana. Another inmate was in the cell with him. When the inmate that was smoking saw me, he tossed the joint in the toilet and flushed. I directed the inmate not to flush the toilet again and called for the sergeant to report to my location. The inmate flushed the toilet again. By flushing the toilet again, he disobeyed a direct order. This would get him more time in the hole than being charged with possessing and smoking pot. The sarge arrived with another officer and had the inmates escorted to the Security Center. From there they would be given a urine analysis test before their trip to seg.

In shaking down the smoker’s cell, we found a sparking device and graphite.

In the other inmate’s cell was found a home made battery pack, tattoo paraphernalia and football picks.

These boys just want to have (illegal) fun.

DON’T TELL ME WHAT NOT TO DO

The sergeant was passing out canteen slips. An inmate was standing, facing his sink and running water when she came by. When he heard her at his door, he turned around immediately.

He was acting suspicious, so she said, What are you doing?

Nothing!

She stepped inside the cell to see what he was up to. He jumped in front of her to block her view. She told him to step aside and he complied. She saw a pitcher of something orange in his sink and said, Are you making hooch?

Yes. I’m not going to lie.

She called to have him escorted out and then gave him a directive to not pour out the hooch.

He poured it out into the toilet and rinsed out the container.

Another officer appeared on the scene and directed the inmate not to flush the toilet.

The inmate reached down to flush.

The officer gave several more loud directives not to flush the toilet.

He flushed the toilet.

After the inmate was removed to segregation, they found a brewing container with large chunks of fruit cocktail, oranges and bread in it.

These guys think they are smart by flushing things down the toilet. The institutions policies take this into account. They will generally get more time in seg for disobeying an order than they would for many other violations like hooch.

PCP

I’m on PCP, was the comment from an inmate to a couple of officers.

How are you feeling? asked an officer.

There was no reply.

Did you take PCP? the officer asked to clarify what the inmate said.

Yes.

Do you feel like hurting yourself?

No. I feel like hurting others. He stated that he did not have anyone specific in mind.

He was locked in his cell and later taken to segregation.

It never ceased to amaze me how much contraband these guys were able to get into the prison. It just showed that a lot more could be done to tighten up security around this place. Public opinion is one of the biggest problems. Having all visits conducted behind the glass and by phone would be the first step I would take. But the public would consider that too harsh of treatment for these poor felons.

NAZI HOOCH

The sergeant had just released the top gallery for their flag time. She was in the bubble. There is a camera mounted outside of the bubble that we can control its position and zoom from inside the bubble. She was surveying the galleries with the camera looking for anything out of the ordinary.

She saw two inmates up in the stairway area. All she could see was their feet, so she zoomed in and was able to make out the face of one of them.

During this time, we had plastic garbage bags tied to the railing on each tier so inmates could toss their trash in them. She saw one of the inmates carefully place a paper bag in the large plastic trash bag. He then emptied his trash on top of it.

She summoned two officers to check it out. The paper bag had a plastic bag inside of it. It contained about two gallons of hooch.

The sarge found the inmate at a table on the back flag playing cards and had him removed from the unit.

If someone is into doing something they are not supposed to be doing, there are probably more violations than just that one. When she checked his cell, she found an altered razor inside the light junction box on the ceiling. In his locker were drawings of Hitler and an eagle with a Nazi sign on it.

COPPING SUGAR

During a time that B-West had been double bunked, we had to feed the inmates in the cell block. When an inmate came out to pick up his meal, an officer saw him reach into the box of sugar packets and take a handful. A couple of sugar packets could be handed out to him, but he was not allowed to reach into the box and take what he wanted.

The officer that caught him counted 47 packets. He asked him what he was doing with 47 sugar packets. The inmate said, I want to make some coffee. The thief was locked up in an empty cell. When the officer shook down his cell, he found another 48 sugar packets.

How often do you put close to 100 sugar packets in your coffee?

Dude didn’t want to make hooch; he just wanted to be able to chew his coffee.

DIVERSION TACTICS

Several empty bottles with hooch residue were found hidden behind the vent cover in a vent in the back of a cell. Later the inmate was complaining that his wedding ring was missing.

The sarge asked him what he meant by missing.

The inmate stated that the ring was in the room before it was shaken down and now it was gone.

Where did you keep it?

It was on the floor. He stated he dropped it on the floor and left it there.

Why would you leave your wedding ring on the floor?

I planned on picking it up later.

The sarge suggested that he look around for the ring and in the future he should not leave items of personal value lying on the floor.

This inmate knew he was in trouble for having hooch bottles hidden in his vent. Diversion tactics are common. Complain about somebody else to divert attention away from yourself. Also, if you can try to get an officer on the hot seat, it’s all that much more effective. Higher ups frequently take the word of criminals over that of officers. This is an effective way for higher ups to cover their ass.

Plus, having a ring is contraband. Did he really even have one?

MOVING ODERS

Another officer and I were on a security check when we smelled marijuana on the third and fourth galleries. The sergeant smelled it down around the sergeant’s office. The three of us found the strongest smell in a cell on the fourth gallery where both inmates were out of their cell. The sarge had them taken to the security center while we shook down their cell. We did not find any marijuana, but we did find a lot of tattoo paraphernalia.

The air flow in this place made it very difficult to find the exact location of the smokers. By the time we got to a cell that smelled like the highest possibility, it was probably from smoke that had transferred from the actual smoker’s cell.

If we charged someone due to the smell, we would have had to be passing by their cell either during or immediately after their little smoke fest.

GOOD HIDING SYSTEM

While conducting hooch checks, a discovery was made. There is a vent in the back of the cell by the toilet. An officer looked into this vent using his flashlight. He could see some bottles back in the vent. He found that the screws holding the vent cover in place were easy to remove with his fingers. Once the vent cover was off, the officer pulled out a tray about two feet long that was made out of cardboard from Quaker Oats boxes. This brought forward 15 City Cow Jalapeno Squeezable Cheese bottles. They were filled with purple hooch.

The inmate received a new home in segregation and maintenance came in and secured the vent cover.

A NOSE FOR HOOCH

While completing a security round, I smelled the strong odor of hooch coming from a cell. The sarge and I directed the two inmates to step out of their cell. Upon completion of a cell shakedown we recovered ten bottles of hooch. The sarge called for a 10-14 to get these guys hauled out. A sample of the hooch was turned into evidence. This was necessary for the discipline unit to be able to sufficiently and effectively charge them with possessing the brew.

Hooch became a huge problem when double bunking came to B-West.

WELLBUTRIN

Wellbutrin is a prescription drug that is used as an antidepressant in the prison system.

The inmates discovered several ways of abusing Wellbutrin.

Inmates can mix it with other medications and snort it to produce a cocaine like high.

They can mix it with a liquid, so they can shoot it up with insulin syringes that have been smuggled in by diabetics.

They can mix it with baking soda and the powder from asthma inhalers. This mixture is then cooked in a microwave for 20 seconds to turn it into a rock like substance that can be smoked.

When the institution became aware of this, they checked on the inmates allowed to be using Wellbutrin. They found out that only a few of the inmates had the correct amount. This meant that they were either abusing it themselves or selling it.

The institution decided not to give the inmates this medication in bubble packs that they kept in their cells any more. They had to have a nurse give it to them. The nurse had to watch them swallow it and check the inside of their mouth to make sure they actually swallowed it. After this, Wellbutrin pills were still being found. However, now the pills had rough surfaces. The inmates were barfing them back up and selling them.

The institution checked to make sure that those receiving the drug really needed it, but more Wellbutrin was being prescribed than ever before. Psychology was not cooperating.

We were told that this medication would no longer be prescribed, but at the same time they told us that they were just going to have stricter criteria for prescribing it. We were also told to keep an eye out for it, especially in the microwaves.

And that's the way this institution was run.

HIGH ON PAPER

We were informed that inmates were being sent meth in the mail. The meth was mixed with water and spread or sprayed on 80 lb colored art paper. It was then covered with saran wrap and pressed between heavy books. Once it dried, it's written on as part of a regular letter. It might be a single page or it could be between other regular pages of paper. If it was mixed with regular writing paper it should stand out somewhat. Once the inmate received it, all he had to do was to swallow it for the high.

ORANGE YOU GONNA SEARCH ME

An inmate in our block was found with a small bag of weed. Inside the bag with the marijuana was part of an orange peel. The smell of the orange covered up the smell of the pot. You can learn something new every day in this place. Most of it is only useful if you are a corrections officer or if you are trying to become a better criminal.

AMATEUR BIG SHOT

An inmate decided that he would start his own little gambling business. Part of his problem was that he didn’t possess the stature to enforce anything if there were a problem; and with gambling, there are always problems.

He was seen by a sergeant walking around with a blue folder. He would stop at tables where inmates were playing cards. They aren’t supposed to be gambling, but it is always going on. We can’t stop it unless we can prove it.

The sarge stopped him and told him to give him the folder. Inside were three sheets of paper with football gambling squares and initials on each square. On the sheets were written 50 cents. Written on the four corners of one sheet was Whites; another had Natives;’ and the other had Mexicans" written on each corner.

The entrepreneur was escorted out of the unit. When his cell was shaken down, more gambling sheets were found. Also, twenty eight dollars and fifty cents worth of photo tickets were discovered along with photo copies of scantily clad girls from myspace.com.

Looks like this guy had a barter system going on in addition to his gambling business.

POLICY VIOLATORS

PLAYING THE GAME

One of the jobs as a corrections officer is to try to maintain a safe secure environment. The way to do this is to enforce the institutions policies.

There are problems with this. Some officers are afraid to enforce policy, some don’t care and some are lazy. Some officers don’t know the policies and some don’t agree with them. Some officers took the job to smuggle items to their friends, sell contraband and get out before getting caught. Who knows how many other reasons there could possibly be for not doing the job we were hired to do.

If inmates wanted to stay out of trouble, I would coach them on how to deal with policies. I told them there was no way to know all of the policies. There were two ways they could go to stay out of trouble.

The first was that you could just figure there was a policy against most everything and you would be alright.

The second way was to ask an officer. Whatever they tell you takes the blame off of you and puts it on them if they were wrong. A big point here was to make sure you ask an honest officer, one you can trust to step up and say, Yes, I told him he could do that. Also, write down who told you what; when they told you (date and time), and where both of you were when he told you. It never hurts to have witnesses to what the officer told you either; write their name down too. You can never