Sleep with One Eye Open
E-Mail    by Christy Marie Camp   Bio/Address

    A fight erupts and when the alarm goes off we have to hit the ground and sit on it until the alarm is turned off. The fighters get out some of their fury before being pepper sprayed and handcuffed.
    Prisons are places of intense pressure and like all war zones, produce intense change; for better or worse, no one will leave the same.
    A day in the system is an endless effort to cope with crisis. The struggle becomes the focus of every thought and deed. Women can get so consumed or obsessed with this daily battle that they lose sight of the positive side of living.
    The weak are preyed upon and the predators are the ones whose own hearts were the first victims.
    Faced with daily evidence of societal rejection and condemnation, with daily blows to their self-esteem and sense of self, prisoners have no choice but to seek their own sources of dignity and pride; their own ways of investing their lives with meaning. This is not to suggest that the hardships of prison life are the only factors influencing behavior. The backgrounds that prisoners bring with them directly affect the ways in which they respond to rejection and deprivation.
    All prisoners confront the same problem: how to maintain their sense of self and prove to themselves and others that they are women of substance and worth in an environment designed to destroy this.
    Status evolves around money and possessions just like in the "real world"; but it can also be gained at another woman's expense by putting her down either verbally or physically. There is an exaggerated emphasis on toughness. To either victimize others or withstand the victimization, especially by women who appear to be bigger and stronger. Every slight, every presumed slight must be counted, or else the woman being slighted will be branded as a punk. The most casual interactions, brushing against someone in line, using the "wrong" tone of voice may end in violence. Prison life is intimidation and conflict and the more frequently prisoners come and go (some leave before they can find the chow hall), the more volatile the atmosphere is likely to be.
    Victimization takes on a variety of forms, only some of them physical, but the threat of physical harm underlies everything else.  It also involves more intangible tokens of power; who chooses the programs to be watched on the unit's TV. sets, what seats you sit in, line cutting, who has first rights to the shower and so on. Prison life provides the opportunity for some prisoners to "mess over" other prisoners and to demonstrate their domination and other prisoner's submission.
    Clearly, prison life brings out the worst and most brutal, violent and sadistic tendencies in human behavior.

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3/16/00