KEEPER OF THE KEYS
E-Mail    by Christy Marie Camp   Bio/Address

    Quote from a male prison guard "The only thing these women are worried about is where their next meal is coming from and what their woman is doing."
    A woman inmate's feeling of inadequacy is heightened by the constant surveillance under which she is kept. The prisoner is confronted daily with the fact that she has been stripped of her membership in society at large, and now stands condemned as an outcast and outlaw so dangerous that she must be kept behind closely guarded walls and watched both day and night. She has lost the privilege of being trusted and her every act is viewed with suspicion by the guards; the surrogates of the conforming social order.
    The experience of being incarcerated - of having much of your self-esteem stripped away - of being deprived of regular contact with the outside world - plays major havoc on your mental and emotional well-being.
    Ask anyone who has been inside for a while and she'll tell you no matter how adjusted and easy going she now seems, the first few months in prison were very difficult times. Gradually you begin to cope with your new environment and you often find that your personality has greatly changed in allowing you to survive and make the best of prison surroundings. With this personality change there also comes about a change in virtually all prisoners in their emotional and mental outlook on life and especially the way they now react to others, to events and to their crises and needs.
    If prisons are to be reasonably secure and orderly, prisoners must be willing to follow rules. Prison authorities must gain the consent of the governed. They do so in three general ways: through fear; which is to say that resistance is futile; by persuading prisoners that acquiescence is in their own best interest; or by mutual accommodation i.e. by a trade-off whereby prison authorities tactically yield control over some aspect of prison life to a particular prisoner or group of prisoners in return for the prisoner(s) cooperation in maintaining order.
    Studies suggest that most prison guards/officers do not choose the corrections profession because they desire to help prisoners. In a study of 40 officer recruits in the Massachusetts prison system, the motivation for becoming a prison officer was economic reasons in 53%. Most "guards" had recently been or were about to laid off from their jobs. 20% stated they wanted to be law officers, and 2 recruits (out of 40 mind you) expressed hostility toward prisoners and saw themselves as "society's avengers". Only 28% stated their primary motivation to be a desire to help prisoners.
    One of the California guards stated it never occurred to him to go into this profession until he saw an ad in the newspaper. He responded, filled out the application and was hired. In the state of California hiring qualifications consist of a high school diploma or G.E.D., no felony convictions and 6 weeks of training at the academy if these qualifications are met.
    Prison personnel interest has shifted from rehabilitation to system management. On the job training consists of classes in escape procedures, over familiarity with prisoners and use of weapons. No classes are offered or given in psychology or humane treatment.
    A correctional officer searched a female exiting the dining room of the prison and found that she had a packet of jelly in her pocket from her food tray. He smashed it in her pocket. and then ordered her to reach in her pocket and pull it out stating "That will teach you to steal."
    A correctional officer has decided he would rather become a counselor in prison so he can "Pass God's word on to the inmates." Why doesn't he just become a preacher.
    Prisoners must live in the prison and have restricted if any contact with the outside world. Staff operate on an eight hour day and are socially integrated into the outside world. Each tends to view the other in terms of narrow hostile stereotypes. Staff see inmates as bitter, secretive and untrustworthy. Prisoners see staff as condescending, highhanded and mean. Staff tends to feel superior and righteous while attempting to make the prisoner feel inferior, weak, blameworthy and guilty.
    Since prison is supposed to provide a way for the prisoner to pay her penalty to society, cultivate respect for the law, contemplate her sins, learn a legitimate trade and, in some cases obtain needed psycho-therapy, prison officials take the stand that prisoners should accept, if not embrace the fact of being in prison.
    But, in terms of action, prison management largely focuses on the question of "security" that is, the prevention of disorder and escape. An important aspect of prison management's definition of the character of prisoners is that if you give them the slightest chance, they will try to escape from their legal terms..
    Prisons are merely storage dumps for prisoners. However, they are presented to the public as a rational organization designed consciously through and through;. as an effective machine for producing an officially avowed and officially approved end .
    To be employed at a prison means that the materials you work with are human unlike a carpenter, assembly line worker or rancher but, dealing with "human" materials however distant the staff tries to stay away from these "materials" they can become objects of feeling. There is always the danger that a prisoner will appear human and if hardships are inflicted on the prisoner then the sympathetic staff will also suffer.
    When a "civilian" is transformed into a prison guard, he or she is given authority. You cannot give an individual authority without it corrupting the individual. They will abuse it. They will be less scrupulous and feel their authority even more when given their own "area" to control. They work in the "enemy's camp" and therefore cannot become models of kindness.
    So begins the curbing of the spirit of the prisoner, convincing her of her weakness. This point attained, everything becomes easy. Prisoners are broken down into passive obedience. The multitude of rules and daily rituals of degradation provide a constant reminder of a prisoner's subordination and their keepers' superiority. Prisoners are "marched" to every meal they choose to eat, every activity is done with punctuality on which the prison functions assuring unquestioned compliance by destroying the will to resist. The guards as a
type of "enforcer" destroy the prisoner's initiative by maintaining a near total monopoly.
    Change of prison officers is constant. Prisoners must deal with "newly hired" inexperienced guards and also now ones every day since guards constantly "post change;". Each guard although "aware" of how they have been "instructed" to do things will of course in his or her "authoritarian" position also have their "own way" "my way", so basically prisoners can never know what is to be "expected" of them from one day to the next. The officers never learn whether a prisoner's uncooperative behavior resulted from belligerence, indifference, illness or some other medical or personal problem.
    Prisoners must adjust to the guard on duty. Since a guard in charge is changed from day to day, the prisoners must continuously re-adjust to a succession of different expectations. This totally eliminates any mutual rapport, or understanding.
    Judging from the experience of the Vienna Correctional Center, a minimum security institution in southern Illinois, it is possible to maintain order without repression.
    VCC has not had a riot, strike or any other-disturbance in the twelve years it has been in operation. No Correctional Officer has been hurt and there has been no serious violence among the prisoners. It houses 560 "residents" as the prisoners are called. Tension and problems do arise because all prisons are congregate living situations; but it has been rare for these "residents" to stray beyond the acceptable limit of behavior.
    Some 5000 offenders have done time at VCC during these twelve years and, despite a total absence of walls, fences, barbed wire, guard towers or other perimeter security there have been only 17 escapes involving a total of 27 "residents".
    Morale is so high among the guards and other employees that the staff turnover rate averages about 2% a year compared to an annual turnover rate of 110% at Stateville, a maximum security prison also located in Illinois.
    This stability has not come about because VCC is filled with choirboys. The prison holds some of the most serious offenders in the Illinois penal system. Most have been convicted of robbery, burglary, murder or a major drug offense.
    But, for the most part in most prisons, oppressive conditions and rancid personalities remain entangled in the web called "Corrections".
    Authority is directed to a multitude of items; your conduct, your dress, your cell, your manners; things that constantly occur and constantly come up for judgment. A prisoner cannot easily escape from the press of judgmental officials and the enveloping tissue of constraint. It takes persistent conscious effort to "stay out of trouble": You may even chose to forego certain activities to avoid possible incidents.
    The "underground rule" system is practiced daily. This system functions on "mak'em-up-as-you-go rules, regulations and procedures."
    These are all enforced under "refusing a direct order" even though the applied restrictions, prohibitions and procedures being applied will never be located in any printed prison rule book for these rules do not exist in' writing .
    "The basic difference between the prison of 1950 and those of today," Raymond Procunier Director of the California Department of Corrections told a reporter just before his retirement in 1975, "is that in 1950 the inmates were so much better in terms of buying all the bullshit we put out."

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