Prison is a Comm.

Or, Where's the unity?

Hey there, dear reader. Today's post is about community in prison.

In my Prison-as-a-Service post, I gave an impression of how large my current prison facility is: 1,800-1,900 inmates in the biggest gated community right outside the little town here. This scenario repeats all over Florida, with some variance in inmate count and fence amount, adjusted and sorted by custody levels.

In these fences, apart from the corrections officers (COs), medical staff, educational staff, and the other cogs in the great prison machine that keep us in, we only reliably see each other every day.

Some of us begin to develop bonds and friendships with each other that transcends dorm space: we might get moved from our 'home' in one quadrant of one dorm to another one in the same dorm, or clear across the compound because of myriad reasons, but if we encounter each other, we greet the other like a long lost partner.

It's a sense of community that we foster behind the fences.

Sometimes, that friend is in need of something that we can find a way to spare, like a cup of coffee or a packet of peanut butter. It frequently comes back to the giver in some way -- maybe your friend didn't want their piece of cake, so they seek you out and swap it onto your tray, or they get you some coffee the next time money hits their books.

This is camaraderie behind the wires in action.

Drifting Grifters

As so, there are those who would prey upon others and pretend to seek friendship. Then, like a leech or a mosquito, suck the blood and leave behind a mote of irritation.

In a good community, that person doesn't last long. Like prairie dogs, heads pop up, alerts are sounded, and word of "Don't give Sucksaton nothin'; he don't pay nobody back" circulates, especially getting word to the new arrivals so they aren't suckered in, drying up the supply.

Eventually, the leech will check in--
Oh, let's explain that:
To the best of my understanding, checking in means that the inmate will go declare some kind of emergency that gets them removed from the dorm quadrant or bay. Some use it as a way to get away from debts accrued by always borrowing from someone to feed a habit.

Small community, big problems.

I just said habit, and there is a reason. Just as they exist in the free world, drug habits exist here, and it's sad how it works. People trade in commissary items for whatever drug they have. How they get it, what it looks like, etc., I have no clue. I stay away from it. But it seems to be a brisk trade, nonetheless!
Folks call their loved ones on the outside to put $100 a week on their books and buy up half the commissary's ramen supply, trade it to the dope man, and end up so high, it looks like a medical emergency.

It's made worse by this being prison, and some offenders here have no incentive to refrain from violence when debts to them aren't paid. After all, how do you incentivize a person with two life sentences plus 20 years to do good when, barring a court throwing out their sentence, this is the suckiest forever home they will ever have? Threaten them with The Box (single person confinement cell)?
Mix these folks in with what they call short timers (sentences less than 5 years), add the leeches, and you're cooking up a recipe for disaster.

What's a perfect solution?

Nothing exists. There is inherently a flaw to be found when you add one or more humans to the plan.

What's a better solution than we have now?

Stratification of inmate housing based on remaining sentence years.
If you're here for life, being admixed with people leaving in months or days is a slap in the face for all parties involved.
That should not be done, in my eyes. The habits of lifers and non-lifers are different. So are the needs and desires.

The current custody-level-fits-all setup leaves gaping holes in needs met:
A person in on a life sentence needs something to do each day.
So does the person with a release date not in the year 2100.
They both sign up for a vocation with limited slots, and the vocational program takes 12 months to complete.
The lifer gets the slot for whatever reason.
The person who has a release date gets placed on a waiting list and has to hope they get in sometime before they are too close to release for the vocation.
This fails the street bound individual, and happens more than you might realize. I share a class with one lifer here, a class I just joined a week ago; I used to share a dorm with the lifer.

He needs mental stimulus. So do I.

A better stratification would need a better strategy to ensure inmates are being engaged in some way. Even those with life sentences.

The Unity.

The unity starts with you, readers in the free world. :)
Many of you have the ability to influence changes in your communities, by talking amongst each other, voting for positive reforms, building places for those of us returning to the free world after months, years, or even decades of confinement.
While we want the reformulation of prisons to happen, part of that needs to happen outside, too!
Otherwise, it's like living on 1 Prison Loop, Anywhere, USA, 00000.

Thanks for stopping in, sharing, and caring. 👍🏾