Most blue shirts earned their paychecks by doing nothing but silently scrutinize inmate behavior for eight or more hours. Officers inspected the line of convicts while convicts marched in hushed columns of two, to and from work. I was certain I'd have been bored out of my skull if I had been a blueshirt. They silently and prudently eyeballed inmates eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the inmate dining hall, four men to a table. Fights, naturally, were problematic. Antisocial men did not automatically become social just because they were locked up in a maximum security prison.
If a fight broke out in the dining hall, other men might easily get involved. That's why dining hall rule breakers spent a lot more time in the hole than they would have if they violated that same rule elsewhere.
During the daytime when inmates were in their cells and during evenings when inmates were deadlocked in those same cells, sergeants made rounds of the four tiers. After 10 p.m., sergeants had to make a number of rounds and report their findings to Control. Sergeants had to see skin. If the inmate innocently covered all of himself with a blanket, the sergeant woke him up by shining a flashlight on his closed eyelids and announcing, "Wake up. I need to see skin."
Harming themselves in one way or the other violated rules and got inmates time in the hole. A few inmates attempted suicide, using a razor blade. Once discovered, they were visited by an inmate nurse and then locked up. One man who felt he was a woman cut off his testicles with a razor blade by inserting it in a toothbrush handle he had melted with a lighted match. He flushed the offending meat down the cell's toilet.
Correctional officers scrutinized convicts while at play. During warm weather months on the rec. field, some inmates ran to a group of steel tables, their pedestal legs anchored in concrete. Although gambling was against the rules, staff was certain those men played poker for sexual favors or ciggy butts, both inmate forms of legal tender.
Meanwhile, other inmates chose to take part in group activities including baseball, basketball, handball, horse shoes, and power lifting. Others chose to run or walk along the cinder track, adjacent to the 22 ft. high concrete wall.
Gun towers placed strategically on top of that wall were manned by armed tower officers. It seemed they'd invariably place one foot on the lower rung of a guardrail while watching activities below. Each tower officer had a two-way radio, (as did the officers on the ground) called "handhelds" at the ready just in case they needed to contact officers below if they observed any bad behavior or if they needed to contact Control if groups of men were raising hell or "peacefully" attempting a sit-down strike, which happened.
As was I, so would you be surprised what men could do even while being closely monitored. What you thought you saw was not necessarily taking place. A man could be raped without staff being aware of the act. At the same time, inmates could be physically beating another inmate half to death, without staff knowledge. That is the reason why some blue shirts were assigned to walk among recreating inmates, making certain nothing knotty was taking place.
During cold weather months, inmates recreated in the "Big Top" indoor recreation area, located above the dining hall. Up there, men could play basketball, volleyball, handball, billiards, and straight pool on pool tables. More than half of the men preferred to lift weights. As far as the inmate code was concerned, might made right. After recreation ended when inmates took showers, blue shirts made certain that inmates didn't "fight or fuck," as the saying went.
Whenever inmates failed to follow rules, blueshirts at once ordered them to stop their illegal behavior with a verbal stun. If men failed to obey those necessarily yelled orders, the blueshirt had to radio Control for help and then physically halt the misconduct by placing himself in harm's way.
One night in a cell hall, an inmate was raising hell by yelling during lights out. A whiteshirt was called. The captain arrived with two blueshirts who were there to help the captain escort the violator to the Greenhouse. The cell hall sergeant told the captain the name of the belligerent inmate at the same time he handed the captain hand cuffs and leg irons. "Oh," scoffed the captain, "I don't need those. Larry and me are just like that." The whiteshirt placed middle finger over index finger.
Sometimes, when we work among inmates for years, we think we know them personally, even consider them nearly friends. "Watch out if you get thinking that way," blueshirts warned me time and again not only during my training period but for many years after that.
When a blueshirt keyed Larry out of the cell, the karate-expert inmate grinned before he kicked the captain in the face, fracturing skeletal bone above the upper lip, the captain's upper front teeth flying here, there. A second later, Larry splintered a number of the whiteshirt’s ribs with a powerful karate punch.
After undergoing emergency surgery and a number of surgeries after that at University Hospitals in Madison, the captain did not report to work for almost a year. Never again did he not follow Department of Corrections' guidelines regarding safe removal of inmates from their cells nor did the cell hall sergeant ever tell him, "I told you so." I'm sure the sergeant harbored thoughts like that, however.
I learned from blueshirts during my two-week training period that DOC suggestions were to be followed in much the same way after a plane's pilot suggests to me I don a parachute before I jump out of his plane, 5,000 feet above the earth.
If a fight broke out in the dining hall, other men might easily get involved. That's why dining hall rule breakers spent a lot more time in the hole than they would have if they violated that same rule elsewhere.
During the daytime when inmates were in their cells and during evenings when inmates were deadlocked in those same cells, sergeants made rounds of the four tiers. After 10 p.m., sergeants had to make a number of rounds and report their findings to Control. Sergeants had to see skin. If the inmate innocently covered all of himself with a blanket, the sergeant woke him up by shining a flashlight on his closed eyelids and announcing, "Wake up. I need to see skin."
Harming themselves in one way or the other violated rules and got inmates time in the hole. A few inmates attempted suicide, using a razor blade. Once discovered, they were visited by an inmate nurse and then locked up. One man who felt he was a woman cut off his testicles with a razor blade by inserting it in a toothbrush handle he had melted with a lighted match. He flushed the offending meat down the cell's toilet.
Correctional officers scrutinized convicts while at play. During warm weather months on the rec. field, some inmates ran to a group of steel tables, their pedestal legs anchored in concrete. Although gambling was against the rules, staff was certain those men played poker for sexual favors or ciggy butts, both inmate forms of legal tender.
Meanwhile, other inmates chose to take part in group activities including baseball, basketball, handball, horse shoes, and power lifting. Others chose to run or walk along the cinder track, adjacent to the 22 ft. high concrete wall.
Gun towers placed strategically on top of that wall were manned by armed tower officers. It seemed they'd invariably place one foot on the lower rung of a guardrail while watching activities below. Each tower officer had a two-way radio, (as did the officers on the ground) called "handhelds" at the ready just in case they needed to contact officers below if they observed any bad behavior or if they needed to contact Control if groups of men were raising hell or "peacefully" attempting a sit-down strike, which happened.
As was I, so would you be surprised what men could do even while being closely monitored. What you thought you saw was not necessarily taking place. A man could be raped without staff being aware of the act. At the same time, inmates could be physically beating another inmate half to death, without staff knowledge. That is the reason why some blue shirts were assigned to walk among recreating inmates, making certain nothing knotty was taking place.
During cold weather months, inmates recreated in the "Big Top" indoor recreation area, located above the dining hall. Up there, men could play basketball, volleyball, handball, billiards, and straight pool on pool tables. More than half of the men preferred to lift weights. As far as the inmate code was concerned, might made right. After recreation ended when inmates took showers, blue shirts made certain that inmates didn't "fight or fuck," as the saying went.
Whenever inmates failed to follow rules, blueshirts at once ordered them to stop their illegal behavior with a verbal stun. If men failed to obey those necessarily yelled orders, the blueshirt had to radio Control for help and then physically halt the misconduct by placing himself in harm's way.
One night in a cell hall, an inmate was raising hell by yelling during lights out. A whiteshirt was called. The captain arrived with two blueshirts who were there to help the captain escort the violator to the Greenhouse. The cell hall sergeant told the captain the name of the belligerent inmate at the same time he handed the captain hand cuffs and leg irons. "Oh," scoffed the captain, "I don't need those. Larry and me are just like that." The whiteshirt placed middle finger over index finger.
Sometimes, when we work among inmates for years, we think we know them personally, even consider them nearly friends. "Watch out if you get thinking that way," blueshirts warned me time and again not only during my training period but for many years after that.
When a blueshirt keyed Larry out of the cell, the karate-expert inmate grinned before he kicked the captain in the face, fracturing skeletal bone above the upper lip, the captain's upper front teeth flying here, there. A second later, Larry splintered a number of the whiteshirt’s ribs with a powerful karate punch.
After undergoing emergency surgery and a number of surgeries after that at University Hospitals in Madison, the captain did not report to work for almost a year. Never again did he not follow Department of Corrections' guidelines regarding safe removal of inmates from their cells nor did the cell hall sergeant ever tell him, "I told you so." I'm sure the sergeant harbored thoughts like that, however.
I learned from blueshirts during my two-week training period that DOC suggestions were to be followed in much the same way after a plane's pilot suggests to me I don a parachute before I jump out of his plane, 5,000 feet above the earth.
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