Sunday, January 4, 2009

A Walk Down memory Lane

Nothing much happened today, so I thought I might relate a story that took place a few years ago. It's somewhat amusing in that sort of "Eeew! Get that thing away from me!" way.

We got an inmate locked up from the 120 day drug treatment program. Not a rare occurrence. We get these guys sometimes. The judge will tell them if they can get through 120 days of this program, they can get out on probation and not have to do however many years of prison they are sentenced to. Sometimes it works............ sometimes not. Sometimes these guys come in from county and they are still detoxing off of whatever it was they were high on. They don't tend to last long in the "program". This was one such gentleman. They locked him up for "creating a disturbance" or some such thing. We tend to call it "Being stupid in a No-Stupid zone."

When they sent the guy down to us, we could see he was a little........off. But he wasn't out of control or anything, so we put him in a regular cell with another inmate. No sooner had I got back into the office from this little errand than the phone rings. It's another C.O. from over at the treatment house. He says "Hey, you know that inmate we just locked up? Well, it turns out he's not completely housebroken. We just went to pack up his property and found out he's been shi**ing in his footlocker!" And then he says "He's all yours! Good luck!" and hangs up the phone.

Snap.

Not many minutes after that there is a kind of desperate kicking at a door over in D-wing. It's the other inmate we put that guy in with. He says "Man! You gotta get this guy out of here! he's crazy!!!" I look in and the guys sitting on the other inmates bunk with his pants down around his ankles with one hand down inside his boxers......... just busy as hell.

Sooooooooooo............ we get him up and get him redressed and cuffed up and take him over to C-wing to be in a cell by himself. That turned out to be a good thing and a bad thing. Being by himself, he couldn't hurt anybody else. But I think being by himself helped make him a little more full-goose bozo. He degenerated rapidly. He refused to take his meds. He'd throw his food on the floor and roll on it like a dog with a dead squirrel. He'd splash all the water out of his toilet onto the floor and swim around for hours. He was a regular Michael Phelps in 1/16th of an inch of water.

But the worst was the hollering. He would holler words and phrases over and over for hours and hours on end. He was so crazy it was driving the crazy people crazy. His two favorite things were water and meds.

"WATER! WATER! WATER! WATER! WATER! WATER! WATER! WATER! WATER!"
"MEDS! MEDS!
MEDS! MEDS! MEDS! MEDS! MEDS! MEDS! MEDS! MEDS!"
And occasionally he'd throw in the odd
"CHICKEN SANDWICH!"
And then back to
"WATER! WATER! WATER! WATER! WATER! WATER! WATER! WATER! WATER!"
"MEDS! MEDS!
MEDS! MEDS! MEDS! MEDS! MEDS! MEDS! MEDS! MEDS!"
And once in awhile
"SAINT LOUIS!!!!"
For freaking hours and hours on end.

For days.

He rarely slept. And neither did anyone else in the wing, I'm told. Even our craziest wobblyheadest knuckleheads that we were thinking of naming C-wing cells after were begging me to get out of the wing. "Please, C.O., please! Move me out of here and I'll become a priest and I'll dedicate my life to the poor and I'll never do anything wrong again! Just get me out of this freaking wing away from that nutcase!"

Some parts of it were kind of funny at the time. I know the man had some serious mental problems but Gawd! If we could have harnessed that it would have been the greatest reform tool ever invented for the penal system.

I hear he's doing much better now. He walks around the yard down in wobblehead land talking into his invisible cell phone by the hour. He cuts big money deals with all of the power brokers and spends alot of time on the phone with the white house. But he's behaving so we don't see him anymore.

To this day, tho, every time I hear someone say "chicken sandwich" I get the giggles.

Hee hee hee.......

11 comments:

  1. I can't even imagine why anybody would work that job! More power to you.

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  2. I just kind of fell into it, Miz Donna. We lived in a tourist town for over ten years and we both got tired of being laid off every winter when the work dried up. So we moved up here and the prisons were hiring like crazy. And when I got to this camp they kept sending me down to the Adseg house. I think it was because they didn't really like me all that much and nobody liked working there. But it turns out I had a good temperament for the place and I stayed, much to everyone's amazement. I guess it takes a real fool to deal well with fools.

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  3. Adseg is the place the be. You never know what you are walking into. I once responded to a suicide attempt in adseg. It was 2 oclock in the morning and I had been called in as the on-call clinician. I walk onto adseg and I just sat down and started the paperwork. I typically find it effortless to ignore any and all noise - inmates yelling out to ask what time it is or the date, the occasional one trying to do homework the teachers gave who yells out asking for the answer to #5, the endless smack talk about what inmates will do to the other inmate that got him in adseg. But I am just minding my own business, doing my work when I stopped, looked up at the Sgt and asked, "um...did I just hear sheep?" and his response was "thank god! I spent 3 hours trying to get them to stop with the f#$&-ing!"

    I personally could never work in adseg as an officer, or an officer on a housing unit. To me, inapropriate yet funny, is still funny and I wouldn't be able to maintain composure or professionalism. I can hold it together for about 45 minutes, 75 minutes if I am doing an intake. After that, I just cant keep composure. Our adseg is set up with two rows on the ground and two rows of upper tier. To me this just SCREAMS 'lets sing something in a round' and I offered this idea up to the CO who just shook his head stating that earlier he spent most of the afternoon trying to get all the guys on the left to yell "Tastes great!" and all the guys on the right to respond "Less filling!" to no avail.

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  4. Sorry, I can't type. The comment I meant to write was "thank god! I spent 3 hours trying to get them to stop with the f#$&-ing BARKING!"

    We don't allow f@#$-ing sounds. That is just sick and wrong and inevitably results with more conduct reports.

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  5. Personally, I think there is no place better. Inside the prison, anyway. But the temptation to do something silly is often almost overwhelming. The sheep thing gave me the giggles. Our offenders make this noise when they are talking about either hitting or shooting someone and it sounds just like a chicken. "Bock bock bock!" And they always say it really loud. If I'm in the wing and hear it I'll usually respond with a rooster crow or two. The little nits refuse to cough up with any eggs, tho.
    I wonder what our staff pshrinks think about us. It's hard to tell sometimes. One day they'll act like we're a band of thugs or wolverines on a thin leash and the next day we're merely a box of minorly useful tools.

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  6. I have found a way to deal with the temptations that cause me to act unprofessional at times. I merely give into them. One of my favorites is to walk into a wing singing Frank Sinatra, and to see how many of the inmates I can get to join in with me. Start spreadin' the news.... I'm leavin' today.... I want to be a part of it.... New York, New York..... Its a hoot!

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  7. I got nothing for you except, I cannot believe that some people choose this line of work. But, more power to y'all.

    (aggin)<-- the retching noise made by those in attendance with the treasure chest of poop was opened.

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  8. Oh god, here's a good veri-word

    (recles)<-- the not very often booked clown AKA Mr. Recles who terrified kids by producing bouquets from his rectum.

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  9. I've a neighbor whose wife absolutely refuses to let her husband talk about his work....I can't imagine having to work in a place like the "system" and NOT being able to talk about it.....or make jokes about it.......That would just plain be bad for mental stability i feel. personally, I'm glad there are people like darev who do the job....I've come across a couple of yahoos in my lifetime, and it sure does make me feel better thinking of them in a "place".....
    da loop

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  10. I guess I'm lucky. My wife used to be a C.O. and she understands the need to talk about it, plus she misses the work and likes hearing about what went on. I give her all the camp gossip at the same time to keep her attentive. And my daughter will sit with wide-eyed wonder as I spin the latest tale. Then she'll scamper off to school and say "Omigawd! You should hear what my dad did last night!"

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  11. Update- I just learned the other day that the inmate I posted about has been released from prison. That's kinda scary. Not that he's all that dangerous, but that he's all that crazy. I hope he is somewhere that they will keep a good eye on him.

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