Watching The Detectives

Ok, there's "something going on" on our side of the camp. I mean, there's always something going on, it's a prison after all, but this is a little more serious than the usual goings-on. Some sort of gang related thing. Another realignment of the local power base. Happens all the time. Sometimes it's just a little push and shove and sometimes people start getting hurt. Fortunately for us, it's just been inmates getting hurt so far.

But some of our staff take an opportunity like this to try and break up the gangs and stop the violence before it gets started. It's a good thing, most of the time. If they don't get carried away. And it's occasionally fun to watch. A bunch of them will start snooping around like Junior G-Men speaking in codes and using their Marvel Detective spyglasses and searching everywhere for evidence of the gang activity.

I'm not putting them down. I'm not! Ok, I may be poking a bit of fun at them. And if I was out on the yard I might be doing the same thing. I've been known to ferret out the odd clue or two. And I'm pretty good at finding hiding places. We used to have a gung-ho captain at our camp that at the first gleam of gang activity he would swoop down on a yard with six or seven officers in tow and lock up fifteen or twenty people "under investigation" until one of them cracked and told him what he wanted to know. I kind of miss him. But he made life in the AdSeg hell on days he decided to do that. We'd never had enough beds to lock all of those inmates up at one time so we'd have to kick some out early.

Even though he's retired and gone, it still goes on. Luckily on a smaller scale. Just one or two at a time. There's enough going on that in the next two weeks I'll wager a good half of our house will be locked up "under investigation" for gang activity. They'll identify the ring leaders and transfer them to other camps and we'll get other gang memebers in trade from those other camps and it will start all over again....... ad nauseum.

Alot of the staff look at it like something to break up the routine and keep things interesting. But there are a few who take this sort of thing waaaaaayyyyy too seriously. Good gawd, you'd think they were IRS agents or those guards out front of Buckingham Palace that aren't allowed to smile or blink. Humourless lot. Me, if I can't find a joke in it somewhere, I'm not having a good time. I guess I'll just keep watching my little knuckleheads and leave the detective work to the professionals.