Monday, July 11, 2011

Who Is Listening?

The other night I had a whim. I wondered..... just how many other people are out there writing about working in a prison? Surely there has to be others.

So I went to my Yahoo page and put in "Prison Blog" in my search box.

Yahoo returned me 67,900,000 results.

So I set to scrolling through a few pages of those results. Now and then I would click on a page and look..... then go back to my search and scroll some more.

After 25 or so pages I gave up in disgust.

There were lots of prison blogs.... written by inmates. I read quotes from Lil Wayne, Paris Hilton and David Berkowitz, the infamous "Son of Sam" killer. They weren't actually blogging from prison. They were sending out letters and friends and family and sympathetic supporters were posting them in the internet.

There were lots of support blogs. "Free So and So!" and "Reform Now!". All written by either ex-inmates or friends and family of inmates decrying the "deplorable conditions" and the "physical and psychological torture" and the "inhuman suffering".

Of course there's little mention of what So and So did to get into prison in the first place. No entries about the shattered lives and broken homes and possibly even mangled corpses left behind for the rest of us to deal with while this "poor man" suffers in the hell that is prison.

When I read that someone referred to Berkowitz as a "reformed man" and a "true born again christian" I wanted to retch. I wonder how his victims feel about him?

I suspect that if I were a religious person before I read that statement, I wouldn't be afterwards.

But anyway, I digress.

I refined my search and put in "Corrections Officer Blog".

That netted me nineteen results.

None of which were me, by the way.

Most of them were from "Organizations" like the CPOA, which is, I'm sure, a fine organization if you happen to live in California. But none of them lead to actual blogs supposedly written by corrections officers.

So where are our voices? I know you people know how to talk. I listen to you every night. Some of you talk nonstop!

Why are we letting the inmates get all the air time?

Sorry. It was a long hot busy night down in the Hive. No real excitement, just work and almost unbearable heat and very little relief. It was a heat index of around 114 degrees today.

Right now, even after a cool shower and a big glass of ice water, I feel like a baked potato that has been left in the oven too long. Nothing more than a dried out husk.

Guess I'll quit being such a crabass and go to bed.

Tomorrow will be National Pecan Pie Day. Not a real huge fan, but I'd eat some. And that appears to be all she wrote for the holidays tomorrow. Simple. I like that.

8 comments:

  1. At least you're kinda special. Can you imagine my search results if I typed in 'mom blog'? Crimeny...

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  2. Great post.
    I found my way over here after reading your comment on Building Castles and I cracked up over your dryer advice.

    Interesting search results...and I agree the bad guys get way too much air time - everywhere!

    Cheers, Jenny
    I added myself as a follower - I'll be back (said with a pre-cheating Arnold accent)

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  3. David Berkowitz is still alive!? Well, at least the dog should be dead by now.

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  4. Beats what came up for me when I Googled for potential wall paper. As you know, Atypical Read can be dicey. but THAT thing was just plain fowl.

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  5. I'm sure that somewhere out there in some prison lies some truly reformed criminal...

    But feeling bad doesn't excuse him, either.

    You do the crime, you do the time. None of this "out on good behavior" nonsense.

    But I'm also sure somewhere out there there are corrections officers that do abuse their power, abuse the inmates, and try to make things a living hell for them. You're not one of them, but they must exist.

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  6. Amy- Only 70,100,000 results for mom blog!

    Jenny- The dryer trick is old. We've used that one for years. Sometimes it works.

    Always glad to welcome a new follower! Thank you!

    Bryan- He's still alive and kicking, unfortunately. I sure hope that dog isn't, though.

    Scott- Yeah, that was a bit harsh. Especially for first thing in the morning. You can come up with something much better than that. Hopefully.

    Chanel- I have no doubt that there are a few who won't ever come back to prison. But alot of the rest of them are just trying to get pity from people because they were stupid or evil or are stupid and evil and that's the only way they can get any attention. And I do know there are bad CO's out there. I could name a dozen or so. But we don't deserve the reputation we have now.

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  7. You're a maverick! Lead the field, my friend! Show em how it's done.

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  8. Lolamouse- Hardly a maverick. I think I just complain more and needed a different outlet.

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