Our “fall” shakedown hit this past week. For months rumors have been running through
this place about lockdown and shakedown. The new warden and assistant warden, it was
said, were going to turn this place upside down. “We’ll be locked down two weeks.” “They’re gonna feed us in the buildings.” “Every guy is gonna be piss tested.” Here’s the thing about prison rumors: you can’t reason with them. Every guy telling the story heard it “from a
guy who got it from the Sarge, or the ‘Lt’, or the maintenance head.” For the past four months we’ve heard “Monday’s
lockdown.”
So, this past Monday morning, as the diabetics filtered back
in from medical at 6:15 am they brought word:
“school and work cancelled”. A
few minutes after breakfast the speakers blasted the announcement: “lockdown, lockdown. Lunenburg is on lockdown.” (As an aside,
every message in prison is repeated “lockdown, lockdown” or “chow call, chow
call” and at a decibel range near that of a jumbo jet).
And it began; the dreaded lockdown/shakedown was
underway. You know what we
discovered? It was the shortest lockdown
in my three years of incarceration.
Being confined in the building for three full days is no fun. You are locked in a basketball size court
space with 95 other guys. Everyone is on
edge, trying to hide the extra bowls, shoes, and other stuff inmates
accumulate. The “dayroom” (our building
common area) is full of card games, dominoes and guys fixing food. Meals are staggered: only one building at a time. That meant breakfast could be eaten at 6:30,
lunch at 3:00, then dinner at 4:30.
Guys look out the front door and yell back “they finished in
‘1’, goin into ‘2A’,” as though where the mass of officers headed bore any
relation to the shakedown coming to our building.
Tuesday afternoon we were called to lunch early: 12:15.
Twenty minutes to eat, back to the building and the announcement came
from the booth. “IDs ready; you’re
heading to the gym.” Outside the
building 25 officers and staff stood ready with clipboards, bins, carts, and
bags waiting to pour into our building and ransack our stuff.
We were led to the gym and sat down; ten pairs of bunks
called at a time. My cut-mate and I were
in the first group: “95 & 96 come
on.” Back to the building; ID turned
over to the “CT”, into the bathroom to strip, squat and cough (you lose all
sense of personal privacy in prison); get dressed and get matched with your
bunk-mate to a shakedown team; you head to your locker, open it and watch while
someone pulls out and examines every sock, pair of underwear, every
scrap of paper.
Half an hour later it’s over. Some guys lost bowls, writing boards, empty
peanut butter jars. I lost nothing. They
saw all my folders and books and said “this is the lawyer, he’s clean.” Then, out of the building and back this time
to sit in the visitation room until our entire building was examined.
By 3:30 we were back.
I washed my sheets and blankets (you have to strip your mattress – make sure
you haven’t hidden anything inside) and spent a solid hour re-arranging
everything. They pull it out; you have
to put it back.
Guys griped about losing extra pair of sneakers, or three
extra t-shirts. They complained about
losing bowls and sporks they stole from the chow hall. I helped a few guys file grievances: they’d left their laundry bags at the washers
and their clothes were confiscated. By
7:00, things were back to “normal” – whatever that entails in prison.
The sweep of buildings ended Wednesday afternoon. “Ball courts only, ball courts only” rec call
went out Wednesday at 3:00. Fresh air
and stretching. I was back at work
Thursday morning (classes – GED and college were cancelled for the remainder of
the week). As I write this, normalcy has
returned to the compound.
What did the lockdown/shakedown accomplish? From an institutional standpoint, not
much. No drugs or weapons were found;
they didn’t even bring the drug dogs in.
Economically, it costs a fair amount to shake the compound. Extra officers have to be brought in and
shifts lengthened. Does DOC have the
money to afford twice a year lockdowns at low custody facilities? Probably not.
The same day we came off lock the news reported Virginia state employees
would receive no raise this year. Low
custody facilities such as this are not required to shakedown. They do it because, well, it’s part of the
ambiance of prison life I guess.
Another shakedown over.
Another strip search and disruption of our things, of our routine,
completed. I wonder how treating people
the way we do when we lock them up helps to turn them into “law abiding”
citizens. Most guys become
institutionalized. They run their
hustles, collect their contraband, lie, cheat and steal their way through their
sentence fed by a system that perpetuates itself with dehumanizing the man
without worrying about rebuilding his character.
Corrections? Each
shakedown, each lockdown, shakes a little more out of the foundation of prison
as a place to correct and rehabilitate.
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