Faheem is a 28 year old African-American, former Army
paratrooper, doing seven years for drug possession and sale. He’s also the building painter as well as a
general fix it man here in the college building. He does just about any job that needs to be
done in our building. He’s a bright,
funny, young Muslim student who can always be found walking around with a paint
brush or dust mop in his hand.
Last week during CO O’Tay’s shift the famous escape caper
took place. How do I describe CO O’Tay? She is a morbidly obese sixty year old black
woman who gets more grievances written on her than any officer on the
compound. She is loud, verbally abusive
and very short tempered. And, as
long-time, serious crime residents here will tell you, her behavior wouldn’t be
tolerated at a higher level. “You tell a
guy he has 75 years, even life and he’s at a level 4 and then subject him to
her? She wouldn’t last a week.” Sounds harsh and brutal, but that’s
prison. That’s the reality of Virginia’s
corrections system.
But here? Here guys –
out of their own ignorance – cuss her and yell back at her which just adds
gasoline to the fire. Its anger and
ignorance running head-on into more anger and ignorance. It’s toxic, it’s obnoxious and I sit on my
bunk and watch it play out daily.
So, Faheem goes down to maintenance and retrieves a large
folding ladder. He brings the ladder
back and moves around the building Windexing and wiping down all the large
mirrors hung at the connection of wall and ceiling that give the COs views down
every aisle and into most corners. And
the rag he’s using is thick with dirt and dust after only a mirror or two
because we live in squalor and filth.
Dirt, grime, insects, an occasional mouse, they all become part of the
4A landscape.
The job completed, the mirrors sparkle, and Faheem folds the
ladder, knocks on the booth glass and is buzzed out both doors and onto the
boulevard. The officer in the booth,
however, isn’t O’Tay. She was on
break. It was a “filler”, a roving CO
who sits in when COs go on break.
Faheem walks the ladder back to maintenance. No one’s in the shop. He leaves the ladder, comes back and is
admitted to the building and sees that rec call was just made. Quick change and out the door goes Faheem
which makes perfect sense because it’s 75° and sunny.
O’Tay returns from break and doesn’t see Faheem – or the
ladder. What does she do? She hits the emergency button and radios the
watch command office. “There’s a guy
with a ladder missing. I think he’s gone
over the fence.”
Within seconds of that transmission the loudspeaker begins
blaring “4A, bed 25, Antony [note: his
given “birth” name] report back to your building immediately!” A captain, three sergeants, and the unit
manager hustle down the boulevard and into our building. All three building officers (our two regulars
and the “floater”) are huddled in the control booth. “How longs he been missin?” “How the hell did he get a ladder to the
fence?” And Faheem? He’s out walking laps on the track on a
beautiful, sunny, early spring day.
Faheem had no idea what was happening. As he completed a lap he stopped at building
4’s rec gate and waited for an officer to open the lock. “He gave me a weird look when he let me in”,
Faheem told me later.
Five minutes of panicked questioning and then everyone
realized the ladder was where it should be, always was, and so was Faheem. And O’Tay?
Just a lot of muttering by officers about what an over-reactive idiot
she’d been. Here’s the serious side to the issue. Escape is nothing to joke about. An attempted prison escape carries an automatic loss of good time, a street charge which, if convicted under, carries a minimum of five years and you’re shipped to max security.
The problem isn’t O’Tay.
The problem, you see, is the system.
The system needs bodies – both inmates and folks who lack other job
skills to watch them. In most cases, the
only difference between officer and inmate is the conviction. The folks are from the same towns, same schools. The officers lack professionalism and
training because running a prison properly – safely, humanely, with appropriate
programs for rehabilitation – can’t be sustained with 40,000 inmates.
It’s the honest assessment of the prison system that escapes
reality, not Faheem and his ladder.
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