But Hey …

            The other day another female officer was “escorted” – classy word “escorted” – off the compound. She was “involved” with an inmate. Her Don Juan was sitting in 7 building, a/k/a “the hole” dealing with a fraternization claim and a pending transfer. The officer? She’s gone, but she won’t be prosecuted. Officers in DOC don’t get prosecuted very often. That’s just the way things are. Two have a relationship; the inmate loses his good time and goes up a security level. But the officer – fired or, more likely, resigned and still gets the state retirement years from now. But hey, that’s the way it is.

            “Shawshank Redemption,” the movie and Stephen King short story, brutally depicts Andy Dufresne’s wrongful conviction and life behind bars in a fictitious Maine prison named Shawshank. We read and see a world of violence, and wasted life, and corruption at the hands of prison administrators and guards who treat the facility like their own money dispenser. In the midst of that Andy keeps hope. Hope, he says, “Is a good thing, maybe the best thing. And hope never dies.” But that’s just a movie, just an eighty-page short story. Funny how life imitates art.

            Corruption is rampant in here. And I would expect it from the inmates. After all, scams and hustles make life go on behind bars. But the extent to which those running the prison are dirty, well it’s hard to tell one shade of blue from another.

            Fraternization is always a problem. A few times each year there goes another female officer or female counselor out the front. And it’s not just the sex that gets compromised. Those officers look out for their “boos.” Dirty officers feed information; dirty inmates do the same. So the game’s fixed; the field isn’t level.

            Drugs, tobacco, cellphones. Imagine getting “shook down” by a dirty C/O. You know she brings in cartons of cigarettes for $100 a carton. Here she is confiscating your extra shirts. Who are you going to tell? For all you know, she’s paying off the C/O up front. And you – you’re screwed. You’re a rat; you’re off the compound, sent somewhere where time isn’t as easy. Hey, that’s the way it is.

            Officer comes to you, “I need a gun cabinet built.” The wood – birch, beautiful stuff – has been ordered through the school for “carpentry projects.” So the carpenter, getting forty-five cents an hour, builds the gun cabinet. It’s friggin’ beautiful; stained, inlay work. He builds two matching bookcases and end tables. And all that stuff – all that furniture – goes right out the back through the sally port. Free furniture courtesy of the taxpayers who’ve been lied to so they think these places keep them safe.

            Everything in here has a price. Everything in here can be bought. So you see guys getting high on the rec yard and you want to say, “Hey dumbass, that’s what they put you in here for.” You know the dope came in by an officer so you ignore it. All you do is hope, hope you get through this and when you get out someone gives a damn that you kept your honor and dignity in a dark and discouraging place.

            Andy says hope’s a good thing, maybe the best thing. Andy says hope never dies. But hey, that was a movie. This is real.