Post Thirteen

Hard Times: Part Seven

After the murder of Officer Lathrem things changed very quickly at Charlotte C.I.  Security had a new Warden, Colonel, and Major.  The number of new security staff who were transferred from North Florida brought a new, hard attitude towards how things were done.  Charlotte was no longer a general population prison.  Instead, it was now part of a handful of prisons in the United States that were classified as "Supermax"; prisons within prisons.  Supermax prisons housed the inmates regular prisons couldn't or wouldn't.  Some famous supermax prisons you may have heard of are Pelican Bay (California) and Colorado State Prison.  Rehabilitation takes a backseat to incarceration and security.  Discipline is applied without regards to civilian sensibilities.  This prison was no longer a fun place to work; it was a serious battleground where the strong survived, and the weak quit. 

As the Close Management Classification Officer before Charlotte went Supermax my Supervisor and Assistant Warden relied on me to implement Classification's compliance with the Osterback lawsuit (see previous post).  This compliance required a great deal of contact and coordination with the other Departments (Security, Mental Health, Medical, and Education).  Something called the Multi-Disciplinary Services Team (MDST) was formed.  The MDST was the lynchpin of the Osterback decision.  In short, the MDST coordinated the efforts of all departments within a single dorm.  For example, I was assigned to G-Dorm.  For G-Dorm, the MDST consisted of me, a Mental Health counselor, a teacher, a nurse, and a Lieutenant.  Theoretically, we were all equal, but in practice Security, Classification, and Mental Health were the most active and had the most power (in that order).  I must say that the MDST, while a pain in some areas (worthless paperwork that needed to be filled out, for one) was basically a good thing.  It brought together all departments for the first time in history, and allowed for teamwork that never would have existed otherwise.

Within a couple of months after the murder we started receiving our new Close Management inmates en masse.  A large amount of these inmates were received from Florida State Prison (FSP).  FSP is one of state's oldest prisons, and had been our only Supermax prison in Florida befor the Osterback lawsuit.  Now, FSP was transferring some of it's worst inmates to both Charlotte and Santa Rosa C.I.  I can't say I was truly prepared for what came off of those buses.  These inmates were unlike anything I had worked with before; they were as hard as marble and most of their jackets (files) had to be stored in multiple boxes.  A great many had killed before, both in and out of prison, and none had made much of an effort to assimilate to general population.  What struck me the most was their silence; at least at first.

At FSP you are not allowed to talk without permission.  This rule was an FSP rule, and Charlotte had never applied such a strict standard.  How FSP managed to do this one cannot say, but I am sure it involved methods that were not entirely legal.  Most of their inmates didn't say a word for a couple of weeks.  I thought, "Wow, this is a great!".  It didn't last.  Once they realized that their would not be any "discipline" for speaking they started yelling and screaming at anything and anyone.  It was as if a bear had awakened from it's hibernation.  The fact that the metal plates covering the windows had been taken down meant that anyone was a potential target.  This problem had to be solved, and Security fought back.

Sabre Red is a type of pepper spray/tear gas that is incredibly powerful.  It was not something one could go buy out of a self-defense catalog.  The spray consisted of a 5% burning agent which would coat the lungs.  In short, every time you took a breath you felt as thought your insides were literally on fire.  I once caught a wiff of this stuff from a good 50 feet away, and nearly gagged.  Security responded to disobedience with this new weapon.  A normal use of force involved an inmate refusing to be cuffed.  After going through the motions the inmate's cell would be flooded with Sabre Red through the cell's food flap.  The result was immediate compliance. 

In the worst situations, such as inmate's flooding their cells and covering their windows, Security would send in an extraction team.  You have probably seen videos of this process on television.  I never really witnessed one myself as Security cleared the dorm of all civilians.  However, I have seen the end result, and the inmate always looked as though they had been through hell.  Here is one story a Lieutenant told me:

An inmate was refusing to pull his towel out of the window or comply with any verbal commands.  The Lieutenant brought down the extraction team and video camera (all premeditated uses of force are video taped).  Assembling all this manpower takes time and is a very much a hassle. 

The inmate thought he would get over on Security by taking down his towel and proudly saying, "I'll come out now", with a big smile on his face. 

The Lieutenant was not impressed.  He said, "You made your bed, now sleep in it.   Roll the tape!"  The inmate looked quite shocked as the extraction team burst into his cell, and the inmate received the full force of an electric shock shield.  Did the Lieutenant follow procedure?  By the letter of the law, of course not.  But it worked, and that inmate wouldn't pull a stunt like that again for a long time. 

As I said, G-Dorm was my new home.  My Lieutenant was a former Army Sergeant that had a tough reputation.  He was from Chicago and was as hard on his officers as the inmates.  He was not entirely popular but he was fair.  If you did what he said you didn't have any problems.  If you broke the rules, you did.  It was that simple.  His view of order was on the same wavelength as my own.  Early on in our three years together we set the precedence of our cooperation in stone.  I was conducting my weekly tour when one of my inmates started yelling to me after I left his cell door; a big no-no.  I attempted to counsel the inmate, but he would have none of it.  For a couple of minutes I let him get it out of his system, but finally I had had enough.  I told him, "Get off the door". 

In Close Management you are not allowed to be on the door unless there is a reason.  Once I had given the inmate a direct verbal order to get off his door that was an ultimatum.  If he refused, bad things could happen.  He knew it, and I knew it.  After two more orders to get off the door I could see this was going no where.  By then, my Lieutenant had shown up, and he said, "What's the matter?". 

I said, "The inmate won't get off his door." 

The Lieutenant coldly looked at the inmate, and said, "Get off the door".  The inmate made some kind of vile remark.  The Lieutenant calmly told me, "We'll take care of this, but you had better go back to Classification.".  I did.

The next time I went through the dorm the inmate apologized to me in extreme terms.  He said that he would never disrespect me again, and that he was sorry. 

I said to him, "What happened to your face?".  He said, "Oh, I slipped and fell on the toilet.". 

"Oh...well, I'm glad that's over." 

Not looking me in the eye he said, "Me, too, Mr. Z."  

Sounds awful, doesn't it?  Well, if you haven't been there and done it, believe me, you can't judge.  This one example is nothing really; it's an everyday, or at least every week occurrence in lock down prisons.  We were charged with housing the worst criminals in the country.  Imagine doing that with nothing more than harsh language.  It's impossible. 

In addition to G-Dorm, I also was assigned to Y-Dorm.  Y-Dorm wasn't really a dorm.  It was shaped like an X with only two wings and one floor (fun fact; the higher-ups in Tallahassee made us change the dorm's name from "X" to "Y" as "X" gave off a bad connotation...and we pay these people?).  We housed the worst of Charlotte's inmates there; inmates who would gladly ride shotgun for Satan himself.  I remember one of our first tenants.  He was transferred from FSP in the middle of the night for badly assaulting two of their officers.  In order to save his life (not kidding) they moved him to us (in the old days, the guy wouldn't have stood a chance).  It took ten officers to get him into the cell, from what I was told.  When I went in to the wing the next morning this inmate had literally ripped the bunk from a concrete wall.  The bunk had been welded into the wall.  Feces were everywhere, and it appeared that was what his dinner had consisted of.  I can still remember the smell.  I have never smelled dead bodies, but I don't think it could be much worse. 

For the most part, the three years after the murder were my best in the prison.  I loved working with my staff, and things ran very smoothly (at least as much as possible).  I never had a suicide or murder in my dorm; never even a serious assault.  We ran a tight ship, and the inmates respected that.  Like, no, but respected; huge difference.  You never want an inmate to like his situation or you; it's prison, after all.

Next post I will close out my prison story with my opinions on corrections in general.