• Go To "About Me."
• Go To Penology Philosophy.
• Go To Guards.
• Go Back To Chapter One.
• Go On To Chapter Three: The Factory Of Crime

ABOUT ME

I'm an old, fat man who "fell" way back in 1975. Except for a few years out on escape, I've been in prison since then; over 21 years so far! I was convicted of seducing Diana, a 14 year-old student in my science class. In class she seemed to be a nice enough adolescent, but a bit delusional (the mysterious night-visitors type of fantasy). She's now approaching 40 years-of-age. All the while I've rotted in prison. My guilt or innocence is no longer relevant. Even in Pennsylvania, 21 years would seem to be enough!

For the past 15 years I was imprisoned in the moldering fortress called State Correctinal Institution, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, (SCI-H). The point of this series of essays is to expose a little of the reality of life. I know that numerous guards access this site. I hope they regard it as a mirror.

THE MIRACLES OF MODERN PENOLOGY

Prison is bad. What's worse, prison is stupid. It makes matters worse. The system simply doesn't work. It doesn't improve our society. It doesn't make better persons and it doesn't embellish our culture. The prison system actually injures us all and injures our society. The supposed cure for crime is worse than the crime itself.

The truth is that, unlike most of the world, we are a savage, mongrel breed of people. We think with our chemicals instead of our reason. Feelings make very poor judges. Savages don't think, they react. The prison system is as "humane" as a savage can become.

As the American culture becomes progressively more intolerant and severe, wiser heads than me should re-examine the whole crime/punishment cycle. Why do we have so many laws? What is an offender? How should the society deal with her and why? What should be the goal of a thoughtful "justice?"

Few places in the world are as hostile to personal freedom as Pennsyvlania. One would think that in a developed society, the people and their government could tolerate some freedom for the citizens. Conformity is for ants and religious bigots. And, in Pennsyvlania, it's also the code of the Ridge Reich.

Until someone works out what "justice" really is, we are saddled with "just-us" and with the prison system. I have no idea what the goal of the system is; revenge, I suppose. I think that the hormone-driven savages want to kill persons they don't like. Prison is intended to be as close to excecution as possible while still allowing the corpse to breath. After all, a breathing corpse suffers.

Of course, the most important reasons for a prisons system nowadays is economics. In Pennsylvania, imprisonment generates close to 15,000 very highly paid jobs. The effect of that bonanza is that hard, cold cash, over a billion dollars of it, now perpetuates the prison mania. And these are easy jobs. It doesn't require much skill to warehouse bodies.

THE BAD GUYS

So, we come to the heart of the matter. In human affairs, it's the people, not the system which makes misery. Even the prison system is nothing but a reflection of the people who operate it. These bad-guys come in several flavors. To understand the prison system, it's useful to understand the cogs and leaches which make it operate.

Morally speaking, at the top of the heap are the Opportunists. These are the 15% or so of Department Of Corrections ("DOC") employees who don't care where they work. They took the job becaue it pays so well and because the benefits provide everything from vacation to Viagra. They saw a gravy job and snatched it up! Many members of the support staffs (clerks, secretaries, some nurses, warm bodies) are opportunists. So are a few of the guards, perhaps 2 or 3 percent of them.

Somewhat less innocent are the Do-Goodders. About 15% of DOC employees are in this group. They are people who want to do good, they are kind-of like religous zealots. They know that offerenders have been naughty. They don't want to harm the prisoners. They want to remake them in their own image. These are self-righteous and arrogant folks, but they honestly want to do good, it's just their personal shade of good.

I've only met one guard who falls into this class, but many of the so-called treatment staff, counselors, and teachers are of this flavor.

The Boors are a much more distasteful class and they make up the largest group of DOC employees, about 30%. These are the generally dimwitted inept and bumbling social misfits who comprise the heart of the guard force and some other employees. They took the job partly for the moeny and the very low employment qualifications. But the real attraction of the position is its low behavior standard.

The Boors have few social skills. They are often drunks, divorced and unable to relate with others. Prisoners can be treated like trash. The Boors like that. They don't have to cope with their own ineptness.

The second largest group of guards and other members of DOC staff are the Power-Rangers. About 25% belong to this class. They are truly sick-dudes. These are the guards who feel personally weak, pussy-whipped, inferior and unworthy. To compensate, they crave power and positions of power where they are in charge. They are guards because they can be in control. People must obey them. That way, they feel better able to cope.

At SCI-H there are many guards of this type. The most amusing is a freakishly malformed man named Grove, but he's got plenty of company. I have a suit penidng against one named Pellegrino. Another, Mark Welch, burned my hands with hazardous chemicals to demonstrate his power to force me to do what he wanted.

The Power-Rangers are a very common bunch.

More reprehensible but less common are the Thugs. About 10% of guards and staff are in this group. They are truly evil. To them, their job is to inflict pain and punishment. These are the true sadists. They appear to derive perverse excitement from making others suffer.

For sickies like the Thugs, being a prison guard is the only place where he can get true satisfaction. Anyplace else, the behavior would be a crime. In prison, a Thug is not regarded as insane. He's often a valued co-worker.

I've known my share of thugs, but naming them would only earn them the envy of fellow thugs. These guys are proud of their sadism.

The most rare of DOC employees are the Exploiters. About 5% of the staff sees the DOC as more than a gravy train, more of a power base, more, even than a sadistic pleasure. To these few, the DOC is a stairway to paradise. It is a ladder leading to self-fullfillment, pride, importance and esteem.

The Exploiters couldn't climb the industrial or political ladders. They are too difficult. But they can scurry up the DOC ladder to "respectability" and social position.

We've come full circle to the Clowns that we started with, the comedy team of Frank and Myers. Next you should visualize the plant, the stage on which the crime of punishment is perpetrated.