Chapter 3: “Relax, Said the Night Man, We are Programmed to Receive”
This is part of a series. For more please go to the Table of Contents.
All of us on that windowless transport vehicle assumed we were on our way to Central State Reception Center in Brown County — which turned out to be true and false. That was out first stop, but only long enough to be unloaded to join a larger group of inmates from two other counties. This entire group of about 45 men were lined up on either side of a loading bay and subjected to the day’s first humiliating strip-search. We all had to pull our dicks up and swing them around, then pull our balls up, then turn around facing the wall, squat and cough 3 times — all in an effort to ensure we had no contraband. The county guards then took back our boxers and socks, which were replaced with “state whites”, but strangely we were not provided any other state prison clothes at that point. Instead it was back into our county jumpsuits and all loaded on to the state bus — which did have windows but covered with metal mesh. At least now we could see what was happening to us.
As we left the state reception center parking lot there was great discussion as to where we were going — and why. Most speculation centered on the Northern State Reception Center (NSRC). As the bus pulled off the local expressway and on the the interstate highway northbound that speculation proved correct. I had never heard of the NSRC — in discussing the matter ahead of time my wife and I had just assumed I’d be going to the one in my own county. But here we were headed on a two hour ride in a dirty , smelly state corrections bus to a whole different (and significantly colder) part of the state. Why? Perhaps the CSRC was just too full.
In my state, a “reception center” is your first stop when you go to prison. There they evaluate your physical and mental health before deciding which “permanent camp” to send you to. While they have you there they can also get an idea of how big of an asshole you are, whether you are a gang member, whether you need psychiatric help, or something else. As soon as we were unloaded from the bus we were all lined up against a long wall and subjected to another humiliating strip search.
This time our county-issued jump suits and “slides” were taken away and we were each given a pair of boxers and a towel. We were herded thru a metal detector and into the “Intake” room. I saw a clock on the wall — it was about 9:00 am.
All morning and into the early afternoon we went through the state’s prison intake procedures — being weighed, measured, photographed, finger-printed, having all our hair shaved off, etc., etc. Each of us was called to the property window were they opened our property bag from the county and decided what we could and could not have. Clothing — no. Writing tablet — no. Why? They don’t allow yellow paper! To my distress, my prescription papers — NO! No reason given, but fortunately they did allow my two lab orders. To my relief when I got to the nurses desk it turned out all my prescription info had been correctly forwarded from the county anyway. Whew. While all this was going on the officers were cursing at us, barking orders and threatening various degrading forms of punishment, such as requiring two unruly inmates to scrub the floor with a toothbrush.
Also while this was going on, lunch time came. They brought in modular serving trays of whatever was being served up in the “chow hall” that day: basic, but a step up from anything I had had at the county. At last we were issued our state corrections clothing known as “blues”, which consisted of a short sleeved shirt and pants — both blue of course. Also, a pair of Crocks. We were then lined up and walked out onto the prison grounds in single file. As we walked along the man behind me suddenly blurted out, “Oh junk, old school! You ain’t got no jacket!” I looked around and only then realized everybody had a jacket except me — it must’ve been my mistake not to get one in all the confusion of intake! Although it was a beautiful sunny afternoon in early spring in the southern US, there were still quite a few weeks of cold weather coming, especially in the early mornings. Holy shit, what was I gonna do now?
Our last stop that first day was to meet individually with our “classification officer” to make sure all our paperwork was in order. This was almost a complete waste of time. Meanwhile, all of us were herded into a place called “the breezeway” and ordered to sit in silence on concrete benches, waiting to be called. Many of these guys proved no more capable of silence than a bunch of middle school kids — after all, if they were possessed of a whole lot of self control they probably would not be in prison in the first place, right? Oh wait — I guess the same could be said for me! The officers continued cursing us and threatening to make everyone stand and face the wall if we didn’t shut the fuck up.
Once all this was over we were again lined up and led to our first accommodations in a building called The Block. Fortunately they never required us to march. The Block was a two-story concrete block building — every building of every prison was concrete block — with 4 wings of cell blocks. In the center of the building were the guards’ offices and what not, through which you must pass on your way in and out. This was also the only place where there was a clock. Then into a “quarter deck” and through a locked gate, after which you could either go upstairs or downstairs to a long row of two-man cells all looking out. My cell was upstairs.
Welcome to state prison. How shall I describe what it’s like to be in a cell block with 60–70 inmates all yelling back and forth to each other even when they are on lock-down? These were old school jail cells too, with bars and squeaking sliding doors and everything. To my surprise my cell mate turned out to be one of the two quiet guys I had been sitting next to all the way back in the Brown County holding cell early that morning waiting to be transported. This was an enormous relief! I immediately knew I would not be sharing a prison cell with a total fucking asshole.
Once we were all in our cells we were in lock down for the rest of that day and night except for “chow call” when we were all led single file over to the “chow hall” for supper. Again, the food was passable, warm, and certainly an improvement over the County jail.
Most of the “new gains” were not there for the first time. My cellmate Simon, for example, was back for his 5th visit. This time because he was in a terrible motorcycle accident. When the cops and medics showed up to scrape him off the road they discovered he was a convicted felon carrying an unregistered firearm. Bad idea — and also a probation violation. For all that, he and for that matter most of the guys were pretty easy to get along with, at least as long as they were in the structured environment of a prison.
Many of the inmates knew each other — either from prison or from the outside or both. They talked constantly and hung out around the sitting tables downstairs, or just yelled back and forth when they were in lock down. They also rapped. Some of the guys were known to be “good rappers” but as an old white guy I found it impossible to appreciate this form of entertainment. They often rapped in call-and-response, where the “good rappers” who knew all the lyrics would call out most of a line and the others would fill in the end. The lyrics were so vulgar and misogynistic that they would make the average person’s hair stand on end. If all the curse words, especially F, S, and B — and all the racial epithets, — especially N — were to be removed from these rap lyrics — for that matter from the general conversation in prison — the whole place would be completely quiet — nobody, including the correctional officers, would have anything to talk about!
Most of the day and most of the night in the cell block echoed with the sound of rapping and cursing. I couldn’t understand much of it because it was all done in a very thick southern ghetto drawl that I had very little experience with. I told myself I would probably learn the dialect over time. I must hasten to point out that I was in just as much trouble understanding the white officers, who who spoke in a very thick redneck drawl I couldn’t understand either! I did my best with the black officers, many of whom seemed to be “bi-lingual.”
Most of the first week they kept us busy with a lot of physical and mental health evaluations. The first morning after our arrival we were awakened at 3:30AM and lined up to go for lab work. It was the coldest morning I experienced while at the NSRC — it was in the mid 20’s — yes, it does get that cold in February in the American south — and I had no jacket. As they lined up outside in the dark all the inmates around me shivered and muttered under their breath about how COLD they were. Don’t even talk to me about it! First we had to pee in a cup. My cell mate and I had peed as soon as we got up, so our bladders were empty. But it turned out that quite a few of the guys were hanging back and taking drinks form the fountain so we were not alone. I hung back too and when I finally felt ready I surprised myself — no problem!
Next was breakfast at the “chow hall”, followed by a health services orientation, where among other things we watched not one but two videos about how to avoid being raped in prison and what to do if you are sexually harassed or raped. It turned out that they play these two videos every time you are transferred and go through intake at your new “camp”. Little did I know how helpful this information would become later in my incarceration … Following this, educational testing and, for a small number of us (by which I mean the sex offenders), DNA sampling. Then back to the dorm to be locked down and counted. They did counts at least 5 times each day the whole time I was in state prison. Often they did re-counts. We were always locked down for “count time.”
On Thursday of that first week we spent all morning getting psychological testing, which I actually found to be fun. It consisted of a bunch of written tests where you had to find and draw in the missing piece of a picture, figure out which shape matched the others, etc., etc.
The next day they lined us up first thing in the morning again and took us all over to get our “initial physical exam.” There were a lot of guys. Each one had to be seen individually. It took all morning during which time we were all expected to sit quietly on benches. A lot of the guys had nowhere near enough self-control to do this, so the officers yelled and cursed at us all morning. When I did get to see the doctor she surprised me by actually being interested in my prostate problems and asking if I could please get all my urology reports to her. Wow! She also prescribed low-dose aspirin which the County Jail had refused to give me. And — TADAHH — I was finally able to get to the pharmacy that same afternoon and pick all my prescriptions up! When I walked back to The Block with a fist full of pill trays, one of the guys called out, “Oh Fuck! Old School’s gettin’ high to-NITE!” So I made sure to show them around liberally and make clear it clear that these were just “old guy meds” and not mood-altering psych meds they might be tempted to steal.
Not much happens in prison on weekends, at least in my state. On Monday, however (day 7 of my stay at NSRC), we all went to our final “classification interview” which turned out to be a complete waste of time (as was every other visit I ever had with a classification offer). During my “interview” my “team officer” told me that because I was an atheist I am “delusional and self-absorbed” — her exact words! I fumed to myself for days afterward, racking my brain trying to remember any time in my entire life when I had ever accused anyone of being delusional and self-absorbed for being a Christian! She also told me that the only “cure” for a person with my charges was to turn myself over to Jesus. I thought, “she knows absolutely nothing about me — how can she prescribe such a ‘cure?’” Besides, wasn’t the only thing Jesus ever said about a sex offense “Go and sin no more?” If I had turned myself over to Jesus, would she have sent me home right then? I doubt it!
Dormitory Living at NSRC
On my 8th day at NSRC — after the “classification interviews” — most of the “new gains” in my group were transferred from The Block to one of the numerous dormitory buildings. The whole time I was in The Block everybody kept saying how much better everything would be once we were in a dorm. I was apprehensive — and it turned out I had reason to be. I will have more to say about dormitories, cell blocks, and different levels and types of incarceration in America’s prison system in Chapter 4, but for now let’s just say I was assigned a bunk in a large room with about 70 other inmates. Not comfortable. All 70 of us also shared a locker-room style bathroom that afforded no privacy at all and overlooked the dorm room.
However, this did turn out to be where I finally got a jacket. Remember my lack of a jacket? I had been trying one way or another every day to get a jacket and had just about given up hope. But when we all turned in our prison “blues” to get a clean set on the second night at this dorm, I leaned into the laundry window as they were pushing the clothes at me and said meekly, “Is there any chance you’ve got a jacket in there?” Getting no answer I took the clothes and stepped aside to start getting dressed when — FOOOP!! — a jacket flew out of the window and dropped to the floor at my feet! It was old and tattered and one of the pockets was almost ripped off, but to me it was like a dream come true. There were quite a few very chilly mornings to come.
To my surprise, in the early morning hours (about 4AM) of that second night the dorm officer awakened me and several other guys. “Pack your shit, you’re being transferred to the North Unit.” Yes, the NSRC had a North Unit and I had heard that it was all dorms.
This transfer, even within the same corrections facility, took most of the day. But when I finally got settled in this new dorm there was good news — the bathroom there was an improvement! It was still locker-room style, but there were tile half-walls separating the toilets and there were two 3/4 walls, one with sinks on either side and the other separating the sinks from the wall with the shower heads on it. This arrangement provided at least some modicum of privacy.
However, the TV room at the North Unit was no improvement at all. As before, multiple loud conversations covered the blaring TV which showed total garbage in an echo chamber. The channel selection in any prison TV at least in my state sucks too, consisting of only the most basic over-the-air digital TV stations which can be received by the individual TVs at the dorms via crappy antenna set-up so that the reception is terrible and constantly breaking up. And oh yes, all the TVs are old, thrift shop quality cathode ray TVs too.
While I’m talking about my last few days at the NSRC I will take the opportunity to describe “count times.” Every prison I was in was constantly and obsessively counting the inmates. On one hand, I can’t blame the prison authorities for wanting to be sure no one has escaped in the past few hours. I have no doubt that escapes are attempted all the time and they have plenty of bitter experience with this problem. On the other hand it often seemed like overkill to me. Each day there was a count after breakfast, another count at mid-day (before lunch), an afternoon count and two evening counts, one after supper and one at 10:00PM. That’s 5 counts per day, and this does not include overnight counts. For each count all the inmates are locked down. When you are in a cell that means being locked in your cell. At a dorm this means being restricted to your bunk and sitting up facing forward while the guards walk around and count count everyone. They always have 2 officers do this, they each count separately and their two counts must agree. Then they will say, “relax” which means you can lay down or read on your bunk, but you can’t leave your bunk (except one at a time in the bathroom) until the entire count is over — by which I mean until every dorm has been counted and every count has been reported to the main office and the main office confirms that the count is correct and gets back to each individual dorm officer to confirm that. If anything goes wrong anywhere on the compound they do a re-count — you have to go through the whole process all over again. Even without a recount this process can take almost an hour before the dorm officer declares “count clear” and you can go about your business. So at least 5 hours of every day are consumed by this obsessive counting activity. But hey — it’s not like we all have something else to do, right?
It was Thursday afternoon when I arrived at the North Unit dorm, and as I say very little happens in prison on weekends, so I just settled into the routine of counts and crappy food and boredom…
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