Citation: Welcome to Warren: Inmates and guards on life in prison [Video file]. (2004). In Films On Demand. Retrieved May 11, 2015, from https://digital.films.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?aid=7967&xtid=35292
Correction Officers Working at Warren Correctional Institution (05:01)
From Title: Welcome to Warren: Inmates and Guards on Life in Prison
Discussing their duties at Warren Correctional Institution, officers work to maintain order among the inmates without using violence. Preferring to be called correction officers, not guards, many liken their job to that of a well-paid babysitter.
Video Transcript:
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Get undressed. Take your shirt off. I’m going to give you your pants back because we have no jumpsuit. It’s going to be in one of your bags. Let me have your pants. Do you have any plates or partials? Open your mouth. I need you to lift your tongue. OK, go behind the ears. Go through your hair for me. OK, look again straight up. Look to the side. Turn around. Show me your right foot. Left foot. Squat for me. OK, put everything on. Undo your jacket. Undo your jacket.
[DOOR SLAMS OFFSCREEN]
Officer PJ Walker, you’re now relieved. Officer Lush has showed up. He forgot about the in-service day. It was mainly the relief officers that didn’t follow up to make sure that their quarters took the trash up to the gate. Remember, these people are not here because they are responsible. We have to go behind to make sure they get the job done. Everybody have a good shift.
Chow! Chow! Chow. You want coffee?
Yes.
How many? How many? How many coffees you want? Two?
“Guard” is so negative. That is just so negative. To me, a guard is descriptive of someone that is not well-trained or well-educated, it’s just an overseer, kind of like in Shawshank Redemption.
Open that cell!
Hey Needer, you people run this place like a fucking prison!
You get together, you pick out somebody, you beat the hell out of them. There’s no education requirements. You just come in and you’re guarding. We run a different kind of camp here. And and I think it could pretty well be attested to. We don’t have as many episodes of violence.
Our job is pretty monotonous. That’s the reason why they always want to put the exciting things, the violence, and all this other stuff involved in the prison genre movies or TV show or whatever. We’re just here basically to make sure the routine goes uninterrupted.
The hard-core stuff is done out on the streets. We just watch them.
When you’re first starting, some of the people training you say you’re the best-paid babysitter in the world, and you really are. Because lots of them just act like big, dumb, aggressive kids.
Pull your pants up, at least, OK? All right, there you go.
I don’t want someone to see me.
You can take your movie star self out the way. Come on out. There you go.
Somebody’s got possible contraband in their cell. Hey, Ramsey, this is Walrath in 1-A. Hey, I’ve got an inmate Johnson in here, he’s one of the guys that works in community service. He’s got an IOC signed off by Sargent Daniels saying that he can keep certain things in his cell, like scissors. He’s got about a dozen pairs of scissors, needles, and stuff like that from the community service room. It’s at least a year old. You want it taken out?
Right there.
If an inmate gets a ticket, if it’s something serious, then it goes before the rules infraction board. Generally what happens is the inmate comes in. He’s read the charges. He’s given the opportunity to present his defense. Once the inmate goes in and testifies and presents his side, then the panel deliberates and they determine whether or not he’s guilty. And then they can net out a penalty. Gephardt, we the members of the Rules Infraction Board have voted independently for the following charges: For the charge of Class 2, Rule 1, disobeying a direct order, we find you guilty. For the charge of Class 2, Rule 9, dealing from which any payment of any kind is made do or expected, we find you guilty. Penalty imposed of 15 days of disciplinary control. In March 14, 2001. Out March 28, 2001. Recommend LC placement, however we’re putting on the shelf for 90 days. Do you understand the penalty imposed?
Yes sir.
Wish to appeal?
No sir.
Step forward and sign documentation.
Sign underneath my name?
You want to be consistent on the penalties that you impose, and the discipline that you impose. I think we try to and do that here. I think we’re pretty, pretty consistant. That’s the big thing.
Once an inmate goes before the RIB, if he’s found guilty, he can be assessed what’s called Disciplinary Control Time. Which is time back here, segregated away from general population.
I wouldn’t want to be in here. I mean, you’ll see throughout the day, all these guys do is sit in there. You know? Oh yeah, you can smell it right here. And it’s been scrubbed like two or three times. This guy was rubbing human defecation all over him self, man.
Why was he doing that?
I don’t know. I guess it was mental. I don’t know why he did it. One day we caught him putting some feces on his toothbrush, brush his teeth like that. He took and drew a window on his wall in feces. It’s crazy. I think that’s where a lot of the problems in this unit come from. They’re in there in their cells and there’s nothing to do. And they just go nuts.
That’s why I’m holding this. Look, I’ve been trying to get this here as evidence.
What is it?
I’ve been on hunger strike. I haven’t ate since Friday noon.
Well what is that for?
Because they keep messing with my food, call me PC bitches, all this. Making threats and all that. Man, I’ve been trying to lay back. You know, I’ve been cool.
Are you still on that?
Huh?
You still on that?
Yes.
This is the amount of rust you’ve got in the water down here. That’s rust. This is a piece of T-shirt. I stuck this in the hole, right, so you don’t hear all the noise. It’s constantly draining. So I stick this up in there, and it kind of muffles it a little bit. This white T-shirt since Saturday. Maintenance do their repairs on Tuesday. Officer called two times yesterday for repairs. I heard them. But that don’t help. Do they care? No.
We come to the hole, all we’re allowed is T-shirts, drawers, and socks. So everything I’ve got right now is in a folder. We don’t got no privacy. Look at the toilet. Do you see the toilet? We got to do stuff like this. Take this. So I can use this while he in bed, right? Yes it’s boring in here. Mr. Kool-aid gets mail, they give us a free stamp to write home. They make sure we get Christian books and stuff.
Do you like those?
Yes. Ain’t enough air in here.
Is it hard to breathe?
You can’t open this.
Is it hot in there?
Yes. See how we live? We’re down here buck naked. See the food? See what we get? See what the fuck we be eating? This is all we got.
All push-ups, chin-ups, pull-ups, walking.
Just keeping in shape.
Talking to myself, talking to the birds.
What kind of things do you say to the birds?
I just tell them to shut up, quit chirping, making all that god damn noise. I concentrate on my work out.
What kind of stuff do you say to yourself?
Just keep going, working out. Keep going. Keep going. Drive. That’s what life’s about, drive, dude. Not much else you can say to yourself. You get out of the hole and try and stay out.
All right.
Ain’t never getting out of prison anyway, so it’s the nature of the beast, crime and punishment. Always, I can hope. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. But it just don’t look good. Depends on how strong you are.
Let me get that belt, man.
I just pretty much part time, doing construction. Doing that part time. And this came open. I got on here, been here ever since. Probably be here till I die.
Really? Pretty good package for you? You must stay for a reason, right?
Yes, insurance.
Till you die? You’re going to stay here till you die?
I’m probably going to die young. The good die young, brother. Shoot, I got 22 years left before I can retire.
I don’t plan on dying here.
If
I mean, it’s prison. You’re locked up. Eight hours a day I’m locked up. That’s the way I see it. I’m just like damn, this is crazy.
Well if they weren’t before, this job will make you a different type of person. It will gradually change your personality.
It makes you incredibly cynical, and cautious, and distrusting. You’re going to forever be bringing your logical, and your rational, and your normal way of thinking in here trying to incorporate into an illogical, irrational, and dysfunctional environment.
It’s a balancing act. We have a saying, leave your work problems here and pick up your home life problems at the door and vice versa. If you mix both of them, it’s just a bad mix.
Did you all hear about Mony? Mony got walked off for bringing drugs into the institution. He’ll be under investigation for over three years. Inmates a lot times keep us in check. An inmate is going to turn you over eventually. You mess with that stuff, you do that stuff, you gone. That’s just the bottom line.
Oh yeah, if you can’t deal with the stress, you know, I had to deal with that for a while. You’ll turn into a real asshole. That’s what my wife told me, anyways.
When you’re going through the grind every day, you get kind of burnt out, you tend to take your problems home with you.
If you take this home with you, it’ll ruin everything.
You go home and they ask you how was your day, and it’s like, I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s talk about something else. How was your day?
He doesn’t talk about it a whole lot, per se, but you can tell his actions.
Yes.
So, for the most part he keeps it together. Every now and then, you know, he’ll blow up just over something small just because of what he experienced. Or when he gets mad and talks, you have to differentiate between the family and the prisoners.
Turn that shit off, you’re out of there now. Turn it off.
These are gentlemen who have separations from general population. They may have felt like they were threatened by certain corrections officers. They have a separation from one person, or there’s been a death threat. Have a lot of baby rapers, that’s what we call them, child molesters, pedophiles, up in this section, too. Child molesters and things are not held in very high regard within the prison population. Some people here we have have extreme cases of mental problems. In some instances, actual mental retardation. And as you know, people like that a lot of times are not always responsible for their actions.
I guess he would be kind of functionally retarded. Maybe the guy that’s sucking his thumb. He committed a felony, but he’s actually very child-like.
They take different type of psychotropics. It depends on what they’ve been diagnosed as having. It has different reactions. Some of them, it makes them sleep continuously. And other ones, it makes them wack.
I’m supposed to be getting out this year some time.
Oh yeah?
Yeah. I have six more years to do on a life sentence.
What are you in here for?
Rape.
How long ago was that? This was back in ’96. I think it messes with a person’s mind, being locked up in a cage like an animal. I’ve been through psych, I’ve lost I guess you’d say, my mind and shit when I first got my sentence. I had to go through psych rehabilitation to get back sane, get back my sanity. Other than that, I’m fine and shit. I’m just waiting to get out, hoping and praying I’ll get out one day.
They’re all basically insane. You just see funny stuff.
Like what?
Just the why they talk, the way they act, their mannerisms. We had one guy up there that thought he was the Antichrist. Another guy thought he was Jesus. There’s actually a white dude up there, thought he was Wesley Snipes. But you know, there was something wrong in the head with them before they got locked up anyways. But you know, that’s free entertainment. I’m sure it’s like that everywhere. No matter where you go, you got to deal with idiots. It’s just that we have 1,500 of them.
As far as this environment here, 1-B, is for guys that stay out of trouble. This block is very laid back, it’s relaxed, and it kind of runs itself. But it’s just trying to stay out of the way and respect the staff member’s job. There’s nothing different about this pod. It’s just that the only difference in privileges is that you can take a shower anytime you want. You get an extra visit a month. You can go to the library any time you want. You can go to the recreation department anytime you want when the hours are called.
It takes stress away from you sometimes when you’re pretty much stressed out. She’s like almost like a kid her self. She’s going to show you her affection. She’s willing to more or less come towards you. More or less come towards you sometimes and find out what your mood is today. Because sometimes your moods can swing by being in the prison. In here it’s almost like a mindset, a macho type thing. Everybody must remain hard. You know what I’m saying? You can see guys sometimes who would normally be a hard type, a dog will come up to her and the first thing she do is she wants to pet it. Next thing you know you hear a grown man talk like a baby. Once again, that’s a bridge gapper there.
How long did it take you to build that?
Working time, almost a year. And it’s all made out popsicle sticks and Elmer’s glue. Got to use toenail clippers for all your tools and that’s it. Try to get it done by this Christmas to get it out to my granddaughter. That’s the worst part about being locked up is being away from your family. You can get along with your cellie and everything else, but that’s not family. You know? It’s nothing like being able to hoot and holler at the young ones and stuff like that.
How long are you in here for?
I got 85-250. Hopefully I’m going back to court to get it dropped down to 15-60 and that will be like a reprieve.
This area is used also as a classroom, a part time classroom, to confer GED classes. This is the computer lab that we have. They’ve got about 20 computers that the college students have access to. Right now they just have a business degree. Actually, it’s not even a degree, it’s a two year business certificate program. A lot of cutbacks. ’96/’97 was the year that that happened, and we fell from 250 students to 40. Money talks. Budget cuts are everywhere. That’s one of the things that has been a negative impact. 98% of these guys are going to get out back on the streets some day. Close to 70% don’t have a high school diploma or GED when they come in here. Would you rather have them sitting in here playing cards, playing chess in the pod all day long, or would you rather have them have some kind of degree or skill that they can get back out and take back out.
People have to realize it’s all well and good to say you want to lock up somebody for the rest of their life. The problem is, if you lock that person up then you have to deal with that person. You have to feed him, you have to house him, you have to take care of all his medical benefits. There’s a lot more involved to it than just turning that key and forgetting about that person.
We got a couple of guys here now, when I first got here they were kids. I mean no facial hair. They were babies. My children were older than these guys were. And they used to put little green stars or their ID badges so that they knew to give them whole milk so that their daily nutritional requirements were being met. They were just that young. Yes, I think Chad and Jones were both about 16. Like I said, when I first got here, they were short and they looked like little bitty kids amongst all these men. I had been here about a year and a half before I ever talked with them at the JLP program. And he was talking to a group of youngsters that they brought in, and I said, why are you here? And he said, oh, for murder. And I said well what about Jones? He said he’s here for murder, too. I said how much time are you doing? 20 years flat time. So you come into the system when you’re 16, you do 20 years. 16, you can’t see this far. You know? This becomes family. This becomes normal. You don’t have to worry about people judging you or looking at you and talking about the baby that you raped, or the woman that you sliced up, or the bank that you robbed, or the cop that you killed.
So what happens when he gets out after 20? Technically, 36 is not old. 36 is young. But at 36 he will have never had a driver’s license, a checking account, a bill, a responsibility, a baby. Probably never even had a sexual relationship with anyone. And he’s supposed to get out now and become productive in society? I venture to say not. I venture to say that he’ll probably end up right back in the system.
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