GET EVALUATED

Prisoners begin their journey at a reception center.  Upon arriving you begin a  number of evaluations.  Where you are regarding your level of education.  Do you have any previous medical history?  Are you sane?  Do you have prior gang history?  A file is created for you.  This becomes your jacket and will follow you your entire stay in the Department of Corrections.  Every time you get into trouble, go to confinement or fail a G.E.D test, it's logged in your file.  When you transfer from prison to prison your file moves with you.

You have probably seen someone charged, on the stand, who is found mentally unable to stand trial. Others are tried and convicted but as soon as they're evaluated here, they are declared psychiatric patients and begin medication.  There are special prisons for those special folks where they can receive the "care" they need.

D.O.C. is similar to the army.  They have officers, Sergeants, Colonels and Majors.  As you climb the ladder, so does  your pay.  Some hire on and don't want the headache created with higher status. Others strive to climb that ladder.  We call them "G.I. Joes".

Another way for an officer to up their pay is when they are in high-security situations.  There are certain pay increases when you place yourself in high-risk situations with high-rick inmates.

I'm not certain what the D.O.C. is attempting but they are closing down some of the psychiatric facilities and placing those inmates into general population at lower security prisons.  One logical explanation is the pay rate would then be adjusted for officers in those situations.  The downfall is that now you have very unpredictable inmates living among everyone.

I have done my time by staying in my own lane.  Staying out of others way.  Finding the path of least resistance.  We are creatures of habit, so once you see the general movement...just carve out your little nest and go with the flow.  You can't do that when the playing field is unstable.

Unstable brains make unstable scenarios.  So now there's a new thing to be aware of.  These guys don't need a reason to stab you.  They wake up and the voices tell them what to do.  Stare in their direction too long and their mind sees you as a threat.  They sit at a table and stick their leg into the aisle.  The first dude who comes along and accidentally brushes them gets assaulted.  And you're supposed to look ahead and see all this shit.  It's a lot to have on your plate.  Especially for these young men who just came in.  They don't see all I've explained to you.  The view I have has come from years of dealing with this place.  You don't learn this stuff overnight.

So our lives have become a high-risk situation.  You already live in an unpredictable world where the staff make all the rules.  You are guilty until proven innocent.  I'm sure you have woke up and the kids are throwing a fit.  You can't find an outfit to wear.  You and your partner have words that leave your spirit troubled.  Finally, you're out the door with a hundred problems on your mind.  Unable to properly focus you don't see the traffic light is red.  You drive into the intersection, a horn honks, and suddenly a car screeches to a halt only inches from your door.  It's OK... your safe.

Now picture a 200 pound naked man chasing you with an ice poker because the demons told him to kill you.  This life is full of land mines...waiting for you to activate the trigger.

And some days I feel I navigate the mines in here as well as the ones out there.

Thankfully it's not much longer now.