Working in Michigan's Prisons is Doin' Time, Too

 "I've been down for 18 years," the nurse told me as she took several vials of my blood. It was a comment she made during small talk as she prepped and then poked me with a needle. 

I laughed lightly when I heard that. "I always love it when I hear staff members talk like they're in prison," I said with a little resentment. After all, they can go home at night. 

"Yeah, but I'm not the same person I was when I started working here. I'm more mean," she said with a little hesitation and confusion in her voice. "Less empathetic and caring?" I offered as she nodded affirmatively.

"Even working in prison will change you," she said with bitterness. 

I knew exactly what she was saying. It's something I have to fight every day. Prison is, after all, a collection both of people who made horrible choices and of those who are committed idiots. It's hard to not change in negative ways when you're surrounded by stupidity, blatant selfishness, and moral bankruptcy. Not all prisoners, or all staff, are like that, but many are. 

I'm often critical about the complete apathy demonstrated by many corrections officers and some staff members. Kites (notes/letters written asking for information about one thing or another) are routinely ignored, disrespect is rampant, and fairness, compassion, and integrity are laughably absent. Maybe the Michigan Department of Corrections is trying to hire people with those qualities, like their T.V. ads claim, but these qualities are not common among prison staff. 

Yet, I also understand how even working in prison makes people cynical. The disrespect, inattention, moral corruptness, and lack of compassion are perhaps even more prevalent among prisoners. 

Recently, for example, we were locked down because the power had to be turned off for several hours. The prisoners had become quite restless as time dragged on. Soon, I heard a chorus start from the segregation cells, and pick up around the housing unit. 

"Help! Help! He's having a heart attack!" prisoners were yelling from their cells all around the unit. Three fairly new offices streamed out from the office, running down the base as they scanned the unit, looking for where help was needed. That's when the laughter and catcalls started. 

I was instantly furious. Yes, I hate bullies--even if it's directed towards corrections officers. But more so, I was angry because these idiot prisoners were literally training the officers to ignore us. When a real emergency happens, these same officers aren't as likely to risk looking stupid by responding with haste. Such short-sighted frivolity. 

Being a woman who works in prison, like the nurse who took my blood, has to be even worse. Not only must they suffer the routine stupidity of disrespectful prisoners, but they also undergo misogynistic sexual harassment -- from prisoners and other staff members. I've literally seen the transformation happen in less than a year's time. A female officer will start out being kind and treating prisoners with dignity, and turn to being cold and uncaring. And I don't blame them!

It's hard to have compassion, as a prisoner, for people whose job it is to keep you locked up. Yet, I feel like it's an important part of my own rehabilitation to cultivate empathy. That means perspective taking, even of those who slam my cell door shut and treat me like I'm less than human. It's a fight to maintain my humanity, but I refuse to surrender that to prison, too.