Most
prisons produce their own training of defenders and create their own internal
culture as a general rule. What is produced as mindset, traditions and customs
is based on leadership principles and ethics.
Integrity
is a vital part of the training for defenders as it must withstand the
challenges of the prisoners as well as the courts. Culture and integrity must
uphold mission statements, strategies and desired outcomes. All are important
to have a professional outfit.
Prison
defenders are very special people who work in the various prison systems in the
country. For purposes not alienating and combining spirits and attitudes, this
system includes large jails and detention center for purposes of identifying
their required needs, operations manners and existence in county, state and
federal institutions.
These
defenders are correctional officers by profession and are known for their
exceptional bravery, professionalism and skill working with convicted felons
who are incarcerated and kept inside the prison walls for any length of time.
Defenders
are unique law enforcers, they carry no weapons on them while walking the
various cellblocks, dormitories and open spaces. They are trained to excel in
verbal communications to acquire compliance from very volatile and difficult
people. They are often pushed to the edge of sanity when dealing with these
kind of prisoners and not much is said about their successes as more is focused
on their failures.
Crucified
by the media whenever something goes wrong, they are rarely praised in public
and therefore carry a heavy burden with them wherever they go in uniform or
off-duty. They are often referred to as knuckle draggers and undeveloped
homosapiens when in fact, many are intelligent, college educated and very well
skilled in many trades required to work inside a prison.
When
you compare these unarmed persons in the environment they work they are indeed
well proven defenders of the criminal justice system as they proof everyday
they can handle their population with much less than verbal and on hands force
whenever the need arises.
That
is not to imply they don’t have weapons to work with when on duty. They are
trained in weapons such as shotgun, handgun, rifle, Taser, chemical agents,
baton and other instruments that are used to control and restrain violent
inmates who need corrective action and behavioral modifications applied to
their way of making decisions.
The
evolution of these defenders began centuries ago when the rulers built dungeons
to house and contain their enemies and criminals. Their tactics were simple.
Persons found to be in need of incarceration were chained to the walls with
devices and kept there until their time of sentence was served. Some lived and
died inside these prisons. There
was no glory for these dungeon warriors. They worked out of sight, out of mind
much like today and received the same lack of respect and recognition offered
today. These defenders wear normal clothing on most of their duty times.
Some
were combat fatigues when they are participating with special response teams
and some wear polo shirts and khaki shirt and pants. No matter where they work,
they all carry a badge representing the agency they work for and identifying
them as peace officers carrying special law enforcement certification and
credentials. From
this environment came a culture that is complex and difficult to understand. It
is by no means simple or easy to grasp unless you worked inside one of these
prisons and see how the customs, traditions and practices are determined by the
cultural influences of the workplace.
Each
culture is born through leadership qualities and principles and as leadership
changes, remnants of the old culture remain but a new culture develops. If the
leadership sends tacit approvals of misconduct, then misconduct becomes
rampant. If the leadership sends messages of zero tolerances for misdeeds,
their record is cleaner and associated to accountability and transparency
products.
For
centuries, these defenders have engaged in this game of dominance, physically
and mentally, prison management is based on the principle of dominating other
people and controlling behaviors as much as the environment and rules allows by
law. Some go beyond the law to ensure compliance but that is generally not an
acceptable practice and draws scrutiny to the profession.These
defenders were trained to perform with perfection whenever a riot or
disturbance occurs. They are taught to defend in place regardless of the odds
and must defend others to preserve life and property. They are sternly
disciplined and rigorously simple in needs, equipment and frugal in numbers.
Defenders
are usually outnumbered by a ratio of two or three hundred to one and at
certain times when mass movement occurs the odds are even greater. Thus
defenders must be brave and undaunted in their work and performance. The
selection of defenders begins with a hiring process that covers their
education, moral character, mental capacity and moral turpitude. The screening
process removes those with ill or immoral character and imperfect, or deformed
mental thinking that creates problems for others inside a prison.
The
hiring process focuses on physical, mental and spiritual toughness. This
training can be brutal for those not prepared to become defenders and many
don’t cut the preparation or teaching standards and are released from hire. In
training, they are pitted against each other to test their toughness and
observed by their instructors.
While
in training many live in the employer’s quarters where they are evaluated and
scored for proficiency and character. In desperate times, older defenders are
considered as there is often a very high vacancy or turnover rate for this kind
of work.
Defender
of the walls are traditionally high spirited and high strung. Combating stress
daily, they have to be resilient and fit to come to work daily and fight the
environment negativity as well as their challenges. Unlike the cops on the
street, they have no place to go when the going gets tough, they have to face
their enemies empty handed and deal with them in the most effective manner
possible without escalating the situation.
They
carry no armor. They are not soldiers and they are not police who wear body
armor or vests to protect them from projectiles and bullets. They are in fact,
dressed in Spartan armor. Unlike
the Spartan soldiers who wore a bronze muscled imprinted breastplate, a helmet
with cheek plates and shin armor, defenders wear no armor or protective gear
unless they are assigned to a cell extraction team and then the armor comes on.
Defenders
working is specific maximum custody cellblocks wear helmets and face shields to
prevent injuries to their eyes, their neck and their exposed skin. They wear
stab vests with steel plates that prevent them from being stabbed by sharp
instruments or homemade knifes or shanks as they are called in prison.
Defenders
are subject to attacks by darts, hot liquids, feces, urine, spit and many other
weapons that are aimed at their eyes and face or neck to inflict maximum
damage. They carry no offensive weapons like cops wear guns, batons or Tasers
most of the time.
They
only carry firearms and the other gear if they are assigned special duty or
assignments that require them to be armed or able to defend others around them
in case the prisoner goes crazy or tries to take a hostage.
Defenders
all have a legacy. Each are inspired by their actions from the past and
throughout history, the reputation and respect for prison defenders has grown
but has not yet matched the glorious position police officers have attained in
society. Here
in their own captive world, they do the best they can with what they are given
to work with which is very often, very little and most of the time,
insufficient for what they have to do on a daily basis.
Modern
interpretations of defenders have typically stereotyped them as more brutal
than they really are. Society portrays them to be devils of the abyss in the
criminal justice system, the prisons.
Although
some is not entirely undeserved, there are many more good men and women
defenders than bad but the media has extinguished that light of positivity,
along with hateful reporting of their own personal perspectives of the
defender’s role and abilities to do their jobs. Defenders
have built one of the closest relationships between coworkers much like the military.
Their culture bonds them as family even when not related by blood but since
many family members follow their relatives into the occupation, families are
multi-generational in many places.
Their
bond is the trust developed with their austere way of life and their sense of
duty. Defenders created and build a sub-culture to the culture and undergo
extreme hardships that could only be understood by a fellow defender. They
work and live under a strict moral code and short of being accepted as full time
law enforcement, they accept their roles in society based on their perceived
need to be there for public safety.
Defenders
are expected to prove their mental and physical fitness daily and are subject
to fitness for duty tests or exams. They are working in deep chasm of misfits
and a world filled with anxiety, stress and violence.Defenders
are expected to adhere and function in a para-military environment which means
they have a chain of command hierarchy and system to report for work and duty.
This system is designed as a supportive system but also to instill discipline
and order in their performance and techniques in the workplace.
Defenders
are tough individuals. They must be able to withstand internal strife and
pressures that includes hazing, fighting and other hard elements of life rather
than the softness of life. They are trained to endure the violence by their
peers and superiors alike.
During
their operational stages, they learn to withstand the cold, hunger, and pain
associated with sleep deprivation, stress and long hours of standing on duty.
They are subjected to a development of mindset and physical fitness that allows
them to survive, avoid cowardice and intimidation.
Defenders
expect to work there for a long duration. There are many who serve twenty to
thirty years as defenders as they have chosen an occupation other than the
military but still a public service. Defenders
expect to be ritualistically beaten and assaulted by the prisoners as a means
of carrying out their duties as assigned. The reason for these beatings are the
cultural differences between the two codes of defender and prisoner that
defines them as an “us versus them” philosophy.
Last
but not minor in importance, defenders are taught to never quit or surrender.
Surrender or quitting is an act of disgrace and subject to more punishment than
one can imagine as it is imposed by co-workers and supervisors to ostracize
them or force them to quit their jobs.
They
are expected to back up and provide solid support for the others regardless of
the odds against them and running away is unacceptable under any conditions.
Surrender in any confrontation or disturbance was the ultimate disgrace for any
defender and usually the end of their career.
Defenders
were subject to many of the same laws and social conventions as their partners
in the free world outside of prisons. However, when found guilty of misconduct,
the offending defender is punished severely and sometimes censured for
seemingly trivial misdeeds. So
how did defenders end up working in the catacombs of darkness of the
underground cemeteries of the stone-walled castle-like prison located here in
the valley?
The history of the use for catacombs goes back to the days of Rome
as there was a shortage of land and cemeteries were hard to come by thus they
used the land they owned and buried their relatives there on their own land
rather than common cemeteries.
The
concept grew and after a design was developed in the state of California called
Pelican Bay, prison administrators decided that catacombs were a unique way to
save space and use the land underneath the prisons as cellblocks, tiers and
cages for lock up and storage.
The
state, granting more land ownership for the purpose of prisons allowed the construction
of new prisons in a similar design as Pelican Bay and other super max prisons
which housed their prisoners under the ground rather than up above on land. Just
like Christians were burying their dead underground, the prison systems began
to bury their living underground. The differences were slight but regardless,
the concept of catacombs in the darkness were developed and used excessively
today and staffed sparsely with defenders or officers because most of the
living were locked down 23 hours a day and some even never left their cell.
These
living tombs were uniquely cost effective in the manner they were spread out
and while nobody could see these catacombs, the mere existence of such
underground tunnels, chambers, pathways and caves created opportunities to
house more prisoners in the space allocated below the ground rather than above
the ground.
These
catacombs were natural fortresses. They required little upkeep as they were
made of steel, concrete, stone and more steel. Hence the resurrection of
catacombs to house the living ended up being a plan to house the dead, the
living and the undead.
Underground
prisons are literally out of sight, out of mind structures. Although many have
above ground cellblocks and dormitory like living there to support the service
needs of the prison, these catacombs were dug deep and used to store away the
bad and ugly of the prison systems.Those
who were hard to manage and needed to be isolated from the other populations.
Many were mentally ill and incapable of functioning or coping with others
around them as they were easily manipulated to mule drugs or perform sex for
other prisoners.
Their
stigma of being mentally challenged alone put them in a class of prisoners that
served no value to the slavery for labor and put them at the end of the vital
or needed species continuum of prison labor sources.
No
prisoner may walk unescorted or unrestrained. They are shackled wherever they
go and that is rare since it takes manpower to conduct such tasks. If it was up
to the bosses and defenders, they would leave these persons inside their cage
and forget about them.
The
catacombs served that purpose well and as such a benefit, is used to house
those undesirables in rows of catacombs under the ground. Resources are sparse
and although denied to be cruel and unusual prison practices, catacombs are
used excessively and expressly for the purpose containment and control.
Once
buried alive under the ground, their human rights, their dignity and their mere
existence ceases to be a concern and time will take its toll on many who die
while living inside these catacombs stacked with incorrigibles and misfits of
society.
Some
prison use a multi-tier housing system. Most tiers number between 3 and 5 tiers
and since catacombs are stacked tiers of rows of tunnels situated in a maze
like setting, it can manage to house thousands of persons underground without
much of a problem for spacing.
The
only drawback, strategically and operationally is the need to feed, shower,
recreate and move them to and from services required to maintain their
stability and wellness. These catacombs do not provide such logistics and if
any services are required the service must come to the cell front to deliver. However,
the danger of doing so exceeds the practical element of such a delivery system
thus the defender and support employee must design a venue to deliver but not
impose on the support system to overburden it. The obvious solution is to
neglect and avoid any deliveries and leave them be.
Neglecting
them and not offering them any service except feeding them would require a
paper trail documenting the opposite. Many records in these catacombs are never
kept up to date or even recorded since the frequency of personnel making their
rounds is rare and dangerous. Thus the practice of pencil whipping or
falsifying documents is common and difficult to detect during security checks
or audits. In
defense of the defenders of the prison, they have been put in a very difficult
position when they are assigned to these catacombs which are rows and rows of
tunnels and cages located in a wide and spread out area.
Their
sheer numbers outweigh the ability to run it like it should be and many die
because the defenders can’t be there when they are in distress or under attack
of another prisoner.
Their
bosses set them up for failure and the turnover rate is higher in the catacombs
than anywhere else. Nobody can survive working there for a long period of time
and if not rotated out of there, they themselves go crazy just like those
housed there for long periods of time.
Catacombs
of darkness is a place where only the strong survive. Strong physically and
strong mentally. The weak suffer quicker than the others and are quickly preyed
upon by the predators in the group where they are housed.
Catacombs
used to facilitate single cell or cages. That has changed due to overloading
and the need for more space in them to house the mentally ill, the most violent
and the personality disorder individuals who are manipulating others to commit
criminal acts while incarcerated.
Catacombs
are solid housing assignments for those who commit homicides inside prisons,
take hostages and have a total disregard for the value of life whether it be a
defender or another prisoner.
Catacomb
style living can be accomplished with perfection if they reduce the population
and select only those extreme cases to be housed there as the criterion for
such housing has been politically altered and based on social and political
reason rather that best practices and security preventive methods.
Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is
isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of
prison staff. Catacombs facilitate such housing arrangement best.
The
American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group described these catacombs
best as:
Solitary confinement of prisoners exists
under a range of names: isolation, control units, supermax prisons, the hole,
SHUs, administrative segregation, maximum security, or permanent lockdown.
Prisoners can be placed in these units
for many reasons: as punishment while they are under investigation; as a
mechanism for behavior modification, when suspected of gang involvement; as
retribution for political activism; or to fill expensive, empty beds, to name
but a few.
Although conditions vary from state to
state and in different institutions, systematic policies and conditions of
control and oppression used in isolation and segregation include:
·
Confinement behind a solid steel door
for 23 hours a day
·
Limited contact with other human beings
·
Infrequent phone calls and rare
non-contact family visits
·
Extremely limited access to
rehabilitative or educational programming
·
Grossly inadequate medical and mental
health treatment
·
Restricted reading material and personal
property
·
Physical torture such as hog-tying,
restraint chairs, and forced cell extraction
·
Mental torture such as sensory
deprivation, permanent bright lighting, extreme temperatures, and forced
insomnia
·
Sexual intimidation and violence
Recent history of
isolation - Beginning in the early 1970s, prison and jail administrators at the
federal, state, and local level have relied increasingly on isolation and
segregation to control men, women, and youth in their custody.
In 1985 there were a handful of control
units across the county. Today an estimated 44 states have supermax facilities
confining more than 30,000 people. Prisoners are often confined for months or
even years, with some spending more than 25 years in segregated prison
settings. As with the overall prison population, people of color are
disproportionately represented in isolation units.
Mental health effects of isolation - Increasingly,
isolation units house the mentally ill who struggle to conform to prison rules.
An independent investigation from 2006
reported that as many as 64 percent of prisoners in SHUs were mentally ill, a
much higher percentage than is reported by states for their general
prison populations. Contrary to the perception that control units house
"the worst of the worst," it is often the most vulnerable prisoners,
not the most violent, who end up in extended isolation.
Numerous studies have documented the
effects of solitary confinement on prisoners giving them the name Special Housing
Unit Syndrome or SHU Syndrome. Some of the many SHU Syndrome symptoms include:
·
Visual and auditory hallucinations
·
Hypersensitivity to noise and touch
·
Insomnia and paranoia
·
Uncontrollable feelings of rage and fear
·
Distortions of time and perception
·
Increased risk of suicide
·
PTSD
If one is not mentally ill when entering
an isolation unit, by the time they are released, their mental health has been
severely compromised. Many prisoners are released directly to the streets after
spending years in isolation. Because of this, long-term solitary confinement
goes beyond a problem of prison conditions, to pose a formidable public safety
and community health problem.
Solitary confinement
violates basic human rights - Prison isolation fits the definition of torture
as stated in several international human rights treaties, and thus constitutes
a violation of human rights law
For all these reasons—for the safety of
our communities, to respect our responsibility to follow international human
rights law, to take a stand against torture wherever it occurs, and for the
sake of our common humanity—prison isolation and segregation must end.
Outlining what the AFSC describes fits
the catacombs and their structure. Its design and construction has been hailed
as a solution to prison violence but nothing guarantees the reduction of
violence inside these catacombs as staff are shorthanded and often reactive
rather than proactive in most critical situations that hinge on life or death.
Defenders, no matter how well trained
they are, no matter how diligent they work their shifts or duties and no matter
how they conduct themselves around the clock, cannot keep up with the duties,
responsibilities and outlines of best practices that guarantee constitutional
and civil right enforcement yet, through the debilitating nature of these
catacombs, it is impossible to make it a better place to be for defender or
prisoner.
In the meantime, their bosses focus on
number crunching and not improvement of services, staffing and other logistical
development that could aid in the use of the catacombs as they are and have
been an acceptable mode of housing maximum security inmates who need isolation
from others.
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