Guilty By Association

The other day one of my dorm mates asked, “I see you writing a lot, why are you writing so much?”

This was a genuine question and I answered him by saying, “I keep a daily journal. The writing is very therapeutic and I am able to communicate with my family (especially my wife) through this journal.”

I sparked his interest by mentioning “communicates effectively” with my wife. He then went on to tell me how he and his girlfriend never really communicated and now through their letters they are finding out things they never knew existed even though they have been together for a number of years. Toward the end of our conversation we both agreed everyone should experience prison life for at least six months. We did make this statement in jest; however, there is some validity to it and I know I have learned so much from this experience. Also, by keeping a daily journal I maintain a connection with my wife and family. Most of this blog is fairly boring as is prison life; yet it is my reality for the next year. I do realize the outside world keeps going and my wife is very busy with the children, as she should. Just because I am away, her life and the children’s lives have not stopped. They keep moving forward and somewhere in the near future I will re-join them. However, for the time being I will keep chronically my rather boring day-to-day activities.

After the PFT class my friend and I walked back to the dorm and he told me he values my friendship and I am a very good influence on him. This was very nice to hear and I too value his friendship because I don’t have any other friends here. I am not so sure about being a good influence because I only do things which seem like the right things to do and I don’t make him do anything he doesn’t want. I am more than happy to help him with his workouts and attitude. He has taught me a great deal about prison life and what I need to do in order to stay safe and be strong. We have a very good relationship and it works out well.

I went to the dining hall and realized this was one of those nights when I should have stayed back at the dorm. As I finished the meal, the doors of the dining hall closed. They only close for one reason – something must have happened in the yard. I couldn’t go anywhere until the doors opened. After 25 minutes they finally opened and we were let out in a single file line only to sit on the cold concrete outside of the dining hall for the next 20 minutes.

As I walked outside, I realized something bad had happened. Everyone outside was still down on their stomachs and several CO’s were strip searching inmates across the yard from where I sat. They must have found something because they handcuffed one inmate and led him in the direction of the “hole.” News of what happened was going around by this time and apparently an inmate was slashed in the face by another inmate. Fortunately for me, I was in the dining hall when this occurred and far away from the incident. I would have preferred being in the dorm, but at least I didn’t see the incident. This is the first time in 6 ½ months where something serious like this happened. Frankly, with all the inmates I am surprised this hasn’t happened before so I consider myself grateful. Finally, after almost an hour we were allowed back in the dorm in an orderly fashion. No one knew exactly what happened, but someone did get slashed or stabbed in the face. Thankfully, this didn’t escalate into a full blown riot.

As I returned to my dorm, I wondered how the daily routine would be affected by the incident. There were many possibilities running through my mind and most of them were negative. The key factor in the incident was one of race. If the incident happened between 2 separate races, it could affect many inmates. The policy is “guilty by association” when one inmate does something very wrong, the inmate’s entire race is punished. So, if there are two races involved the punishment doubles. Again, details were sketchy.

As it turned out, I found out one of the races was on lockdown because of the incident last night. It appears the inmate needed 27 stitches so the cut was quite extensive. Thankfully, it is not my race because lockdown means those inmates cannot go outside except for breakfast or dinner. They are relegated to the dorm for up to a month which also means they cannot go to work or attend any training classes. This seems like a severe penalty for the entire race when only one or two individuals were involved. In my dorm there are a few people who were in the fire training class which were turned away and can only come back when lockdown is over. This can really delay the transfer to fire camp and I do have my fingers crossed that I can get through all the training without this happening.

I finished CAMEL CLUB by David Balducci which was an exceptionally good book and it was very much like a Tom Clancy novel where all the characters converge at the end. Mr. Balducci is a very versatile author who covers subjects such as the Supreme Court, the Armed Forces, and Spy Agencies.