Prison stories

I used to work at one. From 1981 to '83 I was a correctional officer at the Joliet Correctional Center, on Collins Street. It was the oldest prison in the state at the time, and one of the oldest in the country. It was a maximum security adult joint. It has since closed, but even at the time I worked there people in Joliet thought it was already closed.

Actually, only half of the prison was really a maximum-security facility. The other half was a reception and classification facility. Inmates entered the state system at our center, and waited while it was determined in which sort of facility they'd take up permanent residence. We had plenty of business. The inmates going into the state system from Cook County - Chicago - came through our place. Inmates would arrive - from most counties, in a sheriff's car, from Cook County on a bus - dressed in street clothes which would reflect some degree of individuality. They would enter a building like that, and exit the building all wearing blue jumpsuits. Individuality - gone. No one paid much attention to whether the jumpsuits fit or not.

Then, after some weeks, they would be shipped on a bus to their destination. For a time I worked on thitd shift, and we had the job of getting the inmates up who were to be transported that day. We'd get them up and send them to the dining hall for what passed for breakfast in such a place, and we were done.

One morning I was engaged in this task. We got the inmates up, had them grab the stuff that was going with them, and sent them over to eat. One fellow was moving rather slowly. He had barely gotten going when we had the others on the walk to chow, and he was still sitting on his bunk.

I said to him, "C'mon, man, let's go."

And he got up. And kept getting up. And getting up - to his full six feet eight inches. And I started getting a little nervous. He was indignant.

"As long as you live, don't you ever call me "Man" again. I'm a woman!"

Twenty minutes later, after he was long gone, I was still standing outside his cell, door open, pointing my finger and shaking my head.

Yeah, there are stories. Obviously, not all was fun and games. None of it was. There was the morning I went home after my shift and had my wife scream at me, "Blood on your shirt!!!! How did you get BLOOD on your shirt!?!?!?"

I said, "Oh - it's not mine." That didn't make it better.

It was during that time that my drinking - my alcoholism - reached the depths. It was during that time that I saw what a waste of mental energy any show of arrogant self-righteousness is, and I came to realize the truth that "ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God." I found myself treating my wife and kids like they, too, were inmates, and may everlasting shame be on me for that. I knw what stress is. I know what a thin line it is that divides me from the very worst.

And stories. I do have stories.

Stay tuned.