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Department of Corrections

12/18/09

By BurtPublished 3 years ago 2 min read
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People think that nothing can possibly happen in the middle of a prison without lots of witnesses seeing everything that happened. What people don't understand is that there are two reasons why that just isn't so - The first being that inmates in general make lousy witnesses. Take something like a fight in the chow hall. Line up everyone that was eating at the time and ask them what happened. Every single one of them will give you a slightly different story. None of them will have seen the whole thing start to finish. Very few of them will have seen only the aftermath. Very few of them will have seen only one of the people involved. Not one of them will tell you, with perfect assurance, that they saw both people fighting from start to finish, despite the fact that most did.

A very, very small minority will find a way to report what they saw, not things that they have filled in by assumption, or memories contaminated by too much exposure to other points of view. Of that minority, no one will be the kind of person who, by natural inclinations or possibly training, has the capacity for noticing and retaining a large amount of detail in a limited amount of time.

The point being that once events pass into memory, they already begin to become muddled and cloudy. It can be more of an art form than a science to gain an accurate picture of what transpired based on eye witness description and that's for a matter of relative unimportance, with no deep personal or emotional issues involved. Once emotion gets tossed into the mix, everything is up for grabs, and mild fighting turns into utter havoc. Take that same fight, make it a struggle between neoskinhead types and some gang bangers on the block where they've been housed, and you've go the kind of situation that kicks off riots. No matter what happens, you will never be able to get a straight story out of anyone afterward. In fact, you will be hard pressed to get any story out of anyone.

The second reason things can go unnoticed in the middle of prison is pretty simple: Cameras. Cameras are not in the chow halls. Cameras are not recording at all times. Cameras are not being monitored by the Correctional Officers. People are oriented around the sense of sight. Things aren't real until we see them: Seeing is believing. Right? If a Correctional Officer actually sees something bad happening, there's a better chance that he or she will act and get involved.

Conversely; if the Correctional Officers don't see something happening, it isn't real. They can hear reports and see the results of violence, but that doesn't require the same response if they were witness to the actual events. No where has as many cameras as prisons do, and Correctional Officers are ignoring them. Sure, maybe they hear loud cheering or yelling coming from a cell, but they don't know that the inmates are beating one another up again. It's not really any of their business, and they're always fighting, and the inmates are scary, besides. Yeah, they know that there are drugs coming into the prison every week, but they haven't seen the inmates dealing drugs. Not even to the inmates who come up dirty every month. It's easier and safer to shut off the cameras, look the other way, and ignore whatever they might hear. Out of sight, out of mind.

incarceration
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About the Creator

Burt

I have decided to share some of my journal entries with those who wish to read. These entries reflect my experiences, thoughts, feelings, and opinions during my time incarcerated.

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