PRISONER EXPRESS

I know this because I have experienced it myself on many occasions, witnessed it with my own eyes and heard about it countless times from other prisoners. Why do corrections officers do this to prisoners? Why do they take such pride in imposing suffering, misery and humiliation on other people? What makes a bad corrections officer bad? That which makes a good corrections officer can be inferred from the answers to these questions.

I am an American citizen held captive at gunpoint in a maximum-security prison in California. I have been imprisoned for more than a decade. In the course of my imprisonment I have been beaten, assaulted with chemical weapons, stripped naked and repeatedly shocked with electrical weapons while hog tied, confined naked and hog tied for days on end in cold "rubber rooms" and "management cells" besmeared with human feces, shot with a thirty-seven millimeter "block guns," threatened with murder and terrorized and humiliated in ways I would rather not describe. I have been maliciously and repeatedly denied medical treatment for highly venomous spider bites and subsequently forced to watch the flesh of my lower left leg necrotize--suffering continuous, excruciating pain for nearly ten days before emergency surgery was preformed to save my leg and life.

On many occasions I have wished I would just die, so the suffering would end. Should I ever attempt to escape, my captors have orders to shoot to kill. Some would say I deserve such treatment, even that I am getting off easy. It is thinking like this that makes for an uncivilized society and bad corrections officers.

Such thinking is not exclusive to a few rogue corrections officers. American society demonizes prisoners, to regard them as contemptible evildoers worthy of hatred and cruel treatment. Some come to believe it is their job to abuse prisoners, thinking themselves as heroes doing society a favor, assuming the roles of righteous avengers and meters-out of justifiably cruel punishments. This does more to harm society than it does to harm the prisoners. These prisoners will be free one day, possibly more dangerous than ever looking to settle scores with the society that allowed them to be tortured in prison.

Occasionally, reports of prison abuses find their way into the mainstream news media. A few outspoken activists may condemn the inhumane treatment, but in general public never seems to be offended enough or outraged enough to demand with a defeating roar that it will never happen again. The public silence compounds, reinforces and condones the inhumanity. Moreover, it encourages corrections officers to keep up the good work, to continue to "punish" prisoners for their "crimes against society" despite the fact that being confined in prison for a time is supposed to be the extent of their punishment.

The reasons for public silence, besides apathy or indifference, are evident in American politics. The public has been so terrified by the increasing number of crimes reported in the daily news that crime is perceived to be spiraling out of control. Crime rates drop, but crime related news takes up increasing space in newspapers and television news programs. Joe Citizen fears crime--which is reasonable and understandable--and he wants to protect his family, himself, his property and his community from the perceived escalating crime epidemic. Enter the politicians.

Crafty politicians have seized on the public's fear of crime, and regularly run for public office on "tough on crime" and "law and order" political platforms espousing propaganda designed to inflame the public's fear and thereby garner votes. This has become so integral to political success that no politician wants to be perceived as soft on crime. Such a perception would amount to a death sentence for most political careers. How does one call for humane treatment of prisoners after making a career out of demonizing criminals without appearing soft on crime? There's the rub.

So, the propaganda machines pump ever more fear into the hearts of the public, and the politicians manipulate that fear to win elections. Politicians, in turn, author new "tough on crime" legislation with increasingly harsh penalties to prove to their constituents just how tough on crime they actually are, and then nurse the passage of such laws to win votes for reelection. This monster feeds on itself and contributes to a building public perception that criminals deserve the severest of punishments; which when manifested as prisoner abuse at the hands of "heroic" corrections officers--the self-appointed avengers of society--becomes less and less shocking to the public conscience. That which makes for bad corrections officers is that which makes a nation of uncivilized savages. This vicious cycle must be broken. It is destroying society from within by eroding what it means to be a civilized person, gradually transforming our civilization into vengeful, barbarous, and compassionless un-civilization.

What makes a good civilized society also make a good corrections officer. The building blocks for both are compassion, reason, mercy, humaneness, and civilized behavior. It is possible to break the cycle of destruction. The same methods employed to demonize criminals could be employed to change public perceptions about crime, prisoners, and punishment; which in turn could shift the perceptions of corrections officers and help to bring an end to prisoner abuse. Society would benefit greatly by doing everything possible to change the perceptions that lead to abuses and by remembering that the humanity of prisoners does not cease to exist upon confinement. Ordinary Americans could help to create a more civilized society by demanding that corrections officers treat prisoners humanely. The people have the power to demand these changes and to alter these perceptions; they need only to exercise that power. What makes a good corrections officer? Ultimately, the will of the people.