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      “PRISON

      PUZZLE

      PIECES”

      The realities, experiences and insights

      of a corrections officer

      doing his time in

      Historic Stillwater Prison

      By

      Dave Basham

      Volume 2

      Copyright 2016 Dave Basham

      All rights reserved

      Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com

       http://www.eBookIt.com

      ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-2775-1

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

      "To protect the identities of those involved, names and identifying characteristics have been changed; and events and accounts may have been left out that are not crucial to the stories and would not affect the integrity of the stories."

      THE SHORTEST CHAPTER EVER

      !

      PROTECTION ORDER, YEAH RIGHT!

      FALSE ESTEEM

      Inmates will often call us lower level corrections officers, sergeant or even lieutenant in order to suck up to us. Some officers don’t catch on to this, but as soon as I heard this my radar would go up. I’d be waiting for the request that they would want me to ignore a policy. My response would be something like, “You know I’m not a sergeant, so what is it that you want me to let you do that you know you shouldn’t do?” They would smile, sometimes continue on and sometimes just walk away.

      Sometimes I would tell them that I was just a pee-on. I would point to a spot on the floor and say, “See that little piece of crud on the floor? That’s me.” I’d point to my foot and say, “That’s the DOC.” I would smash my foot on the floor on the spot I pointed to and grind it around on that spot. “That’s how significant I am.” This got them laughing and made my point.

      Eventually, things changed. When I gave them my “You know I’m not a sergeant” response, I would get answers like, “I know, but you’re my sergeant.” “You are to me.” “You know you’re the one that really runs this place.” I’d just smile. These things were good to hear. These perceptions were out there because I was aggressive in doing my job and taking care of any problems that arose. I wouldn’t just brush them off like many other officers.

      WHY ME

      One day an inmate who was the top man in one of the major gangs approached me. He said there was a protection order out on me. I had to laugh at that one. I was wondering what the heck this guy wanted. He told me it was legit. He explained that he and all of the other gang leaders got together and decided to put a protection order out on me. (This was not necessarily all at one time or place, basically they achieved communications with each other and reached this consensus.) He said that because of the way I did things, the way I handled myself and the way I treated everyone that they wanted me to stay around. He said that they knew I would do my job and that if I found a violation, I would address it. They knew I would be writing people up and sending them to the hole and they were fine with that. They knew if I issued out discipline to anyone that they had it coming. They knew that anything I did was on the up and up. He said that they couldn’t rely on that from anyone else. He said that if someone came to me with a problem, they knew I would do my best to solve it. In short he said, “We know that we’re better off with you here than without you here.”

      He said that they couldn’t protect me from the crazy inmates or those not affiliated with any gang, but other than that, I would have no problem with anyone from any gang. It was ordered by all of the gangs and that no gangster in their right mind would dare to defy this order.

      What caused them to do this? Well, I was being me. I was enforcing policies, writing up lots of reports and pissing off lots of people that wanted to get away with things. I was writing up several people a day. Not necessarily full reports, but at least documenting violations in their files. Some of these people were starting to organize to take me out; and not on a date. The gang leaders knew they didn’t want this to happen, so they squelched it by issuing their order.

      In order to make me believe what he was saying, he spoke about a problem I had solved for an inmate. This inmate came into the institution and into my block the beginning of April. He got a job out in industry. You had to go outside to get to an industry building. He came to me and asked if I could get him a coat. He said that he wasn’t issued one and that when he tried to get one from laundry, they wouldn’t give him one. I called down to laundry. They told me that they don’t give out coats after March 31^st. Nobody entering the institution April 1^st or later gets a coat until fall. This was an exceptionally cold April. As officers, we had coats and most were wearing them inside the institution. After stating these facts, they still wouldn’t do it. I informed the inmate of what had transpired and told him I wasn’t giving up. I went down to laundry to speak to the sergeant. I told him this would be one less coat he would have to issue in the fall. He instantly became real angry, started yelling at me and turned red in the face. This guy was flipping out on me. As I was leaving, I could hear him continue to yell and swear at me.

      It was time to try a different approach. I started making phone calls to those higher and higher up. I tried anyone who I thought might have the remotest chance of helping. I ran into the warden in the hallway and was turned down by him. This was my last shot.

      The only thing that I could find on the institutions jacket policy was that they were issued between October first and March thirty first. I found nothing stating that an exception could not be made for situations of an extreme cold spell and an inmate receiving a job outside after March thirty first. Common sense would seem to dictate that we treat people humanely. I found that my views and the views of those controlling this place were often quite different.

      All along, I had kept the inmate informed of my failures. He was appreciative, but frustrated and cold. He was able to see officers and inmates wearing coats inside the institution and he was being denied. All we needed was for this guy to contact some civil rights activist and there would be hell to pay. It just so happened that when I thought this guy was screwed; I wound up having to send someone to the hole. My assignment was to pack up the property in that guy’s cell. He had a coat. Linen, towels, coats and such were not personal property that got packed up and inventoried. It was just tossed into a bin and returned to laundry when the bin was full. People took items out of this bin all of the time; they weren’t supposed to but it happened a lot. I placed the coat in the bin, informed the inmate, and opened his cell so he could retrieve it. This way I was covering my ass, because I didn't actually give it to him. Anyone could grab it. I was just making sure he had first dibs.

      The gang leader informing me of the protection order, and other inmates, were aware of this and other things I had done. He said that when I caught them at something, they expected to pay the consequences. They knew with me they would get fair treatment.

      This protection order thing seemed unbelievable, but I thanked him and went about my business. What made me believe it, was that immediately my reports went down drastically from a few a day to just a few a month. When I gave people a heads up on a violation, they listened, complied and didn’t get all up in my face about it. I was amazed that one guy in this place held so much power that he could align all of the gangs on a common issue like this.

      This guy never asked for any favor or expected any. He just appreciated an honest hard working officer that viewed his job responsibilities the way I did.

      INMATE

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