I arrived early and made my way to a second floor classroom as I had been instructed. The room was filled with small tables, and each seated two people. I chose a table in the center of the room and settled myself into a chair. Before very long, a young woman settled into the chair next to me. I greeted her and politely introduced myself. Her name was Phoebe. As I faced back to the front, I noticed her hands and I noticed that she did not have a wedding ring. I moved my left hand over on top of my right hand and rested my left hand in this position so she would have ample opportunity to notice that I did have a wedding ring. We would be in this classroom for two weeks, and I knew that people would follow a pattern of returning to their same places at the beginning of every day. So I knew I would be seeing a lot of Phoebe, and I wanted her to know that I would not be a likely candidate for romance. Still, I got to know Phoebe better than anyone else in the class, and I came to be concerned about her welfare. She was a single mother of two little girls, and she really needed this job. She had been hired as a correctional officer, a CO, and one of the first activities for the COs in the class was to visit Clothing Issue and get fitted out for their uniforms and other security equipment. Phoebe returned from this chore mid morning with a stack of folded clothing and other items appropriate for her new role, and she set them on our table. In the days that followed, she wore the uniform to class.

After our initial greeting and getting-acquainted exercises, we were given a schedule of the two weeks of training we would receive. There were a variety of units including first aid, self defense, use of force rules we were expected to follow, principles of security, room searches, pat searches, and strip searches, and rules that governed both inmates and staff. We would analyze critical incidents we could expect to occur and consider appropriate actions we might take. We would review EEOC law and Department policies and mental illnesses and the mental health programs the Department offered. There were table-top exercises of emergencies that might occur, and many other topics which I barely remember now. However, I do remember one unit from which I was excused. It was a topic required of the correctional officers in the class including Phoebe: use of firearms and marksmanship.

Employees in the unit caseworker position would not be expected to shoot anyone, so we didn’t need to operate a weapon. Security officers were expected to shoot people if the need arose, so they needed to have a proficiency in firearms and marksmanship, and if they couldn’t achieve a minimal accuracy in tests on the firing range, shooting at small round targets, they were dismissed. By failing to hit the target, they also failed to complete their training, and those who failed would have to go right back out onto the streets and look for another job. Phoebe needed to be able to pass this test, and that meant that she also needed to shoot people if the need arose.

Most of our units did not touch on shooting people, but one did. It was a unit on appropriate levels of force we could employ to maintain control and gain compliance with our lawful orders. A rule we learned regarding use of force limited our choices of force by the force an inmate had chosen to use. For example, if an inmate refuses to obey an order, he is using a level of force called verbal noncompliance. We have the choice to use force one level above the choice he has made, but no more. Deadly force was the most extreme level of force, and it would not be allowed when an inmate was verbally refusing to comply with an order. We couldn’t shoot an inmate who refused to take out his trash. However, if an inmate has picked up a weapon and moves aggressively toward a staff member, then he has chosen to use deadly force, and employees are expected to use deadly force to respond. We should shoot this inmate. Shoot center mass. Shoot to kill.

Another example of appropriate use of deadly force was escape. Officers are expected to use their weapons to prevent an escape. The rules for this are clear. If an inmate is climbing a perimeter fence, he will successfully escape if he reaches the other side. As long as an inmate is climbing and progressing upward on the inside of the fence, officers are expected to keep shooting at the inmate. When he drops off the fence, they stop shooting. If the inmate is inside the fence, officers will soon arrive to take him into custody. If he is outside the fence and they don’t hit him before he gets over the fence, and he begins to run to freedom, officers are also expected to stop shooting. Someone in the community could be shot.

As I sat next to Phoebe and we listened to this lesson, I wondered what she was thinking. I wondered if she realized that one day she might have to shoot and kill someone.

Friday of our first week of training was set aside for the firearms and marksmanship units, and the new correctional officers met away from the Training Academy in a rural location called the Firing Range. Monday morning would allow all of us to discover who had passed their marksmanship tests and who had failed, and I was pleased to find Phoebe sitting at her normal spot at my side as the day began. I congratulated her on passing the test, and I wondered how the instructors had dealt with the underlying truth that they were practicing to shoot people. Did they paint faces on the targets? Did they name them? Did Phoebe shoot a little round target with a chubby face named Fred?

“Do you think you could shoot an escaping inmate,” I asked Phoebe soon after congratulating her, “shoot to kill?”, I added.

A twinkle appeared in her eyes. “I would aim for the legs,” she said, and she raised an index finger to cover her lips as she produced a shushing sound. I smiled in reply and wondered how many of the others had listened to the same instruction to shoot center mass to kill and made the same resolution to aim for the legs.

As I sat in the classroom waiting for the day’s instruction to begin a new week of classes, I also was struck by the contrast of my life now compared to what it had been just a month earlier. In mid May, I had walked into a middle school every day to work with young teenagers. I would wish them well and cheer them on with good luck when they faced a big exam, and I would congratulate them once it was over. Now, in mid June, I was sitting in a classroom next to a young woman and encouraging her and congratulating her on her marksmanship. Soon, I would be walking into a prison every day to work with older teenagers and young adult men, and if any of them tried to escape from this setting, they’d be shot. Here I was, sitting in a classroom, wishing good luck to the very people who would pull those triggers. The words of L. Frank Baum came to mind from the movie The Wizard of Oz: “You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.”

When the new-hire class ended, it was time for us to go our separate ways and to report to our various facilities. Phoebe was assigned to the Nebraska State Penitentiary, and she took her place on a regular shift and settled into a routine. It would be several years before I saw her again. When I did see her, she had Sargent stripes on her uniform and a wedding ring on her hand.

Phoebe settled into a routine, but my prison, the Lincoln Correctional Center, wasn’t yet open, so I went back to the old Men’s Reformatory along with the others in my class who were assigned to the new prison. Our assignment was to wait for and prepare for the opening of the new prison.

Discussion

1. Would you aim for the legs?

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