Scenes of Prison
7. Pot Party in the Shower Room
M ost of the inmates who are led into the Disciplinary Segregation Unit look distressed. Their hands are cuffed behind their backs. Often, they look like they have been in a fight, and they’ve been rolling around on the ground and have some minor injuries. They may also have been to a hearing and have just been sentenced to a period of disciplinary segregation by our Disciplinary Court, something they weren’t expecting. It may also be true that Security has received a tip from one of their confidential informants (snitches) that something dangerous was about to happen, and they decided to lock up the inmate who was plotting the disruption, and this was the culprit. It could also be that the inmate being led into the Segregation Unit is responsible for some disruption that has already occurred. At the very least, they look like someone who has an itch somewhere that desperately needs scratching, and the cuffed hands prevent this relief.
These inmates hadn't planned to come to Segregation, and now, suddenly, all their plans for the day and for the immediate future would have to change. However, that’s not how an inmate named Peter appeared to us on a cool fall morning when he came through the door in restraints with a security officer looking strangely triumphant following closely behind him.
We checked Peter into a room. We placed all his clothing and belongings into a property bag and stowed it in a locker that was assigned to him. Next, we issued him an orange jumpsuit, underwear, orange slippers, bed linen, and a toiletry kit. Through it all, Peter cooperated almost as if he expected to come to Segregation that day. In fact, he seemed to be mildly amused by the whole process. I expected him to start laughing at any moment. It was like he was glad to see us. It was all very strange.
Once Peter was settled into his room, we took the paperwork from the officer. (The paperwork explained why he had been brought to us.) We all retired to the office to read the reports and orders and to learn the reason for Peter’s arrival. The paperwork told the tale.
Peter was a drug dealer, perhaps the biggest drug dealer in the whole prison. We knew this because a group of young inmates had been busted in an unused shower room in a general population unit enjoying themselves
smoking marijuana. It was the biggest pot party we’d ever broken up, and when the investigation got going, all fingers pointed to Peter as the supplier. Peter was a drug kingpin.
However, there were many unanswered questions: How had Peter managed to get all that pot into the institution? Did he have an employee accomplice?
The investigation was being aggressively pursued. We’d broken up a major drug ring, and we had the head guy locked up in segregation. Security was heady with excitement, but Peter seemed unperturbed, even amused.
Time passed - about a week, as I recall. Peter had been a model prisoner. “Yes, sir.” “No, sir.” “Whatever you say, sir.” “If it's not too much trouble, sir.”
On the seventh day of his confinement, the phone rang, and I received instructions to dress out Peter in his regular prison issue of clothing, return all his property to him, and send him on his way, unescorted, back to his original housing unit. The charges against him had all been dropped.
“Wait,” I said. “Isn’t this our big drug bust? Isn’t he Mister Big?”
“No. Not this time,” came the reply.
What happened?
The results had come back from the Crime Lab on the tests that had been performed on the pot samples we had collected as evidence from the pot party. We were waiting for the results of this analysis, so we could move forward with the case. It wasn’t what we were expecting. It wasn’t marijuana at all. It was grass clippings that had been collected from a passing lawnmower, dried, and ironed on an ironing board, right along with Peter’s other clothing. When Peter finished “processing” the grass clippings, it resembled dried marijuana, at least that’s what Peter declared when he sold it to the inmates who had been caught in the shower room. They followed his instructions, rolled it into “joints,” and they smoked it. Then, in their nervous excitement, they waited. Anytime now, they imagined, they would begin to feel “high.” The buzz was sure to follow, they believed. They had followed Peter’s instructions carefully. Unfortunately, security officers had interrupted the pot party and spoiled their “high.”
Peter had swindled the inmates, selling them “grass” that really was just grass. Peter was amused, and he had been amused the whole time he was with us. As it turned out, he was most amused because this was the second time he had sold this same “grass” to these same inmates.
Discussion
- Should swindling other prisoners be against the rules?
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