Scenes of Prison
4. Inmate Cons
"A ‘con’ is a lie. It’s carefully constructed, and it’s intended to convince someone that something is true when it isn’t true at all. It’s also intended to arouse sympathy for the inmate and create the impression that the inmate is actually the victim.
Not all inmates run cons on other people, but the inmates who do use them know they’re lying before they even begin to speak. That’s the plan.
A con is also an insult. It says: “I think you (the target of the con) are dumb enough or ignorant enough about prisons and prisoners to fall for this. Let’s find out.”
I’ve had cons run on me, and I’ve observed them being run on others, and it always pains me to watch people being tricked into doing things for inmates they don’t need or deserve. New employees are always targets of some inmates who use cons to enlist their help in ways they aren’t entitled to receive. New employees should always speak to their supervisors and ask for advice if they think they’re getting conned.
Here are common inmate cons I’ve encountered:
I don’t deserve my sentence.
When I began in corrections, I was startled to learn that most inmates are actually grateful for their sentences. To fellow prisoners, they will express relief that their sentences weren’t longer, but to family, friends, and staff, they insist they are victims of a cruel, unjust system that treated them unfairly.
Two factors explain it.
First, inmates know they’ve actually committed many, many crimes, far more than appear in their criminal histories. A criminal wakes up in the morning planning criminal activity for the day. A criminal moves through the community during the day alert to opportunities to victimize others, and many of the crimes they commit are never reported. For them, crime isn’t an accident; it’s a way of life. If their sentences reflected even a small portion of these crimes, they’d never get out of prison.
Second, most cases are resolved through plea bargaining between the prosecution and the defense. The first step of this process is to load down an accused offender with a basket full of charges. If a defendant chooses to go to trial and fight all these charges, there’s a fair probability that he’d lose, and then the judge would be forced to impose sentences for each of the successful charges. That could add up to a lot of years in prison.
For example, let’s say that an offender is charged with two counts of armed robbery among numerous other weapons charges and flight to avoid arrest charges. In a plea agreement, he may actually agree to plead guilty to a single charge of attempted armed robbery with all the other charges being dropped. There is no trial. The inmate goes before a judge and enters a guilty plea to the amended charges filed by the prosecuting attorney. The judge imposes a sentence on only the amended charge, and the inmate walks out of the courtroom relieved that it wasn’t much worse.
He’s grateful, but he won’t tell others his honest feelings. If family, friends, and romantic partners believe he’s angry and bitter, then they’ll be more likely to excuse his criminal behavior and send him money to reduce his unjustified suffering.
Here’s another:
I’m innocent. I didn’t commit the crime they charged me with.
One day, I was standing in the exercise yard just outside the housing unit where I worked, and an inmate named Carson approached me and began a well-rehearsed speech. In it, he described the many factors which led to the obvious conclusion that he couldn’t have committed his crime. He had no reason to do it. Someone else was obviously the guilty party. His conviction and sentence were a travesty of justice, and what he really needed was an advocate in an important position (like me) to fight for him, to seek justice, and to stop this terrible miscarriage of justice that was ruining his life.
Here was my big chance. I could be a hero. I could save this poor innocent inmate from this terrible thing that had happened to him. What better activity did I have to do that morning? What could be more important than rescuing him?
If an inmate gives this speech to other inmates, he learns pretty quickly how brutally honest other inmates can be, and he’s likely to hear ‘Yea, me, too. It’s just terrible, isn’t it?’ and everyone laughs.
I took my cue from the other inmates when Carson delivered his I’m innocent con to me. I started to laugh.
Carson was puzzled by my laughter. The more he talked and the more insistent he became, the more amused I became until by the time he was wrapping it up, I was laughing out loud.
What, he demanded to know, was so funny? Didn’t I believe him? Did I think he was lying to me?
“Oh, no,” I replied. “I believe you, every word. I just think it’s hilarious that with all the crimes you’ve committed in your life, most of which you’ve gotten away with, you ended up doing time for a crime you didn’t even commit. Your luck is terrible. I’m not sure it’s even safe to stand next to you. Lightning is probably about to strike you, or maybe a piano is about to fall on you from the sky. If you didn’t have bad luck, you wouldn’t have any luck at all,” I said.
“That’s cold, man,” Carson muttered to me, and he shook his head slightly from side to side. But a slight smile betrayed him. He knew I’d confronted him with the truth. Other inmates were watching us, and I’m pretty sure Carson returned to the onlooking group of inmates with a report about me.
“Don’t try the I’m-innocent con on Larsen,” I imagined him saying. “He’s not buying it. If you try it, you’ll be sorry.”
Actually, he must have passed on the word because I don’t remember anyone else trying that con on me, and it’s a very common con. Fortunately, that made my job a lot easier.
When inmates insist to you that they are innocent, they are the very ones who stood before a judge and answered “Yes, Your Honor,” when asked if they had indeed committed this crime, or who had stood before a jury and heard the foreman say that the jury had reached a unanimous verdict beyond a reasonable doubt that he did, in fact, commit this crime.
“But wait,” you might say. “Sometimes inmates are released because they’ve been proven innocent by some new evidence, like DNA results. What about that?”
Actually, our criminal justice system never tries to prove that a defendant is innocent. Defendants are assumed to be innocent. They don’t have to prove it. In our system, prosecutors assemble the relevant evidence and present it to a jury. The jury decides if a defendant is guilty. If new evidence emerges at a later date, then it’s prudent for prosecutors to look once again at all the assembled evidence, including the new evidence. Then, they form an opinion about the likelihood that a new jury would arrive at a different determination of guilt. The likelihood of an innocent verdict in a new hypothetical trial is what leads prosecutors and judges to decide to release an inmate who is currently serving a sentence of incarceration. Prosecutors may still believe the inmate is guilty of the crime, but they recognize that the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt may not be possible with the new evidence.
A new jury must reach a unanimous verdict. A dismissal of charges doesn't mean that the inmate is innocent, regardless of what he insists. It means that prosecutors believe that a new trial would probably fail to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Prisons and corrections staff are not involved in determinations of guilt or innocence of charges brought against individuals. That phase of the criminal justice process is finished by the time we face inmates sitting across the table from us, and the original sentencing court would not welcome any input from us at that point.
Our greater concern is establishing an honest relationship with this person in front of us. Understanding the I’m innocent con and confronting it helps us do this. Incarcerated inmates derive much greater benefit from an honest, frank relationship with us than they would from a staff member fooled into advocating for the early release of an inmate who doesn’t deserve it.
Here’s another:
There's one inmate con that targets religious volunteers. It’s the I did the crime but . . . con. Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, they all fall for this. With this con, an inmate admits the crime. "I did the crime, but the guy we killed was a pimp." "I did the crime, but I was trying to get my stuff back from a thief." "I did the crime, but I was just trying to feed my family." On it goes. Inmates constantly think of new variations to try.
This con finds inmates shifting blame for their actions onto their victims or to noble motives. The victim was a pimp? Well, what does he say about it? Oh, you say, he’s dead? We have only your word for it? Did you know he was a pimp before you killed him or after? Did the fact that he was a pimp have anything to do with you killing him, or is it something you’ve just made up to justify your crime?
The I did the crime but . . . con expects to trigger a sympathetic response in the listener. It’s intended to prompt a recognition in the listener that under these same circumstances, I (the listener) would have done the same thing. It supports a common myth, a myth that inmates strive mightily to establish as truth: inmates are just like everyone else.
No, actually, they aren’t. They’re criminals. That’s why they’re locked up. It isn’t bad luck. It isn’t bad associations. It isn’t poverty. Criminals are different, and that’s why corrections is all about correcting those differences, so criminals can be released when their sentences are completed and not go back to a life of crime with more victims, more suffering, and another stay in prison.
Here’s another:
The awful con. “Isn’t it awful? Isn’t the food awful? Aren’t the other prisoners awful? Isn’t it awful that I have to go into my room at night and be locked in?" On it goes. Everything is AWFUL! If an inmate says this to a fellow prisoner, he’s likely to hear "Dude, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime."
All of us find ourselves in moods where everything is awful, especially after listening to the evening news. Inmates use this con to tap into this frame of mind, but this con is especially used with outsiders. They’re trying to enlist people from the streets to help improve all the awful things that are ruining their lives, and getting out of prison early would be just what they need.
Unfortunately, well-meaning people sometimes fall for this con. Then, they strive to fulfill an inmate’s desires. They strive to help relieve the terrible, unjust suffering the inmate has convinced them he is enduring.
I once knew an older woman who sought my advice about a young man she and her husband had sponsored in an early release program. The inmate, whom they thought would lead a disciplined, peaceful life when he was released, chose instead to return to an undisciplined and impulsive style of living. He was drinking, and he was committing new crimes. She was confused and perplexed. She had been fooled by this inmate who wanted out of prison only to resume the life he had been leading before he was locked up, but she didn’t want to hear this. She resisted facing this fact. She and her husband were victims of the awful con and the I'm a changed man con.
“The inmate turned out to be different from the person they believed him to be. He was lying to them the whole time, and he created for them an image of himself which was actually an image of the person they wanted him to be. It was an image that dissolved once the inmate got the keys to the car, some spending money, and some freedom. It was a lie from the beginning.
What had they done wrong? Was it their fault? What was going to happen next? Were they in any danger? Who was this person they thought they knew?
These were the kinds of questions that kept her up at night, and at the root of them all, the awful con and the I'm a changed man con had fooled them into extending help to an inmate who wasn’t ready to receive it.
Discussion
- What are the differences and similarities between conning and gaslighting?
- Describe experiences you have had of each. What are the best ways to respond to them?
- Do you agree with the author that an honest relationship is preferable to being victimized by an inmate con?
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