Scenes of Prison
19. Wanting to Fight, or Not
O ne day, while I was working in E-Pod, my attention was drawn to loud voices coming from the lower, center side of the Unit. I went to the pantry doorway, and I found two young Black inmates faced off in a heated exchange of words in the lower day area. Several other Black inmates were nearby and closing in on each side. They were trying to cool the tempers of the combatants, but they seemed to have little effect.
Suddenly, both inmates took fighting positions. They raised their closed fists in front of their faces, and crouched low behind them. It was a fistfight, or was it? For a moment, there was a pause. Shouting continued, and the fighting positions seemed frozen, and violence seemed inevitable, but not just yet.
Into this opening, a third Black inmate emerged. As if on a cue, he stepped behind one of the combatants, and reached around his slender waist, and picked him up. He literally picked him up off the floor and the two of them began to move backwards, away from the other combatant. The inmate he had picked up retained the exact pose he had held when he suddenly rose off of his feet and into the air and started to move backwards away from his adversary. His clenched fists continued to guard his face from any blows that might come his way, and he didn’t miss returning all challenges and insults directed at him. Verbally, the fight continued, but there were no blows struck.
Interestingly, the other combatant did not pursue the first inmate who was now retreating from the scene involuntarily as he was being carried backwards, away from the confrontation.
Neither inmate had really wanted to fight, but to save face and to preserve their status in the inmate hierarchy, they had to go through the motions. Onlookers needed to believe that they did want to fight and were ready to do so. The inmate who had lifted and carried away one of the combatants knew better. He correctly read the signs and saved the day for both inmates. There was no fight. No violence. No injury. There was nothing for me to stop, but there was certainly something for me to observe, admire, and remember.
I learned something that day. I learned to watch carefully as confrontations evolved into violence. I learned to watch for the brief moment when each combatant is thinking over the choice of becoming violent and throwing the first blow. I learned that quick, de-escalating actions taken during these moments can disrupt the decision to strike first. The decision to strike first will be taken out of the immediate calculation of what to do next. When someone can do this, the pause in fights will be extended until there is no longer a decision to be made. There will be no violence. Words, threats, insults, gestures . . . these will continue. Violence will be talked about, and threatened, but not initiated. No one will get hurt.
I learned a crucial lesson that day from the young Black inmate who saved the day for his Black brothers: at these moments, it is safe to act.
I would use this insight many times. Here are a couple of the most memorable.
Hank was shorter than average and skinnier than average for a young man barely out of his teens. He was also quick to respond to any perceived challenge from authority figures. He didn’t react well to people in positions of authority, especially if the person was wearing a badge. An onlooker might well describe him as obnoxious, mouthy, and anxious for a fight, but for some reason, he liked me.
One day, I was in Hank’s room when a security officer appeared at the door. He had some business with Hank, but he did not appreciate Hank's cool response to him. The officer bristled and expressed his contempt for Hank, and Hank responded in kind. Hands quickly formed into fists, and the volume of their voices rose rapidly. The postures of each of them suggested that a fight was imminent. I recognized the pause that precedes blows being struck, and I stepped between them.
The odds for the inmate were terrible. The officer was bigger, stronger, and faster than Hank, and I knew Hank didn’t really want to fight. But what about the officer? I didn’t know. Maybe he did want to fight.
Inmate rooms are small. With me in the way, there really wasn’t a way for the two of them to fight with each other. Since Hank didn’t really want to fight, he made no move to do so once I stepped between them. I was in the way.
The officer was surprised, and maybe a little disappointed. He submitted a formal report that day and insisted that I had done something very dangerous. I responded with my own formal report, and I never heard of the incident again. There was no fight, only loud voices.
A second memorable incident occurred years later when I was working in the Disciplinary Segregation Unit.
An officer escorted a young man to our unit who had been fighting, and I checked him into a room. The officer, the offender, and I were standing in the cell when it came time to complete a strip search. I gave the direction, but the inmate raised his fists instead and stood in a fighting posture. He looked menacing.
“I’ll be doing no strip search,” he said. “You can’t make me do it.”
The officer standing in the doorway tensed. He was ready for a fight, but neither the inmate nor the guard made any move toward each other. It was the moment of indecision that I had learned about many years before. I also examined the odds, two against one, and guessed that the inmate didn’t really want to fight us.
I took a step backward, and I leaned against a ledge in the room.
“How do you happen to be here today?” I asked.
The inmate seemed a little confused. He was ready to fight. He hadn’t expected this question. He slowly lowered his arms to his sides, and his fists unclenched. The officer was surprised, too, and he relaxed as well. Haltingly, the inmate began to tell the fresh story of the events that had brought him to Segregation that day and to explain his side of the encounter, and as he did so, he began to hand me articles of clothing that he had removed to carry out the strip search I had directed him to complete. As he described the details of the fight that had brought him to Segregation, we completed the strip search. He was so occupied with telling his story that he didn’t seem to notice that he was taking off all of his clothing and stripping naked in front of us.
The officer at the door was slightly bewildered, but I was running the show in my Unit. There would be no fight with this inmate today. We successfully completed checking him into his room, and the rest of his stay in Segregation was uneventful.
Discussion
- Have you witnessed enough conflict to recognize these moments of indecision when it is safe to intervene?
- Have you ever acted at these times to prevent an escalation to violence?
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