Scenes of Prison
26. Unwritten Rules
H ow do you learn unwritten rules? What happens when you break them?
A co-worker of mine had some difficulty learning unwritten rules, and he managed to break two of them at the same time. Here’s his story.
Max was a stocky, middle-aged, former deputy sheriff from a rural Nebraska county – a “county mountie.” He looked like he may have played fullback on his high school football team. He was accustomed to running the show, and he wasn’t reluctant to use force to make sure his way prevailed. One day, he broke two unwritten rules at the same time, and if he were paying attention, he learned an important lesson or two.
One rule involves touch.
Inmates don’t touch staff, and staff don’t touch inmates. When inmates and staff greet each other, there is no shaking of hands. There are no pats on the back or gently pushing if people are crowding through a door, at least not between inmates and staff. The exception to this rule comes with “pat searches.”
A “pat search” finds a staff member touching an inmate through his clothing searching for hidden contraband like weapons or drugs.
When an officer initiates a pat search, he first steps to the side of an inmate and announces “pat search.” The inmate then turns his back to the officer and extends his arms out from his sides. Patting gently and starting at the top, an officer ends his with an inmate’s feet and ankles. When the search is complete, the inmate drops his arms and moves on. With this exception, staff do not touch inmates. This is what they expect, and if inmates are touched, they often interpret it as a hostile, violent act, and they are likely to react to this meaning, so touching an inmate can be a dangerous thing to do unless it involves a pat search.
The second unwritten rule Max broke that day involved small inmates. It’s hard to be a small inmate. Prison is rough, and small size is an invitation for abuse. The second unwritten rule for staff is to beware of small inmates. They are often “powder kegs” of tension, and they may react explosively and violently when they feel threatened. Staff must avoid triggering a violent outburst.
Small inmates are also more likely to have suffered sexual abuse as children, and the threat to be sexually abused continues when they arrive at the prison. “What are you going to do about it?” goes the conventional inmate logic. “Hit me with your tiny little fists?” Therefore, if you are small, and you are in prison, you’ve probably had a hard life. You may be afraid, and you will be wary of threats that may endanger you. Staff should be cautious around small inmates and be watchful of their moods.
It was a cold morning when Max broke these two unwritten rules. We were going door-to-door in our Disciplinary Segregation Unit and asking inmates if they wanted to go outside for their hour of exercise. Most were refusing, and that suited us very well. The sooner we completed running out the yards, the sooner we could attend to other duties. We would also be relieved by not having to go out into the cold morning air ourselves.
Max went to room U-8 on the top tier occupied by a small inmate named Clayton. Max opened his door and stepped into the doorway. (This occurred before we installed hatches in the room doors.)
“Do you want to go outside to the exercise yard today?” he asked.
Max outweighed Clayton by at least one hundred pounds and stood ten inches taller.
Clayton didn’t immediately respond to Max’s question. He may have been sleeping, or he may have been reluctant to go out into the cold morning air and stand in a cage for an hour. He was thinking it over.
“Do you want to go outside?” Max repeated, now betraying irritation in his voice.
Max didn’t wait very long, and then he said, “Okay, that’s a ‘no,’” and he stepped out of the doorway and started to close the door.
Suddenly, Clayton decided he did want to go outside after all, and he stepped into the doorway to leave his room. Max was trying to close the door, and he said “You refused yard and . . .”
Max had made a mistake. Actually, two mistakes. As he said these words and tried to close Clayton’s door, he had put his left hand in the middle of Clayton’s chest. He was going to give him a little shove back into his room to make room for the door to close. However, he would not have tried to push him out of the way if Clayton had been a large inmate.
It never happened. Max did not get a chance to push Clayton anywhere. As soon as Max’s hand touched Clayton’s chest, he blasted Max right between the eyes with a right-handed haymaker, hitting Max as hard as he could.
WHAM!!!
Max staggered backward with the blow. He took another unsteady step backward, and then he slammed the door shut. He turned and faced the rest of us. Blood was seeping out of his nostrils and from lacerations in his forehead above his eyebrows. His face was red.
“He hit me!” Max announced loudly in surprised disbelief, telling us nothing we didn’t already know.
Max pressed the emergency response button on the two-way radio he carried on his duty belt even though the emergency was now over, and our Emergency Response Team quickly arrived at the scene. There was little for them to do. Clayton was alone in his room with the door closed, and he was not interested in fighting with anyone. After hitting Max, he had retreated back into his room. He was probably as surprised by his actions as Max had been.
The Emergency Response Team went into Clayton’s room and put him in restraints, and they literally carried him out the door and down the hall to the Control Unit. They were not gentle with him, and I felt some regret for Clayton. He had struck a staff member. There would be serious consequences, and his experience with the Emergency Response Team would only reinforce his identity as a small guy who was a target of frequent abuse.
Clayton was a prisoner in his own small body, and there would be more challenges ahead for him in the years to come. As he disappeared around a corner in the hallway, I wondered if I would ever see him again.
Max had learned a lesson that day about unwritten rules. At least, I hoped that he had. I didn’t know for sure because I didn’t feel it was wise for me to point it out to him. He outweighed me by sixty pounds.
Discussion
- Every age group seems to have unwritten rules that create expectations for interpersonal relations. Are you aware of any unwritten rules that you follow?
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