Scenes of Prison
36. Prosperous John
O ne chilly winter day when I was working in a general population Unit, I went to John’s room with a check for him to endorse. John Allen was a personable, handsome inmate in his late 20s. He lived on the top tier of rooms on the side of the Unit closest to the entrance door. The sun was shining, and a patch of his concrete floor was bathed in sunlight shining in through the window. Welcome heat radiated up from the warm concrete floor. It was a nice contrast to the snowy ground outside.
“Got a check for you to sign, Mister Allen” I announced as I came into his room.
John was sitting at his small desk in his gray plastic stacking chair. He took the check and signed the back without comment. It was routine for him. He regularly received checks in the mail.
Our mailroom staff open all the personal letters inmates receive and read the letters, and they remove and record all the checks they find. They send the checks to the units in zippered pouches, and then unit staff bring the checks to the inmates. Once an inmate endorses the check, the money goes into his account, and he can spend it.
“Say, Mister Larsen,” John began, “That reminds me. If I get a visit today from Mary, I want to refuse that visit. But if I get a visit from Ruth, I want to go on that one.”
Normally, we don’t inquire about the identities of those who have arrived at the prison to visit inmates. We notify the inmates of the arrival, and the inmate learns who is visiting when he arrives at the Visiting Room. John’s request today was not our usual procedure.
“Why don’t you want to visit Mary?” I asked.
“Well, I do want to visit Mary. She sends me money, too. I just don’t want to visit with her today.”
He held up the check he had just finished endorsing. “Today, I’m expecting a visit from Ruth. She sent me this money, but Ruth doesn’t know about Mary, and Mary doesn’t know about Ruth. I want to keep it that way.”
I felt mildly conspiratorial, like I was being asked to be a party to a fraud.
“What do you think would happen if Mary and Ruth found out about each other?” I asked.
“Well, that did happen not too long ago,” he began. “I was visiting with my wife, and my girlfriend showed up for a visit, and the Visiting-Room staff just let her come right in. Suddenly, there she was, and my wife said, ‘Who’s that!?’”
“Oh my,” I said “Did your wife and your girlfriend have anything to say to each other?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” he said with a broad shaking of his head. “It was quite the uproar. They had plenty to say. They were both mad at me, and they were both mad at each other. I was right in the middle of it, and it got pretty loud. Everyone else in the visiting room just sat back and listened to us. We were quite the entertainment. Finally, the Visiting-Room officer couldn’t tolerate it any more. He stopped the visit and sent both of them home.
“But they weren’t done. Not at all. They carried it right out into the parking lot, and they nearly came to blows out there. I don’t want that to happen again,” he said.
“Well, what if it does happen again?” I asked.
I looked around his room and noticed all the expensive possessions he had: color TV, fancy stereo, a wide assortment of CDs, toiletries, and snacks piled high on the back of his desk. New clothes hanging on hooks against the wall and expensive athletic shoes on the floor. They created quite an impressive display. By inmate standards, John was doing very well for himself. He was prosperous, maybe even rich.
He regularly received special orders through our Inmate Canteen of items available only through catalogs, and he happily paid the special handling fees. When he wasn’t required to wear prison khaki clothes, he dressed very well.
“Well, if I lose Mary or Ruth, I’d just have to replace them. Got to keep the Benjamins rollin’ in,” he said with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes. As he said this, he raised his right hand to the level of his cheek and rubbed his thumb against two fingers on his hand, a gesture that reminded me of rubbing two one-hundred-dollar bills together.
“So the women all send you money,” I said. “How do you go about getting girlfriends while you’re locked up in here?” I asked.
He held up his pen. “Oh, you know, there’s lots of lonely women out there, and some of them want someone who’s locked up. That way, they don’t have to worry about him. They know I’m not going to go out and get drunk and wreck their car, and they imagine they’re the only woman in my life since I’m locked up in a men’s prison. I can write to them and tell them all the things they want to hear, and they send me money because I ask for it. You can’t beat it. I’ve got a couple of more women I’m working on right now,” he said.
John was very pleased with himself, but I thought of the women who were receiving his letters and trusting his words. Did they suspect the truth? Were they comforted by this fraud? Did they believe this lie John was offering to them? Would they listen if someone told them the truth and offered them some advice? Maybe they were lying to themselves. Maybe the comfort they gained was worth the price they paid, and they wouldn’t want to have it spoiled.
There were times when the prison got so busy that I was called upon to complete a task normally completed by correctional officers, for example, escorting inmates to the Visiting Room when they had been called for a visit. When I did so, I would find myself in the Visiting Room with couples scattered around me throughout the room. I often thought of John at these times and the women who visited him and sent him money. I wondered if other inmates I saw in the Visiting Room with women sitting at their sides might also be lying to them.
Were these women being lied to and tricked into sending money to these inmates? I imagine there were at least a few.
Discussion
- Do you think prison staff have some obligation to protect women from being targeted by inmates who want them to send money? How could they accomplish this?
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