 |
| Ted Conover: born January 17th 1958 |
While anthropologists often travel into areas where there lives are imperiled, the wildest jungle tribes cannot be more menacing than those held captive in a major American prison. Yet, as part of his research into various subcultures, Ted Conover undertook the task of becoming a prison guard at Sing Sing for a year.
(The politically correct term is “corrections officer”, but here I will use the terms “prison guard” and “corrections officer" interchangeably.)
Although forced to undergo the same training as his fellow corrections officers, Conover’s position differed from theirs in that he knew, although his instructors, and later those prisoners over whom he would be given control guessed that for him this constituted research into the underworld of confined criminals.
To some degree, this gave him, in theory at least, some sense of detachment. Having earned a PHD in anthropology, and written several books on various aspects of the lives of the marginalized, his lifetime income and later pension did not depend upon his job evaluation. Still, caught in the barely controlled mayhem of Sing Sing Prison, he soon felt as constricted by bureaucracy and menaced by convicts as did his fellow guards.
One early lesson he learned was the power of the dis-empowered. The longer a convict’s sentence, the more carefree he could be when a policy proved inconvenient. True, yard privileges could be suspended, or if the offense was viewed as grave, convicts could be locked in their cells or sent into “the hole” of solitary confinement. Still, any incentive to comply or co-operate might be curtailed or halted altogether by the length of a sentence.
Major disruptions in any cell blocks resulted in a temporary lock-down, its duration depending upon the time deemed vital to have a detrimental effect upon plans of similar future misconduct. This penalty, while having a quieting effect upon the inmates of the cell block involved, required guards to undertake the most tedious prison jobs, generally done by inmates earning 15 cents per hour.
Simultaneously, the inability of such prisoners to queue up for meals compelled guards to bring food to each individual’s cell, and then pass them through the narrow window in each door. This, Conover recounts, made him feel more like a waiter than a corrections officer.
Food, indeed, could be utilized as a tool of control. At one point, those convicted of what were viewed as the foulest offenses still had a right to be given a sufficient amount of food to prevent their starvation. While this requirement was met, it was done in the most indigestible way. The bread upon which such convicts were forced to subsist was made so distasteful as to be all but impossible to ingest. One officer, asked to evaluate it, found it too palatable; it would need to become even harder to swallow.
As a reader, I found one of the most gripping aspects of this memoir to be its candor. While at first succeeding in keeping his prison work separate from his home life with his wife and two young children, in time, this boundary began to erode. Compared to the anguish he found himself forced to see, and his own balance between conforming to authorities while being fair to prisoners, Conover started to feel overwhelmed.
The details of his wife’s day and his children’s fussing, at times exhausted his tolerance. By the end of his year as a corrections officer, he began to see how this life, lived on a continuing basis, could decimate families. Fortunately, Conover’s spouse and offspring only suffered a few verbal bruising's, which could be healed by his reversion to his role as husband and father.
Still, we, as readers, are left with the question as to what becomes of the family lives of those guards who, via decades on the job, sentence themselves, and to some extent those closest to them to a form of lifelong confinement.
(The politically correct term is “corrections officer”, but here I will use the terms “prison guard” and “corrections officer" interchangeably.)
Although forced to undergo the same training as his fellow corrections officers, Conover’s position differed from theirs in that he knew, although his instructors, and later those prisoners over whom he would be given control guessed that for him this constituted research into the underworld of confined criminals.
To some degree, this gave him, in theory at least, some sense of detachment. Having earned a PHD in anthropology, and written several books on various aspects of the lives of the marginalized, his lifetime income and later pension did not depend upon his job evaluation. Still, caught in the barely controlled mayhem of Sing Sing Prison, he soon felt as constricted by bureaucracy and menaced by convicts as did his fellow guards.
One early lesson he learned was the power of the dis-empowered. The longer a convict’s sentence, the more carefree he could be when a policy proved inconvenient. True, yard privileges could be suspended, or if the offense was viewed as grave, convicts could be locked in their cells or sent into “the hole” of solitary confinement. Still, any incentive to comply or co-operate might be curtailed or halted altogether by the length of a sentence.
Major disruptions in any cell blocks resulted in a temporary lock-down, its duration depending upon the time deemed vital to have a detrimental effect upon plans of similar future misconduct. This penalty, while having a quieting effect upon the inmates of the cell block involved, required guards to undertake the most tedious prison jobs, generally done by inmates earning 15 cents per hour.
Simultaneously, the inability of such prisoners to queue up for meals compelled guards to bring food to each individual’s cell, and then pass them through the narrow window in each door. This, Conover recounts, made him feel more like a waiter than a corrections officer.
Food, indeed, could be utilized as a tool of control. At one point, those convicted of what were viewed as the foulest offenses still had a right to be given a sufficient amount of food to prevent their starvation. While this requirement was met, it was done in the most indigestible way. The bread upon which such convicts were forced to subsist was made so distasteful as to be all but impossible to ingest. One officer, asked to evaluate it, found it too palatable; it would need to become even harder to swallow.
As a reader, I found one of the most gripping aspects of this memoir to be its candor. While at first succeeding in keeping his prison work separate from his home life with his wife and two young children, in time, this boundary began to erode. Compared to the anguish he found himself forced to see, and his own balance between conforming to authorities while being fair to prisoners, Conover started to feel overwhelmed.
The details of his wife’s day and his children’s fussing, at times exhausted his tolerance. By the end of his year as a corrections officer, he began to see how this life, lived on a continuing basis, could decimate families. Fortunately, Conover’s spouse and offspring only suffered a few verbal bruising's, which could be healed by his reversion to his role as husband and father.
Still, we, as readers, are left with the question as to what becomes of the family lives of those guards who, via decades on the job, sentence themselves, and to some extent those closest to them to a form of lifelong confinement.
