pillar of his bunk.
Finally we started turning in. Gary, a quiet sort who seldom offered his opinion of anything, unbidden, said as the lights went out, “My son’s almost as old as some of them, and the worst trouble he could get into is a fistfight or drugs.” He was speaking, ofcourse, of the young inmates in Coxsackie, most of them violent repeat offenders. Who knew what world they came from? No one said a word in reply.
Classes started in earnest the next day, and among the many sleep-inducers—Note-Taking, Tool and Key Control, Cultural Awareness—were a few that made everyone sit up and take notice. A good-natured, shaved-headed, bullnecked older black man named Kirkley taught a class called Use of Force, in which we learned when it was okay to lay our hands on somebody. You had to wade through a pile of handouts—“Article 35,” “Directive 49,” “Employee Manual 8.2,” “Chapter V,” “Correctional Law 137–5”—to figure it all out, but the bottom line was that you could “lay hands on or strike an inmate” if necessary “for self-defense, to prevent injury to a person or to property, to quell a disturbance, to enforce compliance with a lawful direction, or to prevent an escape.” The requirements seemed pretty tough until you focused on the second-to-last one: “to enforce compliance with a lawful direction.” That was the clincher right there, 99 percent of what you needed to know. If the inmate wasn’t doing what you told him to, as long as it wasn’t “Shine my shoes,” you could use physical force on him.
Deadly
physical force was okay to use in three instances: to prevent an escape; in self-defense; or to prevent arson. Arson? “Arson is serious because an inmate could burn a whole building down, maybe one with people in it,” said Kirkley. Well, yes. But it was hard to imagine the scenario. An inmate, perhaps surrounded by empty gas cans, stooping to light a match. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” we could yell. And if he didn’t stop, we could kill him.
In one of the asides that probably prepared us for the job better than any of the approved curriculum items, Kirkley said that occasionally officers
did
have to act in self-defense. Usually, it was the result of a sudden flare-up—say, an inmate who was angered by something you had said or told him to do who went on the attack. It was even possible that we COs would be victimized in more deliberate ways. Early in his career, Kirkley related, while patrolling on a walkway inside a prison, he was jumped by five hooded inmates, who took his wallet. We were amazed that this could happen
inside
a prison. And Kirkley was a big man. But self-defense, in this case, was a moot point. “I was completely out-numbered,”Kirkley said, so his attackers got away with it. So much (in this case, anyway) for officers being in control.
Another officer, Voltraw, taught us Legals, a class that involved mostly memorization—the difference between larceny third degree and larceny fourth degree, for example, and the legal precedents of Miranda warnings—but also informed us about the powers we were about to possess. Among these were the rights to purchase a gun and carry it concealed and the power of arrest: on duty or off, we could make arrests for any felony or misdemeanor we witnessed. (Even if we did not witness it, we could still make an arrest for a felony.)
All this was due to our status as state “peace officers.” New York had sixty-three different kinds of peace-officer agencies, ranging from park police to state-university police to local police—but DOCS, with a budget that was one quarter of the state’s General Fund—was by far the largest. “The Department doesn’t want you to enforce the law—it doesn’t train you to do that,” Voltraw said. “There are liability issues, and actually, they’re unhappy that we can make arrests. But legally we can do almost as much as police officers.”
A couple of days later, Tom
Finally we started turning in. Gary, a quiet sort who seldom offered his opinion of anything, unbidden, said as the lights went out, “My son’s almost as old as some of them, and the worst trouble he could get into is a fistfight or drugs.” He was speaking, ofcourse, of the young inmates in Coxsackie, most of them violent repeat offenders. Who knew what world they came from? No one said a word in reply.
Classes started in earnest the next day, and among the many sleep-inducers—Note-Taking, Tool and Key Control, Cultural Awareness—were a few that made everyone sit up and take notice. A good-natured, shaved-headed, bullnecked older black man named Kirkley taught a class called Use of Force, in which we learned when it was okay to lay our hands on somebody. You had to wade through a pile of handouts—“Article 35,” “Directive 49,” “Employee Manual 8.2,” “Chapter V,” “Correctional Law 137–5”—to figure it all out, but the bottom line was that you could “lay hands on or strike an inmate” if necessary “for self-defense, to prevent injury to a person or to property, to quell a disturbance, to enforce compliance with a lawful direction, or to prevent an escape.” The requirements seemed pretty tough until you focused on the second-to-last one: “to enforce compliance with a lawful direction.” That was the clincher right there, 99 percent of what you needed to know. If the inmate wasn’t doing what you told him to, as long as it wasn’t “Shine my shoes,” you could use physical force on him.
Deadly
physical force was okay to use in three instances: to prevent an escape; in self-defense; or to prevent arson. Arson? “Arson is serious because an inmate could burn a whole building down, maybe one with people in it,” said Kirkley. Well, yes. But it was hard to imagine the scenario. An inmate, perhaps surrounded by empty gas cans, stooping to light a match. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” we could yell. And if he didn’t stop, we could kill him.
In one of the asides that probably prepared us for the job better than any of the approved curriculum items, Kirkley said that occasionally officers
did
have to act in self-defense. Usually, it was the result of a sudden flare-up—say, an inmate who was angered by something you had said or told him to do who went on the attack. It was even possible that we COs would be victimized in more deliberate ways. Early in his career, Kirkley related, while patrolling on a walkway inside a prison, he was jumped by five hooded inmates, who took his wallet. We were amazed that this could happen
inside
a prison. And Kirkley was a big man. But self-defense, in this case, was a moot point. “I was completely out-numbered,”Kirkley said, so his attackers got away with it. So much (in this case, anyway) for officers being in control.
Another officer, Voltraw, taught us Legals, a class that involved mostly memorization—the difference between larceny third degree and larceny fourth degree, for example, and the legal precedents of Miranda warnings—but also informed us about the powers we were about to possess. Among these were the rights to purchase a gun and carry it concealed and the power of arrest: on duty or off, we could make arrests for any felony or misdemeanor we witnessed. (Even if we did not witness it, we could still make an arrest for a felony.)
All this was due to our status as state “peace officers.” New York had sixty-three different kinds of peace-officer agencies, ranging from park police to state-university police to local police—but DOCS, with a budget that was one quarter of the state’s General Fund—was by far the largest. “The Department doesn’t want you to enforce the law—it doesn’t train you to do that,” Voltraw said. “There are liability issues, and actually, they’re unhappy that we can make arrests. But legally we can do almost as much as police officers.”
A couple of days later, Tom
Similar Books
