Page |1
Hawzien Gebremedhin 3/26/10 CMMU 4710
“The cat-o’-nine tails was a means so brutal in its nature that both he who used it, and he who bore its stripes were alike brutalized in its employment… In its application the familiarity it causes with suffering destroys in the breast of the officer all sympathetic feeling, until each ennobling quality of his nature is lost,” Blanchad Fosgate on the blow back effect the use of cato’-nine tails on inmates in New York’s Sing Sing Prison in the mid 19th century (Conover, 181). Although there is no longer use of the cat-o’-nine tails in modern American prison systems, there continues to be an unalterable blow back affect on correction officers (COs) working and sometimes living within the prison walls. The daily encounters inside a prison ranging from danger, monotony, and rare glimpses of humanity (love, happiness) can have staggering affects on the COs that do not stop inside the cell walls but follows them everywhere they go. This essay will bear witness to the affects that working inside a prison has on its staff, as well as examining the toll that prison takes on the families of prisoners. A little under a year ago, and after much reflection, my boyfriend Keith decided that his calling in life was to serve the greater good in society by being a police man, and later a detective. I know this might be a cliché job aspiration, with shows like CSI and Law and Order turning average kids around the country into want- to-be detectives, but Keith’s aspirations are different, his passion for this type of work was not one of these overnight epiphanies, his interest is genuine. Keith never had the best relationship with the local Denver police, driving past one would always lead into some sort of detour of taking any street he could to try to avoid them, while playing the role of a constant witness to the one sided negative “Rodney King Cop.”
Page |2
Surprisingly, he actually did get “beat up” for resisting arrest at the age of 18, later charges were dropped. After years of this ill relationship, Keith decided to stop detouring and instead face his fears of the DPD (Denver Police Department) by applying to be a part of their team and to try to change the poor relationships between the police and the minority youth in Denver. Instead of being a silent witness to the community where minorities are unjustly profiled, he decided to answer his call to activism by dreaming of a better future for the DPD. He is currently undergoing the process to make this dream a reality. He understands that in being a Denver Police Officer it may mean that he begins his training working as a CO, a task that that he is willing to undergo. Unfortunately what Keith and many new police recruits do not know is the blowback affect that a job of this magnitude can have on a person’s psyche, and in turn, the extent of what they actually will witness. The “Brutalization Thesis” suggests that when a person is brutalizing another human being, the perpetrator in turn is being brutalized, or what is known as the blow back affect. For instance, in the example stated above regarding the cat-o’-nine tails, although the Correction Officer was striking the prisoner with the weapon, the prisoner was not the only one becoming hurt. The CO was not only becoming hurt physically by the pain in his hand by grasping the leather object in his hands to perform sometimes hundreds of blows, but more importantly in his psyche, for every time he struck an individual with the object a piece of his humanity was lost. In todays prison system it is evident that this blow back effect continues to occur. In Ted Conover’s New Jack, he shows us numerous of examples of how this blow back is apparent, one of the most overt instances of this theory in action is when the “Play House 4” nearly kill a civilian. In prisons, officers are taught how to extract an inmate from their cell by
Page |3
handcuffing them and using force to get them out, in the case of the “Play House 4,” four officers used their experiences of this procedure on a civilian who posed no major threat to them outside of the prison and got themselves in a short magnitude of trouble. The four officers not only beat up this civilian, but hand cuffed him in the manner a cell extraction would be handled, and then continued to beat and kick him. In this case, the brutalization thesis was demonstrated by the officer’s use of brutalized force outside of the prison walls. It shows that after years of being institutionalized in a building where your main objective is to keep prisoners in line, you begin to live your life with the same notion, and in the case of the “Play House 4,” it was evident that their experiences flooded outside of the jail and into their personal lives. The concept of the “Brutalization Thesis” stems from the notion of being institutionalized. To be institutionalized inside of a prison, one goes through a number of different changes that somewhat mold them as one with the prison itself. When a CO becomes institutionalized, he/she goes through changes that are both physical and emotional. Physically, the officer’s body begins to change. They bulk up to keep up with the prisoners and tend to carry themselves in a more pronounced way which is evident in their walks. These physical changes can be attributed to the fact that they do not want to seem weak to the prisoners. Their emotional changes stem from the same concept. Emotionally, when officers become institutionalized in the prison they become more shut off, or numb. They put on a front of being emotionless so that the prisoners cannot tell what emotions they are really feeling and in turn have the upper hand in the situation. In an environment devout of soft emotions like love and happiness and instead replaced with emotions of people living life in slow time, it isn’t uncommon for a CO to actually become truly emotionless. It is when this emotion is drained from the body that the “Brutalization Thesis” is successful.
Page |4
For my boyfriend Keith, and other thousands of newly recruited policemen and women who may have to work and be witness to the events inside of a corrections facility, it is clear that the task will not be the easiest. For officers to successfully survive the brutal blow back affect that not only affects them, but everyone around them, it will take endurance. To many outside of the prisons grasp, the numb attitude of a CO may seem unfair, or even inhumane, I too have been guilty of this. I used to wonder why COs were so mean, why they didn’t view the individual inside of a prison as a human rather than a number. In Judith Tannenbaum’s Disguised as Poem, she bears witness to what strength and endurance COs must have, and how easy it is to actually become this numb person. She writes, “At the end of four hours, I could barely speak or look at the man on the other side of the bars, let alone smile. At the end of four hours, I nearly stopped caring. So, what about guards? I wondered… Even if an officer had the best heart in the world, how would he or she ever be able to manage being decent eight hours a day, five days a week, under these conditions?” (Tannenbaum, 104). The “Brutalization Thesis” is a concept that can be explained for a lot of the effects that people who work inside a prison feel after the leave the prison. In an environment where the feeling of hope is almost always lost it can lead to a sometimes violent and at other times depressing state of mind. It takes strong people with an even stronger sense of endurance to make it through this type of work. My boyfriend Keith will have to bear witness to all of the events that will test not only his patience but his will as an individual, in the end, I hope he makes it. Correction officers are not the only ones who tolerate being witnesses to the inhumanities in prisons, family members of actual prisoners also experience the worst end of prison life.
Page |5
Fortunately, I’ve never had a family member locked up in prison before, and I hope to never have one, but attempting to understand the pain and suffering that family members would have to endure is somewhat unbearable. In referring to the different women family members of prisoners, Franklins On the Yard reads, “Money flowed in steadily… not only as a further gift of life to their fathers, sons, husbands, and brothers, but because the women almost always hated the system of bars, locks and badges more than their men.” This concept is amazing to me, that the family members of prisoners hate the prison system more that the actual prisoners, but in breaking it down it made sense. While it sucks to be a prisoner living life in slow time, it sucks far worse to be the person constantly trying to make life work without the man of the family being there. Women and other family members are the ones worrying about the next bill to pay, about how they are going to feed their family now on a slashed income, and worrying about how they are going to get their loved one out of prison. It is clear why family members would hate the system that has their men locked up; if they knew the constant pressure attempting to crush the souls of the men they love, these family members would be more enthralled. In Mumia Abu-Jamal’s collections of essays known as Live From Death Row, he introduces us to the concept of crushing souls. He writes, “Prison is a second by second assault on the soul, a day-to-day degradation of the self, an oppressive steel and brick umbrella that transforms seconds into hours and hours into days” (Abu-Jamal, 53). What Mumia is describing here is slow time. Slow time is this helpless feeling of having no control over your life. With nothing to do, you constantly think about the events that happened in the past, repeatedly, until it brings you to a state of madness. He refers to slow time in the concept of soul crushing because it leads you to becoming self defeated and can suck any hope and happiness from your soul, therefore crushing it. For family members, I imagine that visiting their loved ones in a state like
Page |6
this is never an easy one. Watching their sons, husbands, and fathers deteriorate into a state of nothingness breaks their own souls as well. Continuing to imagine myself as a family member of a person in prison, I can’t help but be the most bothered by the “irony of barbarism” presented inside of jails. The “irony of barbarism” is a concept that mixes irony; being sarcastic and mocking someone, with barbarism; violent, brutal, animalistic, primitive. On the outside it may not seem as if prisons mix these two concepts together, prisoners come and go, some stay and die, but Mumia shows us exactly how this takes place. When enjoying their few luxuries in prison, Mumia and the other death row inmates make their way to the Yard for leisure time. A couple of minutes after being outside, it begins to rain and they are ushered inside. What might the reason be that a group of men who will be killed by the state, who only get two hours a day for leisure are rushed back into their cells after minutes due to rain? It’s because the state can’t afford to have one of their inmates killed due to natural causes outside when it is their job to kill them. Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think? Imagining myself as a family member of a prisoner I not only think that this concept is ironic, but barbaric. The state is due to kill my husband in a couple of years, but he is not allowed to go out and have the few luxuries he is given because the state is afraid he might get electrocuted? It makes me question the humanity of an institution like that. In the prison system there are many players who becomes victims and antagonists. Although many times people might view the victims as the antagonists and vice versa, it is clear that each player has a conflicting role. Sometimes their up, other times their down. Officers and family members are constantly playing witness to the injustices that the prisoners and the prison system as a whole face. From recruits like my boyfriend Keith, to family members struggling to make ends meet without their bread winner, they all need endurance to be able to continuously
Page |7
face the irony of barbarism and the slow time that constantly faces the people they care about and are working with. This essay has bearded witness to the affects that working inside a prison has on its staff, as well as examining the toll that prison takes on the families of prisoners. It is clear to see that it takes strong people, with even stronger wills to be able to face these types of scenarios.