FOOD AND TOILET PAPER

‘Those who have never worked in a prison are often surprised to learn how much prison life is centered on food and toilet paper’

With the exception of a prison where every inmate is held in solitary confinement under heavy security - like the federal supermax in Florence, Colorado - every penal institution is a powder keg waiting to explode. There is a riot waiting to happen even in the best of prisons. While there will always be some abuse of inmates by correctional officers, Jeff Doyle notes that neglect and indifference by prison authorities is far more common and more likely to be at the root of inmate unrest.

PRACTITIONERS OF PRISON INMATE ABUSE AND NEGLECT ARE PLAYING WITH FIRE
By Jeff ‘Paco’ Doyle

PACOVILLA Corrections blog
June 6, 2012

In Paco’s opinion, it is axiomatic that mistreatment leads to violence. In that context, from managers down to officers, practitioners of inmate abuse and neglect are playing with fire. And, experience tells us it is rarely the actual abusers who get burned when the population erupts.

Having worked as a Correctional Officer at 3 prisons, I saw no institutionalized abuse–Neglect and indifference was another matter.

Those who have never worked in a prison are often surprised to learn how much prison life is centered on food and toilet paper (in that order….and not just biologically speaking).

On several occasions I saw problems develop over how meals were timed. The rule there was 10 minutes after the last inmate leaves the steamline, the order to bus trays went out. Now it may sound reasonable to give a man 10 minutes to eat his meal but, by the time he walks to the far end of the chow hall where the last diner was always seated, it was more like 9 minutes. After about 5 minutes the CO at the adjacent exit would warn the inmates at the end table they had less than 5 minutes to finish up–Those who were still eating with 2 minutes or less left would be reminded again. For some reason, the last few guys to eat felt it was unreasonable to have to shovel a meal down their gullets while cops hovered about telling them to hurry up. Sometimes it got ugly.

Similarly, I often participated in a bit of fun called supply line where toilet paper was the prize. At one facility, someone up the chain felt it was reasonable to issue a single roll of TP per inmate per week. Again, that may sound reasonable but I defy anyone to try an experiment. See if you can go 7 days on one roll. In any case, fights and arguments over TP were rather common in the unit.

Now, even though I agreed with the inmates regarding the chow and TP procedures, it never occurred to me to take the matter up the chain. That’s the way it was: “Inmates got nothing coming.”

To be clear, the timely and orderly service of food is critical to prison operations. Similarly, toilet paper is an expensive commodity–It must be properly controlled. However, when the controls and procedures lead predictably to discontent, they run counter to the mission of safe operations. In other words, if giving a man more than 5 minutes to eat before interrupting his meal and an extra roll of ass-wipe to finish his business means things run a bit smoother, Paco says it is both reasonable and desirable. After all, one incident will drive costs beyond any savings realized from overzealous TP control.

One assault on staff is one too many. When it happens because CO’s are enforcing unreasonable meal times or denying a diarrhea-prone population toilet paper, it is wholly avoidable and, therefore, an outrage.