Good Morning, Class of '64
Another
Day with Larry
Crime and punishment can be
summed up in two classifications:
there are bad people and there are
people who get into bad situations.
The lines for liberation and rehabilitation
should first begin with the people who
get into bad situations.
Johnnie Dent, Jr.
Bureau of Prisons
I had not decided what I wanted to do with my life when I returned from
the Army. I was pretty sure I did not want to teach Vocational Agriculture in
the public schools. Since I returned in November, I had plenty of time to
decide before the next school year.
I took a job in a service
station. I probably learned more in the 14 months I worked there than in the
five years I spent in college. I learned how tough it is to work with the
public. I discovered that the most successful people are much more likely to
respect and treat with courtesy those who serve them than less successful
people do. We had some rather wealthy customers and some West Virginia
University professors who were a delight to serve. The WVU head football coach,
Bobby Bowden, treated us as equals. Other customers made us want to hide.
While I was there, a customer
came in to pick up his car one evening. There was a problem with it, and as I
corrected it, I engaged him in conversation to try to keep him from getting too
upset. He was an assistant supervisor of education at the then-called Kennedy
Youth Center. I told him about my degree in education, and he invited me to the
institution to look it over. When I took him up on the invitation, I was warmly
received. They assigned an inmate to show me around. I asked him a lot of questions;
he was pretty positive about the education department.
Many of the teachers welcomed
me and explained their programs to me. They seemed proud of what they were
doing. They were using a term new to me - Performance Objectives. I soon
learned that P. O.’s as they called them and what Dr. Sheldon Baker had taught
as Behavioral Objectives were the same. All real teaching is based on
behavioral objectives, but the public education system pays lip service to
them. I was sold. It took over six months to get hired, but it was worth it.
When I started work in 1974,
there was a really strong family feeling among the staff. I have never felt so
much a part of a group dedicated to doing the job right. It was a special place
to work. With increased inmate population and increased staff along with staff
turnover, we lost much of that closeness. But we never lost it all; working
there was always special.
Our students had all
experienced failure in education. Some had flunked out, some had dropped out,
and some had been kicked out. (A very, very few had quit school to support
their family.) We had a 100% failure rate from the beginning. I had three
strikes against me with new inmates. First, I represented the pooe-leece (their
pronunciation). Second, I was white - my classes averaged 75 to 90% minority at
any given time. Most were Blacks, but a few Hispanics, South Americans, and
American Indians were included. Third, I represented school, a place where most
inmates had experienced only failure. After failing repeatedly in public
school, he gets in trouble, is sentenced to federal prison, and is ordered to
go to school.
Many came in with a chip on
their shoulder - “I don’t need this bull----! I was doing good on the street!”
Before I could teach the inmate, I had to convince him that I cared about his
succeeding. I did that by getting into his face and being confrontational -
“Sure, you were doing great on the street, so great you’re locked up in federal prison!” It was painful and
emotionally tiring, but it worked for me. It created stress; that’s one reason
I retired at age 50. It is also a reason I am perfectly content to stay at home
most of the time; I do like my peace and quiet.
I cannot be sure how effective
I was. I did keep the inmates occupied helping to keep them out of trouble so I
fulfilled my correctional mission. If I influenced or helped even one inmate to
clean up his life and become a productive, tax-paying citizen rather than doing
life on the installment plan, America got a big return on my salary. I hope I
did.
I quickly learned that there
are three groups of inmates in a prison. One group will never change. They are
already doing life on the installment plan. Another group will make it on the
streets no matter what the prison does. We can give them tools to make it
easier, but they have already made the decision to succeed. The third group lies
somewhere in the middle. They can be influenced; in fact, they are influenced
by their prison experience, some positively and some negatively. The real
challenge is that we can never be sure which group an inmate is in. We have to
treat all inmates as if they can be influenced. That makes the job harder and
more stressful and makes the failures more painful.
Education in a prison has more
of a correctional purpose than a rehabilitative one. Rehabilitation can only
come from within - the inmate does it himself. The best the prison can do is
give him some tools. Our prisons are for punishment and separation of offenders
from the rest of society not rehabilitation. The correctional purpose of
education is the same as that of recreation and work assignments - to keep the
inmates busy. It is cheaper and more humane to hire teachers, build
recreational facilities, and provide meaningful jobs or even make-work jobs
than to build cell blocks, hire more guards, and patch busted heads. We are not
coddling inmates with these programs - we are managing them as economically as
possible. Any rehabilitative benefits from education is a welcome bonus.
Teaching in a prison is a
wonderful opportunity for a good teacher. When I closed my classroom door, the
warden, the associate wardens, the captain, and the department heads did not
know, or care, what happened in that room. As long as I produced a reasonable
number of class completions and there was no blood on the floor, I was on my
own. I could, and did, design my program any way I chose. I could teach it the
way I wanted. I could try the wildest things, and I did. I could be as good, or
as bad, as I chose. Lazy teachers in a prison continue to be lazy - it’s
easier. Poor teachers remain poor teachers - it’s easy. But good teachers can
become great teachers. It is a wonderful place to teach.
Unfortunately, too many prison
educators never try to understand where they are working. In a prison, custody
and corrections are central; the entire prison revolves around that. Too many
educators believe that the prison revolves around them. Teachers generally have
a well-deserved poor reputation in a prison. All too many think they are the
elite in the prison. I learned quickly that I would not have a clean, safe,
comfortable classroom if the correctional officers were not doing their jobs. I
tried hard to support them. I respected them and their work; in fact, I was
more like them than I was like other teachers.
I received two compliments
that I can never forget while working in the prison. A correctional officer,
perhaps the best I’ve ever known, said to me, “You’re the best correctional
officer in that school.” It doesn’t get
much better than that. One of my students came out with another. I had taught a
unit in writing skills, and the class was doing a practice worksheet on the
unit. Suddenly an inmate said, “Mr. See, you actually think us dumb SOB’s can
do this stuff.” Success! Much of my time was spent trying to convince the
inmates that I did believe that they could succeed.
In addition to teaching, I was
fortunate to do quite a bit of staff training. I taught firearms to staff for
nine years, about eleven or twelve days per year. I also taught interpersonal
communications, security, hostage survival, and riot squad training. I even
commanded a riot squad for two or three years. We were required to have 40
hours of refresher training each year. Working in training was a great
experience; I got acquainted with many people who had been only a name and
voice on the phone. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
People who have no experience
in prisons have two questions, questions I have answered dozens of times. The
first is, “What are they (the inmates) like?” The answer is that they are
people, people who grew up in your community and who will be coming back to
your community. Some are good, some are bad, and most have some good and some
bad in them, pretty much like you and me.
The second question is “Aren’t
you afraid?” Not once in 22 years. We
had some dangerous inmates, but we had well-trained, competent, professional
back-up close-by. I would be much more afraid in a public high school. We have
written so many silly laws and rules that a public school teacher cannot defend
himself from an assault by a student without getting in trouble. I certainly
would have no confidence in having good back-up in a public school if the worst
happened. Our public schools are the only place in America where a citizen
cannot even defend himself.
By the way, low-security
prisons are more challenging than high security ones. We had several staff
transfer in from higher security prisons. Most had trouble adjusting; many did
not stay long. Conversely, we sent many staff to other prisons - most did very
well. The difference is simple. Our best restraints were not cells and bars.
Our “restraints” were our ability to out-think and out-talk the inmates. If
that is your best tool, you have to learn it quickly. Once you learn that, you
can work effectively in any prison.
Working in a prison is a fun
job. It can be exasperating, it can be stressful, it can be disgusting, and it
can be hilarious. But it is never boring. Once you experience it, no other job
will ever measure up.
The best part was the staff.
Wardens and administrators are sometimes good, sometimes bad, and often
mediocre. They come and go - few line staff are much affected by them. But the
line staff stay. The line staff keep the prison going. We talked a lot about
being a family; much of the time we were. We grew to love each other. Sometimes
that love went too far; I saw a few good marriages break up. But I also saw at
least one great marriage start there.
The nature of the work requires an intimacy found only in the military and law
enforcement organizations. If I made a mistake at noon on Monday, by Tuesday
morning everyone there, staff and inmates, knew about it. We had to depend on
each other just like a family. It was a special job working with special
people.
It is interesting that women,
who made up about 10% of the staff, were, on the whole, higher caliber than the
men. It takes a very special woman to be successful and happy working in an
all-male prison. Most of our ladies were special, really quality people.
I most
appreciated the ladies who were confident enough to dress attractively letting their
femininity show. That is important in a male prison; it reminds the inmates of
the finer things in life and gives them more incentive to stay out of trouble
and get back to the street. A well-groomed feminine lady who conducts herself
in a professional manner raises the entire tone of communication with the
inmates. The inmates show her respect, and some of that carries over to other
communications.
I could never have been as
happy in any other job. I doubt that I would have been as effective in any other
job. I would not have had the privilege and joy of working with so many
high-caliber professionals elsewhere. For me, it was the perfect job.
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