Spoiled Baloney For Lunch, Again

Today is Thursday, July 4th. Over this last weekend a guard was attacked in some other part of this prison (USP), or so the memo everyone here in the SCU (pronounced, "skew") received on Sunday informed me.

The nature and extent of the "attack" was left to our imaginations. But, our punishment was spelled out clearly. The entire prison would remain locked down for a week.

For the SCU prisoners, that means no "recreation" (outdoor cages surrounded by concrete walls), and sack lunches (baloney, cheese, or peanut butter sandwiches with a piece of fruit) for every meal. And since I personally never go to "recreation", my only punishment is the sack lunches for every meal. That in itself wouldn't be all that bad (I lived on sack lunches for two years in the Indio Jail in California, so I'm used to worse) except that the single slice of baloney they've given us each meal for the last two days was spoiled around the edges, and the bananas were too green to eat without getting sick.

Of course, I could save the bananas for a few days until they are edible, but the green baloney had to go in the toilet. And when the prisoners complained to the guards, and the guards complained to the kitchen, they were told, "the baloney isn't spoiled". They said that it was just, "exposed to the air".

Apparently nobody ever taught them what causes food to spoil (hint: exposure to air!).

So, we were all supposed to ignore the foul smell and ensuring stomach cramps and eat the food we all deserve for being bad inmates and "attacking" a guard.

Oh, wait. Officially, of course, we're not being punished at all. The lockdown is merely imposed to give staff time to "investigate the incident" and "evaluate policy". At least, that's what the memo said.

But, every prisoner and guard alike all understand that the lockdown is really just our punishment. Punishment is all the prison officials understand. It is their only means of control, or at least that's what they think. When inmates behave badly, take something away - it's the only logic they seem capable of.

Of course, historically, punishment has never been shown to curb negative behavior, except in the most superficial ways. The one thing that does solicit positive behavior is simply treating people as fellow human beings (commonly referred to as, "respectfully"). It's a truth that the system doesn't seem capable of comprehending. No surprize there.