by José Águila
A simple look can become an altercation, any exchange of words can be misinterpreted into something bigger, and any signs of vulnerability could be exploited by the Alphas of this world. A world inside of our Earth, unfamiliar to many and unforgettable to those who have visited. A place where being human could cost you your life, showing emotion could increase the chances of you becoming a victim. This world filled with cells, bars, chain-link fences, and barbed wire consumes you; it attacks every human characteristic. Any feelings and weaknesses must be checked with the valet and scheduled to be picked up upon one’s release.
The fundamentals for surviving in prison vary from the level you’re at—one, two, three, four, etc.—to whether or not you’re placed in GP (general population) or SNY (special needs yard). One is dangerous, but has a structure and clearly drawn lines. the other is just as if not more dangerous because of the lack of authority and structure; it is filled with rejects and dropouts, a wasteland where the sickest creatures are found. I can only draw attention to the latter.
I arrived to the general population of Susanville after spending 6 months in the “gladiator school” that was San Quentin Reception Center. The experience of prison in my opinion has a greater effect on a young mind: the younger you are the easier you can adapt to the unspoken laws that dictate the inmate population. The learning curve depends on the color of your skin and how you define yourself by race: black, white, Hispanic, Native, other. Some group segments are military-like in discipline and defense, while others just bunch together for protection and appoint leaders by experience.
Prison is a melting pot: thousands of people stuffed into buildings and cells, forced to co-exist with individuals they dislike or with people they’ve never met before. For example, the young white male who grew up on the Elk Grove side of Sacramento and the older white male who grew up in the Del Paso Heights area of Sacramento.
It’s not just areas, it’s also crimes. You can’t walk through a building and find three people with the same conviction or find some with the exact experiences in regards to prison. Obviously not every person thinks the same, but one trend that can be found in every California prison is the mirage of freedom.
Everyone does at least one thing in here that they did on the streets. For example, the father who calls his daughter every morning because for the last sixteen years of her life he’s done that. Or the husband who writes his wife a love letter every week because his absence doesn’t allow him the luxury of his physical appreciation.
Like a pack of wolves every segment has an Alpha, and Omega, and a Beta. The struggle to maintain authority increases with numbers. The dilemma arrives when two or more segments disagree; the Alphas must decide amongst each other whether or not the solution can be diplomatically resolved. Just like in the bloody past of the United States, there have been conflicts that failed the humanitarian litmus test and resulted in blood and losses. These are the moments that make up so much of the reasons why being human is not recommended. In times of war or battle there is no moment where another segment even slightly resembles a human. In that moment of wrath and carnage, all of the gross negligence by the guards, the racist comments, the unnecessary uses of force, the lockdowns, the intentional actions by administration ensure these bloody rumbles all come flying to the front of your temporal lobe. Once the mace clouds set off to the sky and everybody is handcuffed, then and only then do you relax and revert to a conscious state. Every segment is punished, involved or not. Over the last couple of years I have learned to adapt to the internal confrontation that continues between my sense of right and wrong. There are those who use the CDCR as an alternate to the normal outside world. Why pay bills and pay rent, when these prisons provide the bare necessities for survival?
Empathy incarcerated has the illusion that it is universal, which it is not. Over the last 100 years, the environment has changed—climate, laws, society, and people—but prison in many ways has stayed the same. Prison is inhabited by us and them, the correctional officers and the inmate population, but we are permanent, forced to repay our debt to society. Rehabilitation is a term coined by the administration in order to justify mass incarceration and to provide the illusion that locking up these criminals together behind these walls would provide the greater American society a gracious peace of mind and harmony. We undertake the herculean task of attempting to retain the normal and relinquish the defects that plague us all as outcasts. There are also opportunities that are allowed after a necessary discipline-free period of incarceration.
The “point system” was created by the administration in order to insure that all inmates are given the opportunity to lower from the higher, more intense yards to the less secure, relaxed ones (the ones, twos, and the fire camps). Although the fire camp is seen as a privilege, from my experience Cal-Fire views us as surrogates; we are in limbo. We are not inmates, but we are also not accepted in their firefighter society. The correct term would be a pariah, even though we undergo the same rigorous training and treacherous missions. We are not equal: We are the front lines, the grunts, the legs of the body which is Cal-Fire. We are expendable, and most importantly, voluntary casualties. In times of grave danger we are deployed, when the mountains are perilously slanted unreachable by their equipment, when the flames easily consume fifty to eighty feet above the forest floor, and when the winds and topography become unpredictable. They call on us, the recyclables, because as I’ve said it is deemed a privilege for us to be where we are, to put down our lives for 5 to 8 months of the year. Hundreds of inmates do their best to remain in good standings with counselors who look at their job as menial and unimportant and view us all under the same uncaring microscope; to them we are just another set of numbers that make up this tenement with a highly guarded perimeter. To these officers we are unworthy of empathy and to them we are just a blur of faces, until we’re not. Unlike robots who could easily guard us, most correctional officers will come with emotional baggage: They sometimes bring marital troubles or personal issues to work, and we are forced to deal with targeting and/or intentional provocation. What they fail to understand is that even if in the moment it may hurt us, in the long run it will help us because just like in the workplace there are those same classes of people. It gives us experience in public relations and equanimity.
I am amongst the few who have experienced the majority of levels and prisons. I went from laying in a twin-size bed in the garage of a family member, to laying on a plastic mat on a steel bunk, to laying on a spring frame with a twin mattress in a dorm, and to an isolated mountain range near the Klamath National Forest surrounded by flames and smoke, the floors black and singed like the carpets of hell.
Even with all of these incentives and privileges, the baseline is the fact that all of us, no matter who we are or where we are incarcerated, our freedom removed from our spirit, no matter where you are, behind prison walls or ranches or mountains the air is still stained with the pungent stench of reality. You do not exist beyond the clutch of CDCR, as long as they hold you. There are those who shine and strive to overcome those mentioned challenges; we refuse to partake in the cycle which is reinforced by the administration. To us education is vital. It is the lifeblood to which our hearts retain; the more you know the less mistakes you make. We owe thankful appreciation to the men and women who fought so hard to implement and stand with their students and provide us with the outlet to constructively express ourselves in a positive way and allow us to tell our stories and continue to better ourselves. My analysis of prison may seem cynical, but it doesn’t take away from the possibilities of self-improvement and the opportunities to look around and use your adaptations as fuel to reaffirm how not to be while surviving. As the quote reads, “I know why the caged bird sings.”
Republished from “Perspectives from the Cell Block: An Anthology of Prisoner Writings” – edited by Joan Parkin in collaboration with incarcerated people from Mule Creek State Prison.
