Insiders

She shook her head, turned another page of the proposal, and wondered what JRU International stood for. Justice Regulatory Underwriters? Jesus Really Understands? Jails ‘R’ Us? Jammed Rats Unlimited? Why not be honest and call it PFP: Prisons for Profit? She turned another page of the proposal before her and began to take notes in her small, neat handwriting.

There was no way this plan was going to work! Gwen looked down at the dozen pages of notations she’d already compiled. Most were written in capital letters and underlined several times. They looked like mad ravings, and weren’t far from it. She’d have to somehow turn these blistering observations into cool bureaucratic reportage. She shook her head at the daunting task. What was the state thinking of?

She knew, of course, that her burgeoning budget presented nothing but trouble to them. Gwen knew that while her costs of maintaining one prisoner – including her bed, board, security, and the very limited health and education services that Jennings offered – was increasing to more than fifty-five dollars a day, private prisons claimed they could maintain prisoners at only forty-three dollars a day. She knew she couldn’t compete with that.

But how was JRU going to deliver what they were promising? How were they possibly going to reduce medical staff? As it was, she had reluctantly cut the staff dramatically. When she looked at the ‘Facilities Management Report’ she was actually shocked. They proposed turning the visiting room into a space for a profit-making telemarketing operation. Where would the women visit with their families? They were also proposing to expand the prison itself and enclose the U of the courtyard, to provide additional housing. That meant darkening all the units facing the courtyard. Where would the women exercise? Where would Springtime plant flowers?

She had to be missing something in this ridiculous proposal. After all, though they weren’t pleasant, the JRU staff didn’t seem to be insane or particularly cruel. Yet the more Gwen studied the details, the more horrifying the plan seemed. It appeared that they expected to house and feed more than two hundred and thirty new inmates, who would be transferred from other facilities, facilities they would later close or would subsume into the JRU empire. Surely there must be a typo, Gwen thought as she looked at the numbers. Then she realized that the current, badly designed cells (which had four bunks but held only two prisoners) were actually going to be used to house four. The additional cells, those built in the courtyard space, would hold the balance.

Gwen did some quick calculations. It was unbelievable! Had those JRU jaspers ever read about Telgrin’s experiment with rats? Decent, normal rats from good nests turned vicious – even cannibalistic – when they were overcrowded in their cages. Did they know Amnesty International’s position on U.S. prison conditions? Were they so inexperienced that they didn’t realize that the four bunk spaces were an error, far too small a space even for two? Clearly, JRU saw the inmates not as human beings or even rats but as a captive labor force. And based on their projection, a profitable force at that. How did they hope to transform this angry and sullen population of criminal inmates into chipper and cheerful telemarketers?

Gwen dropped her pen and began pacing around the dining table. This was never going to work. All of her years of experience, not just at Jennings and not just as a warden, but in social work, halfway houses, and other correctional facilities, told Gwen Harding that the plan was bound to fail. And what would happen then? Would there be protests? An uprising? And if there was violence – and with this plan there was bound to be plenty – would the inmates be blamed? Or would it be her head on the chopping block? If it all went up in flames – figuratively or literally – could JRU just abandon the project, leaving the state to clean it up?

She knew very little about businesses and how they operated. She had spent her life working in the public sector. So had her father, who had been a cop, and her mother, who had been a teacher. In fact, aside from an uncle (who had run a dry goods store that failed), she couldn’t think of anyone in her extended family who had any real business experience. The corporate world, with its financial realities and its politics, was a complete mystery to her. The one thing that she was sure of was that the executives who had toured her facility had been arrogant and much more prone to talk than to listen. But she’d noticed, of course, how little they wanted to hear from her. It was clear that they already felt she was an advocate of the ‘prisoners’. When these people took over – if they did take over – how long would she even get to retain her job?

This situation was awful. Gwen felt the call of the olives in her refrigerator. She had to convince the Department of Corrections that this proposal should – must – be turned down. But Gwen had no idea how she was going to convince them that the JRU proposal was not only unrealistic, but also a recipe for failure – or for something much, much worse. She looked at the tea mug, now cold on the table, with its inscription: BECAUSE I’M THE WARDEN, THAT’S WHY. What a joke! No one at the State Department of Corrections listened to what a warden said. Especially a female warden.

She would have to sit down and put together a brilliant counterargument, complete with her own charts and graphs and projections that would not only explain why this plan was flawed but would refute JRU’s assumptions. She’d also have to give the state some longer-range alternative strategy for cost-effectively handling an ever-growing prison population. She sighed and picked up the cold cup. How could she possibly do it? Gwen closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose to ease the tension in her brow. In her mind she heard cries of Attica! Attica! Attica! Jesus Christ! This was all too much for her. She wasn’t young anymore. Who was she kidding? They’d roll right over her. Gwen put the mug down, stood up and walked toward the refrigerator, only stopping on the way to grab a glass and the gin bottle.

12 Jennifer Spencer

Remember that you are always in a better position to ask for a job transfer if you have a good record on the job you already have. Failure to do well on a job may result in demotion or punishment.

‘Rules for Inmates’ at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, Ohio. Kathryn Watterson, Women in Prison

Jennifer Spencer survived yet another night in prison, only to awaken to another day of working in the laundry.

Nobody wanted the laundry detail. Undoubtedly that was why Jennifer had been assigned to it. The laundry was a long room in the basement with a low ceiling. Between the steam and the pervasive smell of chlorine bleach and dirty clothes, the place reminded Jennifer of nothing so much as a cheap health club back in what she was beginning to think of as her ‘other life’.

There was nothing healthy about this place; the work was heavy and dangerous. All of the prison’s dirty laundry – everything from the polyester jumpsuits to regular uniforms to underpants, socks, sheets, and blankets – came through this laundry. So did washrags and blood-soaked pillowcases.

In addition to the stuff that was supposed to be washed, there were two other categories: detritus and contraband. Detritus included bloody gauze pads that had been accidentally wrapped in a towel and thrown into a cart, or the speculum that had been entangled in a dispensary johnny. There were hair clippings from the barbers, stale and rotting food in garment pockets, puzzle pieces, and every possible piece of unbreakable plastic dinnerware (including sporks, pepper shakers, and plastic ketchup squeezers). Jennifer had been issued heavy-gauge rubber gloves and an apron, but it wasn’t enough. About the only thing she figured the gloves could protect her from were the roaches she was constantly finding in pockets, socks, or accumulated at the bottom of the bucket.

The laundry at Jennings reminded Jennifer of a blue flannel suit: it attracted everything but men and money. Only two days ago Suki had pulled out a speculum and on another day Jennifer herself had felt a lump inside the tied leg of a pair of slacks. When she untied the bottom the meticulously taped package of cocaine dropped like an iced plum into her hands. ‘One day we found a scalpel,’ Suki told her.

Laundry came in on industrial rolling carts that, for some reason, Jennifer kept tripping over again and again. The carts were heavy to push, and because the sheets and clothing were often water-soaked, simply untangling the garments and putting her gloved-sheathed hand into the mix seemed almost more than she could bear. The smell of sweating women, the industrial-strength liquid detergent, the cheap perfumes, and the mildew were intolerable to her. I’ll call Tom and get him to charter a helicopter, she told herself.

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