the first couple days

Although I’ve only had CPE for three days, a lot has happened already, and I wish I could have updated this sooner. To start with, I’ll never reveal any of the inmates’ real names or much information regarding any of them. I signed a contract through Metro State Prison saying I wouldn’t, and I want to honor that.

Prior to the first day, my co-CPE students and I received an email from our supervisor with some rules we were to follow straight from the get go. We can’t bring cell phones or any other sort of electronic devices into the prison (other than a watch). Also, anything we do bring in has to be in a clear plastic bag, including our lunch. And in our lunches, we can’t have glass containers or real silverware; everything has to be plastic. There are a number of clothing items we’re not allowed to wear, although as I quickly discovered, some of the staff higher up in the system get away with many of those clothes. Some of the clothing rules just do not make logical sense to me. For instance, women are not allowed to wear capris or cropped pants, but they are allowed to wear knee-length skirts – how that makes sense, that we can show our legs from the knee down but not from the shin down, is beyond me. This, along with many other rules of the prison, show that there isn’t always logic; sometimes there are just rules that are expected to be followed.

On Monday, my first day at Metro, after signing in and going through security, I went to the lobby where I met my supervisor and my other co-CPE students. Including me, there are five CPE students, and for the next ten weeks, we’re going to be the summer chaplain interns at Metro. There’s only one male in our group, and a wide range of ages and denominations. I’m the only Lutheran, but we’re all seminary students of some sort. Once we were all there, our supervisor led us into the prison grounds.

One thing about Metro that I was surprised to discover is that there is quite a bit of outside grounds that the inmates are able to walk through when going to and from the various buildings. It was kind of a strange feeling to walk out and see a bunch of prisoners outside. There’s one long, wide sidewalk that goes all the way from one end of the prison to the other. This is called, originally enough, the walk. About a foot and a half from each end of the sides of the walk is a yellow line painted on the concrete. I learned that the inmates aren’t allowed to walk in the center part of the walk, but are to remain on the outside edges. Also, they’re never really allowed to just stand around on the walk; they’re to be “walking with a purpose,” as I have heard them told many times by the officers.

The first day, we spent the majority of the time in our small group, going over some basic information and taking turns to tell a little bit about ourselves to the rest. Toward the end of the day our supervisor gave us a brief tour of the prison, and then we got to leave. Having woken up at 5:45am to ensure I could get to the prison on time, I was pretty exhausted that night.

On Tuesday (yesterday), I woke up at 6am and still got to the prison in plenty of time for our 8am start – for those of you who don’t know, Metro State Prison is in Atlanta, GA, and I’m living in Conyers, which is about a 25-mile commute. With the traffic, even staying off the incredibly busy interstate, the drive takes nearly an hour. After gathering together, our small group went to the warden’s meeting so we could meet the Warden and some other important faces in the prison staff. Unfortunately, the Warden was at a conference, so one of the three Deputy Wardens, Ms Duffey, ran the meeting in his place.

Now, let me pause here for a moment and reflect on some southern culture. All the women staff members here are referred to as Ms and then her last name. And I mean it as “Miss” and not “Miz.” It doesn’t matter if they’re married or divorced or single or whatever – they’re all Ms somebody. I really do think that’s a southern thing, but I like it. Of course there are some exceptions, like if a staff member has a different title, such as Lieutenant, Nurse or, in my case, Chaplain. Also, sometimes the inmates are referred to as ladies. In some places, that term might be taken to be demeaning, but not in Georgia, and again, I like it. A lot of staff will just refer to them as inmates or prisoners or offenders, but as our supervisor said, they are people first, and we should think of them as women. Or ladies.

Anyway, so we met the three Deputy Wardens and a few other big names in the prison. Then we got to go along and observe the daily inspection. This was kind of hard for me to watch. We got split up and paired with the officers and staff going on inspection. I was with the Lieutenant and a new officer who just transferred from some other place. First let me explain the buildings. There are seven buildings where the inmates live, though one of those is currently empty because it’s having major work done to it. Each building has a letter, so the building labeled D is called D Building. In each building there is a control room with an officer in it. This officer is in charge of unlocking doors for people coming in and out of the building and floors. Each building has four floors, called ranges, each of them lettered A-D, and the control room has is completely windowed and is situated so there is a view into each of the ranges. The control room is also sometimes referred to as the bubble.

The different buildings have different types of inmates in them. Some just have diagnostics, that is, the newcomers, those going through all the testing that has to be done. They wear white jumpsuits. Other buildings hold only “general population” women. These are women who have completed the diagnostics process and don’t have any major mental health issues. E Building is only for the more major case mental health women, and D Building is for extreme mental health women and also has the lockdown units. These last two buildings have more security officers than the others. D Building has an officer in the control room and an officer on each floor. These officers have to have mental health training to be stationed here.

Anyway, the Lieutenant and the officer and I went down into one of the ranges of the first stop (J Building). The Lieutenant yelled, “Attention on the range!” and the women, who were all lined up in their commons room, repeated the command. Then, because the officer with us was male, she then yelled “Male on the range!” which was repeated as well. This calling attention to a male being on a range lets the women have a chance to change if they’re showering and be notified that there is a male present. The Lieutenant then started checking rooms. Each bed had to be made perfectly, exactly the way they had been taught in their prison orientation. In the first range, all the beds were made exactly the same way, but the Lieutenant said they were made incorrectly, and she yelled at the women about this. Also, each woman has a small locker to hold her personal things, and on the inside of the locker door there is a diagram showing exactly where they should store their things in the locker. Basically, there is no room for freedom.

While the Lieutenant was very strict and hard on the women, I also felt for her. My emotions went back and forth between feeling sympathetic for the women and sympathetic for the Lieutenant. She has to be tough to do her job; nearly everyone at the prison does, it seems, and I’m sure she doesn’t like being a hardass, but I could see that she does care about the women.

We went through similar motions for each of the buildings. In one of them, a woman was called into the room we were inspecting. She had not left her locker unlocked for inspection, and she was told to open it. Upon doing so, it was revealed that several things were in there that didn’t really belong to her. At first the woman lied and said they were all hers, but after being asked enough times, she admitted that she had lied. Because of this, because she had spent so much time lying and not just confessing her wrongdoings right away, the Lieutenant decided this woman was to be sent to D Building to be in lockdown for a period of time. She was handcuffed and brought out in front of everyone. The whole thing was a bit too ridiculing for me.

The rest of the day we met with various staff, including more time with two of the Deputy Wardens – Ms Duffey and Ms Logan. Ms Duffey is DW of Security, and Ms Logan is DW of Care and Treatment. They both were very tough women, but again, I think they need to be in order to do the kind of job they each have.

As we’ve been meeting and conversing with so many different people involved with Metro, it has been very interesting to view the prison through different lenses. I think it will be good to keep these in mind as the time comes when we’ll actually get to spend time with the prisoners.

There is still a lot I have to say, and I haven’t even talked about today yet, but this entry is long enough as it is, and it’s getting late for someone who has to get up at 6am. I’ll try to write close to every day if I can, and hopefully these entries won’t be so long in the future. There’s a lot going on in my mind; we’ve had a lot of information shoved in our faces during the past three days, and some of it I just need to let simmer for a while. Next time I write (hopefully tomorrow), I’ll talk about today, which, despite the rough start, had a really good ending to it. But until then, happy summer to you all.