puppies and assignments

Since I wrote so much in yesterday’s post (Wednesday), I decided to save yesterday’s time at the prison for today’s post. I mentioned that it started out kind of rough. The reason for that is because we had to observe intake. Intake is the incoming of the new prisoners at Metro. The prison does intake on Mondays and Wednesdays of every week. A typical intake number is around 30, though we were told that last week there was one intake day that had over 70. Because Metro is a diagnostics facility, all women in the state of Georgia who are sent to prison must first go to Metro. After going through their diagnostics testing (which can take anywhere from 4-12 months), then they are sent either to the general population of Metro, D or E buildings (which hold the higher mental health women) or one of the other two women’s prisons in Georgia. But they all first start at Metro.

Yesterday’s intake was 32 women, and it happened outside at the back gate. The officers and CERT members (Correctional Emergency Response Team) were in charge of this process. The women had to go through a series of questions and paperwork and then were told to stand together in a tight line while they waited for the rest. Once this was completed, then the yelling began.

Metro is a very militaristic facility, and instead of carrying around guns or night sticks, the security officers keep order through a series of verbal commands (and sometimes sounding very much like verbal abuse). The officer working with the intake women started explaining the first few basic phrases the women had to learn. He made them repeat them again and again as a group, then he went down the line and tested each woman individually. If they got it right, they got to take a step back, but if not, they had to do it again and again until they got it down. Only once all the women had the beginning phrases down were they allowed to walk (in a neat, tight line) out of the already very hot sun and into the diagnostics building. We didn’t watch much after this point, but the next steps would be to have each woman showered, deloused, clipped of nails and given a set amount of clothing items.

While intake was kind of hard to watch (I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the women being severely yelled at for the smallest reasons), it also wasn’t quite as bad as I had been expecting. Perhaps I had built it up in my head, or perhaps I have been tamed by watching violent movies and TV shows, or maybe the officers were very aware of our presence when watching them. Like I said, though, it wasn’t something I’d like to watch more than once. Then again, if being there does cause the officers to be a bit less demeaning, maybe I should watch again.

For the rest of the day we had a more in-depth description and tour of E and D Buildings, which house the extreme mental health cases, those women who have to be in lockdown (or solitary confinement), and also the one woman on death row. It was interesting to learn more about the facility and how the women are being helped as much as they can be while being in prison.

At the end of the day, our supervisor had saved the best part of the prison for last – I think she knew we’d especially appreciate it after watching intake. One thing about Metro that I really like is that they offer a number of programs and classes for the women to take to better their lives for when they get out. There are classes on basic sewing and housekeeping skills, and there are classes to work up to a GED and other types of ways for the women to prepare for reentering the real world. But the best of these, the place we got to visit at the end of the day, is the Seeing Eye Dog program. There is a area near the back of the prison that has several kennels and a working area for a group of puppy labs and retrievers. The women who work there (who have to meet certain requirements before being admitted into the program) spend almost all day every day working with the puppies. They teach them commands and orders that they will need to know in the future. Once the puppies have been passed their training (which can take up to a year to complete), they are then sent off to a more extensive training where they get to eventually become Seeing-Eye dogs. And as for the women, completing the program gives them college credits that will qualify them to be able to work at veterinarian clinics once they get out of prison.

Let me just say, the puppies were ADORABLE!! There were about eight of them, and they were only three months old. With the women being able to spend all day every day working with them (something someone outside the prison life might not be able to do), the puppies had already learned many things. I think the thing that struck me the most was how happy and alive and… humanized the women working there looked. They seemed to really enjoy their work, and some of them mentioned that it was rewarding to do something good for society. One of the women said she was glad to have this opportunity to turn things around, and even though she had made a mistake that got her here, there was hope for a brighter future. All in all, it was a very good way to end the day.

Today we spend a large part in our group, reflecting on what we’ve seen so far and also going over some more CPE information. We met with a couple more staff in the afternoon. The most exciting part of the day, however, was when we got our building assignments. We’ll each be responsible for one entire building and also one range of D Building (the highest security building). We got to submit our preferences, and I didn’t have any extremely strong ones myself; I knew that wherever I got assigned would be a new and learning experience. After lunch we got told where we’d be. I’ve been assigned to F Building, which houses general population women, and also to A range in D Building (which is just referred to as DA for short). I can’t remember exactly which type of women are in DA, but I think it includes disciplinary and mental health women.

Tomorrow, the last day of the first week, we will finally get to start being chaplains. Not to say that our orientation or meeting of upper staff is by any means over, because it isn’t, and maybe it never will be. But we’ll finally get to start a more regular schedule that will continue for the rest of our time there. I look forward to tomorrow and actually meeting and introducing myself to the women, but at the same time I feel a bit nervous. I’ll be on my own, so it will be up to me to decide how I want to go about doing this. I’m also feeling nervous because I don’t know if the women will like me or not. Or if they’ll take me seriously, or if they’ll trust me enough to actually want to talk to me. It’s a lot of open-ended questions, and the only way to get answers is to go out there and do it. I just hope I do all right, and that at least some of the women like me.