bet4sco

hey there, I have been working in a state prison since December, 2005, and love working with the inmates. I felt pretty intimidated my first couple of weeks and since it's an all male facility sometimes wished I could be invisible walking down the halls. After a few months I realized for whatever strange reason I felt at home there and have never felt threatened in anyway by an inmate. The hard part of the job for me has been other staff. I have found it to be the biggest Peyton place I've ever worked at and been told that everything is a matter of "perception". If someone "perceives" me as being too friendly (...I talked to an inmate in the hallway) I've been told it can launch a whole investigation. At my facility, all of these men will be released back into society. My philosophy is that I would like to have a positive effect in hopes that it will somehow resonate and help them to be better people when they get out then when they came in. I have become painfully aware that we live in a throw away society and that we throw people away as easy as we do our garbage. No one helped alot of these people when they were kids and not many people give a___about them as adults. My experience has been positive as far as the inmates go. MY facility though only houses minimum and medium prisoners. I would suggest doing some research on prisons in our country and on organizations that oppose the use of the prison system as it stands today. Most of the staff even in medical look at these guys as just "inmates". They all lie, you can't trust anything they say, one nurse even said he thinks "their all scum". It's certainly been an eye opener for me. Recently I have felt the need to quite because of the general attitude of staff not just towards the inmates but towards me because I don't fit into their box. Hope some of this helps.