A prison guard — we’ll call him Officer Bob — looked me in the eye and said, “This might sound crazy, but I can see you as my neighbor.”
Disbelief kept me from responding.
On the penitentiary playground, staff and prisoners are engaged in an infinite game of cops and robbers. We do what we have to for survival, and they try to stop us. As a seasoned convict, I learned to make it by following a few simple rules: Don’t change the TV channel; Don’t gamble; Don’t take anything from anyone; Don’t bother the cops — especially cops like Officer Bob, who had a reputation for being a dick to prisoners.
Whenever a fight broke out, we’d see Officer Bob sprinting across the grass with his knees thumping his chest to reach the scene first. Sometimes he’d walk up on you, while you were just minding your own business, and tell you to spread ’em so he could randomly search you for dope. If he shook down your locker, pack a lunch, because he’d be there all day fondling toothpaste, squirting lotion out of the bottle, and scanning letters for secret codes. He held no conversations. He trusted no one incarcerated. He surveyed the yard with a hawk’s eye looking for trouble. I heard many a convict mutter “I hate that motherfucker” when Officer Bob was on the prowl.
So it was surprising when he stopped me to say he’d read an article I wrote about the correlation between shortages in prison staff and prison violence for HuffPo. Statewide staffing shortages forced the closure of some prisons in North Carolina. The displaced prisoners — near 400 — had been crammed into the prison where I was housed, creating an inhumane environment. I felt compelled to write about it.
Apparently the whole prison system found about the piece. Some officers said they liked it. Others mean-mugged me with bunched eyebrows and a clenched jaw to let me know how much they hated it. One female said she didn’t like me making the prison look bad and asked, “Why’d you have to use all those statistics and stuff?” Another lady stopped me on the way to chow to whisper, “You ain’t said nothin’ wrong.” All in all, I heard positive feedback from at least 15 officers, most were staff members I had never spoken to before then. Officer Bob told me that he liked the piece because it identified problems staff and prisoners both faced. To him it didn’t read as a one-sided diatribe. He felt that I was speaking up for the cops, too.
On the day Officer Bob approached me, he was working mandatory overtime because his relief shift was shorthanded. His eyes appeared red and puffy, his jaw slack, and his shoulders slumped. Although he didn’t complain, tacking on four more hours to his 12-hour shift looked to be wearing him out. Understaffing caused his exhaustion, and I was glad I had written about it. Regardless, Officer Bob didn’t agree with my argument that a mass release of prisoners was the best possible solution to fix the state’s understaffing problems.
“Some people don’t need to get out,” he said, gesturing to the packed and rowdy day room. “A bunch of dopeheads and con men. One guy cooked his baby in a fucking microwave. I mean, c’mon man. People like that need to stay in here forever. I don’t trust them around my family, serving Happy Meals at McDonald’s and whatnot. You — you deserve a second chance. The way you write says a lot about your character, how you think, and maybe even positive changes you’ve made in your life. Be proud of yourself for what you’re doing.”
He had no idea how much his encouragement affected me.
I chose to advocate for change in the criminal justice system through journalism despite obvious repercussions I face, like a long stint in the hole or transfer to a prison too far away to receive visits from my family. Every written word carries a risk, but I’ve learned that sometimes reward demands risk.
I once saw a photo of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as he was being arrested by Birmingham, Alabama police in 1963. Though his chin remained high, terrified eyes betrayed his front of bravery. Maybe he wondered if that was the day he’d be found hanging from a noose in his jail cell. He must have lived a life of constant paranoia. But when King was released, whether beaten or unscathed, he found the courage to march again, and he marched on until they assassinated him. Yet his death forced social change.
Human history hosts a plethora of martyrs who placed a movement before their own safety, namely Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi. They too risked themselves to make life better for others, whether they knew their life was on the line or not.
I am no Dr. King, Lincoln, or Gandhi, but I have knelt at their knee for instruction on how to change “my world” — if not “the world.” For me, journalism is nonviolent disobedience. I only hope my voice sparks change, regardless of the consequences I face for speaking out against injustice.
I cannot say that my HuffPo article changed Officer Bob. Our brief encounter taught me a lot about human nature. I learned how two people can exist as mortal enemies yet find common ground in problems that affect them both. I stopped viewing him as a gung ho cop hellbent on making our lives miserable. He was doing his job to the best of his ability, even if that meant coming across as a dick to prisoners. He’s a human being, just like me.
Officer Bob and I never had another conversation after that one encounter. But when I see him standing outside of medical to monitor the medication line, he’ll nod a bit and say, “What’s up, Smith? How you doin’?”
He’s still the first officer to arrive at a fight. He’s the first to arrive at a medical emergency, too. If I ever suffer cardiac arrest, I truly hope Officer Bob is working that shift.