Surely. I knew every nook, there was not an institutional topic I wasn’t a resident expert regarding, i lived on the east side and the west. York C.I was nothing but a blueprint and an ugly idea.

I was there, before guards were assholes.

In the beginning, the para-military model that the correctional academy adopted didn’t exist. See today guards at the academy are conditioned to view inmates as the enemy. Sounds ridiculous right? Guards are commanded never to call us by our name, they are to refer to us as “inmate so in so.” Inmates are dehumanized and categorized.

Guards in training are brainwashed into the idea that all inmates are scumbags. Some of the trainings that involve self-defense by there very existence alone perpetuate the stereotypes.

These guards come into their first day of actual duty on high alert. They are ready for battle. Rather than to do what the name corrections entails and help foster positive change, the majority of guards act as if they are paid to punish on top of the sentences we were given.

Until we change the culture of corrections and the way guards are trained, recidivism will not cease…

What? What do the poor guards have to do with recidivism? They are prohibiting positive change. Like monkey reaches they jam themselves into our progress. They remind us of our failings, call us worse names than anyone has heard. When we speak we are told- “shut your fucken pie hole!” When we are stripped buck naked we are ogled and ostracized. When attend a group designed for recovery, and return to our housing units and are yelled at, insulted, degraded or violated via surprise strip search or room searches. How can you heal? When even the people the state in trusts your corrections to do everything in their power to remind you of what a waist of life you are- of course you can’t get better.

Then you go home feeling worse about yourself than when you came in. How will you ever make it in society? Certainly you won’t.

Ahhh… i see it–job security. It’s not about P.R.I.D.E its about hindering change.