Life Inside Prison Far From A Picnic
Dear Ann Landers: This is in response to those letters from your readers who think some prisons are “country clubs.”
I am serving a five-year sentence at the Racine, Wis., Correctional Institute. From my experience, I can assure you this place is no country club. Today’s prisons are full of violence, drugs and gangs.
The state says it can’t afford college programs or other educational programs for prisoners, so we inmates lose out on a chance to better ourselves. What is the governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson, doing to help inmates stay out of prison for good? I’ll tell you. Absolutely nothing.
If inmates were taught a trade or encouraged to work toward a career, it would help ease the crowding in prisons. People who think drug and alcohol programs will help set these people on the straight and narrow are living in a dream world. The programs are a cop-out. Very few inmates stay clean and sober on the outside.
I say we should train and educate inmates so they will be able to hold down a good job that pays decent money and have a real future when they get out. This would be one way of preventing the revolving door syndrome. It’s useless to keep taking state funds to build more prisons. No matter how many penitentiaries there are, they will soon be filled with uneducated inmates who have nothing to look forward to when they are released. They go back to their old pals and their old ways.
Our governor wants to take away our radios and TV and have inmates do more hard time. I hope I’m not here when that happens because all hell will break loose. All inmates’ mail is checked, so you probably will never receive this letter, but it made me feel better to write it. - No Day at the Beach in Wisconsin
Dear Wisconsin: You’ve had your say, and I thank you for expressing yourself so candidly. Here’s another frank letter on the subject of prisons. These letters raise questions in my mind about the caliber of people we have working in our penal institutions. Do we pay enough? If the salaries were better, would it help? I’d like to hear from readers who have had some experience in this field.
Dear Ann Landers: As a nurse with 48 years of experience in hospitals, county jails and state prisons, I can attest to the fact that rape occurs often among male inmates. It is almost always covered up.
When an RN examines a victim after a “blanket party” and finds positive evidence of rape, her report is discarded and a more favorable one is written up by the captain or lieutenant.
The public would be shocked at the level of man’s inhumanity to man in the correctional facilities around the country. Sadistic practices occur frequently, not only between correctional officers and inmates but between older, aggressive inmates and defenseless newcomers. When a young, good-looking kid comes in, Lord help him.
Prisoners are there to be punished, they say, so prison administration looks the other way. The nurse is expected to render first aid and keep her mouth shut, or she will find herself written up for some alleged offense and out she goes. - The Way It Is in Sacramento
Dear Nurse in Sacramento: Thanks for the testimony. I received letters from Alabama, Texas, New York, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi that sounded a lot like yours. If anyone has a solution to this problem, I’d like to hear it. Meanwhile, my thanks to all who wrote. You readers give me an education I could not possibly receive anywhere else.