Read Online Doing Time by Bell Gale Chevigny - Free Book Online Page A

box. The guard conducted another “bend-over-and-stretch-’em” search; I was given delousing shampoo and ordered to shower. Afterward, as I stood naked and shivering, 1 was assigned two pairs of navy-blue pants, two blue shirts, three T-shirts, three pairs of boxer shorts, three pairs of socks, a blue winter coat, a blue summer jacket, two towels, and a pair of brown shoes. Everything but the shoes and socks had am4737 boldly stamped in black. This number was my new, permanent identity.
    Once I had dressed, I was fingerprinted and photographed, then escorted to E Block, officially known as the Eastern Diagnostic and Classification Center (EDCC). E Block was treated as a separate facility, which inmates and staff called “Quarantine.” Because all new receptions to Quarantine were issued blue prison uniforms, they were labeled “Blues.” General population inmates, who wore brown uniforms, were referred to as “Browns.”
    Soon I found myself before the E Block sergeant, who walked me to a room full of bedding. There another inmate in brown dropped a rolled-up mattress on my shoulder. Inside it were stuffed a blanket, pillow, metal cup, plastic knife, fork, and spoon, a pack of rolling tobacco, soap, toothbrush, and a disposable razor.
    Awkwardly balancing the mattress roll on my shoulder with one arm and carrying my prison-issued clothes with the other, I followed the sergeant down a flight of stairs to my cell. The moment I twisted my body and cargo sideways into the dark, narrow cell, the sergeant slid the door shut and disappeared from sight.
    I spent the next two days in the prison’s infirmary for shots and a complete medical examination. While it was a doctor who examined me, it was an inmate who drew my blood and wrote down my medical history. A guard followed me and the other Blues everywhere we went. I wondered about this constant surveillance. Why were we so heavily guarded? One reason, I later learned, was that although the infirmary was also used by Browns, contact between Blues and Browns was strictly forbidden. Nonetheless, because they had more liberties than the new arrivals, Browns often tried to barter privileges with Blues. For example, a pack of cigarettes could buy extra phone time or a library pass; for a pack a day, you could rent a TV or a radio. Also, some Browns were homosexuals and would exploit weaker Blues. Many were point men for prison gangs, who reported back on the new prospects for possible gang membership or future victimization.
    Two weeks of idleness followed the medical examination process. Finally I was taken to an examination room for a series of psychological and literacy tests. From the inmate point of view, the testing was an utter sham. For one thing, the written tests were given to everyone without even determining who could read or write. I was tested in an unsupervised room with about thirty other men, most of whom just picked answers at random or copied them from someone else.
    Because the tests were given so irrelevantly, inmates tended to see their results only as a tool of manipulation. Under this assumption, many men had developed theories on how to answer the test questions. Some felt it was best to copy from the brightest men in order to improve their chances at getting a clerk’s job over kitchen or laundry duty. Others felt they should give lunatic answers so they could be medically released from work altogether. Still others gave no answers at all and faked illiteracy, reasoning that they could enroll in school and appear to do extremely well, thereby fooling the parole board into believing they had worked hard to make a positive change in their lives. All these connivances were based on the inmates’ understanding that they were being conned as much as they were doing the conning. They believed that the tests were used by the administrators just to maintain the semblance of educational purpose at best and at worst to