Read Online Doing Time by Bell Gale Chevigny - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Bell Gale Chevigny
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harvest information from them that would some day be used against them (for example in job placement or for parole eligibility).
Two more months of idleness followed as I waited to be interviewed by my counselor. To occupy time, people played cards and worked out. During these early idle days, long-standing friendships and alliances were made. I also noticed that every rime the four hundred members of E block were let out into the yard, a fight would break out. It is my experience that when convicts are let loose after being locked up for long periods of time, aggressive behavior is an immediate and natural consequence.
This was also a time when inmates distinguished the weak from the strong, predators from victims. The first impressions I made on others during classification have followed me through prison ever since. Since I was not a career criminal, I was initially viewed as a âsquare Johnâ: a middle-class outsider with no experience of the social world of inmates. To both my advantage and disadvantage, I was seeing everything through the eyes of a foreigner, making many foolish mistakes yet gaining just as many unique insights.
When I was finally called in for my interview, the counselor examined my test results and asked me a few questions about my conviction and sentence. The interview took only ten or fifteen minutes.
Two weeks later, I was summoned to appear before the Classification Committee. Sitting before a counselor, the block sergeant, and a major of the guards, I was informed that I had been classified to Graterford. Just before I left, the major added in a pleasant voice, âYouâll be working for me.â At the time I didnât consider the significance of my job assignment â a fortuitous clerical job. I was too relieved to know that the tortuous classification ordeal was finally over.
The introduction of the classification process was originally a major prison reform but for me and most of the others, as I later discovered, classification was a total waste of time. While different prisons in Pennsylvania purportedly provided different types of rehabilitation programs meant to serve the needs of various kinds of offenders, in reality it seemed that only three considerations were used to determine a convictâs ultimate destination: (1) race, (2) hometown, and (3) availability of cell space. At the time, most of the minority inmates in the state were classified to Graterford or Western Penitentiary. The other seven prisons consisted of mostly white inmates under an all-white civilian staff.
Getting Dug In
Once I was classified to Graterford, I traded in my blues for browns and moved off Quarantine to B Block. This was a working block, reserved for those inmates who had been assigned a job. Though it mirrored the design of E Block, B Block was considerably less crowded and noisy. Most of the men on B Block were much older than those on the classification block. These were the âOld Headsâ of the prison, inmates who had done a long stretch.
âWhen I arrived at my new home, I quickly signed in at the block sergeantâs desk and requested cleaning supplies. Then I spent the morning scrubbing down every inch of my cell. By noon count I was able to lie down on my bed, smoke a cigarette, and consider my surroundings. My cell measured about six feet by twelve with a ten-foot-high ceiling, from which dangled a single light bulb with a pull chain. For furniture, I had a flat, hard steel bed and a steel desk and chair which had been assembled as one unit. The mandatory toilet afforded a sink directly above it with a steel medicine cabinet above that. High over the toilet was a rusty radiator, my only source of heat in the winter. Finally, I had a flimsy wooden footlocker with a hasp that could be locked with a commissary-bought combination lock. My entrance was a solid steel sliding door with a fixed glass window on the top quarter. On the opposite wall was a window
Two more months of idleness followed as I waited to be interviewed by my counselor. To occupy time, people played cards and worked out. During these early idle days, long-standing friendships and alliances were made. I also noticed that every rime the four hundred members of E block were let out into the yard, a fight would break out. It is my experience that when convicts are let loose after being locked up for long periods of time, aggressive behavior is an immediate and natural consequence.
This was also a time when inmates distinguished the weak from the strong, predators from victims. The first impressions I made on others during classification have followed me through prison ever since. Since I was not a career criminal, I was initially viewed as a âsquare Johnâ: a middle-class outsider with no experience of the social world of inmates. To both my advantage and disadvantage, I was seeing everything through the eyes of a foreigner, making many foolish mistakes yet gaining just as many unique insights.
When I was finally called in for my interview, the counselor examined my test results and asked me a few questions about my conviction and sentence. The interview took only ten or fifteen minutes.
Two weeks later, I was summoned to appear before the Classification Committee. Sitting before a counselor, the block sergeant, and a major of the guards, I was informed that I had been classified to Graterford. Just before I left, the major added in a pleasant voice, âYouâll be working for me.â At the time I didnât consider the significance of my job assignment â a fortuitous clerical job. I was too relieved to know that the tortuous classification ordeal was finally over.
The introduction of the classification process was originally a major prison reform but for me and most of the others, as I later discovered, classification was a total waste of time. While different prisons in Pennsylvania purportedly provided different types of rehabilitation programs meant to serve the needs of various kinds of offenders, in reality it seemed that only three considerations were used to determine a convictâs ultimate destination: (1) race, (2) hometown, and (3) availability of cell space. At the time, most of the minority inmates in the state were classified to Graterford or Western Penitentiary. The other seven prisons consisted of mostly white inmates under an all-white civilian staff.
Getting Dug In
Once I was classified to Graterford, I traded in my blues for browns and moved off Quarantine to B Block. This was a working block, reserved for those inmates who had been assigned a job. Though it mirrored the design of E Block, B Block was considerably less crowded and noisy. Most of the men on B Block were much older than those on the classification block. These were the âOld Headsâ of the prison, inmates who had done a long stretch.
âWhen I arrived at my new home, I quickly signed in at the block sergeantâs desk and requested cleaning supplies. Then I spent the morning scrubbing down every inch of my cell. By noon count I was able to lie down on my bed, smoke a cigarette, and consider my surroundings. My cell measured about six feet by twelve with a ten-foot-high ceiling, from which dangled a single light bulb with a pull chain. For furniture, I had a flat, hard steel bed and a steel desk and chair which had been assembled as one unit. The mandatory toilet afforded a sink directly above it with a steel medicine cabinet above that. High over the toilet was a rusty radiator, my only source of heat in the winter. Finally, I had a flimsy wooden footlocker with a hasp that could be locked with a commissary-bought combination lock. My entrance was a solid steel sliding door with a fixed glass window on the top quarter. On the opposite wall was a window
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