Orb Publishing
I once thought that the principle solution to the violent and mediocrity of inner city schools was the systematic removal of the troublemaker types. Twenty odd years of being a high school teacher supported the truth of that conclusion.
A year ago I accepted an assignment teaching juveniles in a city jail. While it has a name that I can’t reveal, most refer to it as exact that, the jail school. Jail is a spuriously calm on the surface, below the surface lays a deep sea of violence and carnage, executed monstrously by those in uniform and those donning jail issue.
It takes time and a trained set of eyes to penetrate to the dark and murky depths of this ocean of human misery. I remember standing in front of this massive structure that oddly resembled a cathedral.
This combined with the towering walls and barbed wire fences brought back nightmares of being jailed.
However, equally disturbing was the maze of corridors, courtyards and check points in route to my work station. The icy cold stares of both COs and inmates (working men), who I passed along the way, reflect the callous and astern nature of the environment.
I finally reached my little schoolhouse, a small network of coupled trailers sitting is sit smack-dab in the middle of an adult facility. Someone told me that the correctional facility houses between five and six thousand detainees. A population that included everyone from those arrested for DWI to homicide, robbery and rape.
The night before the first day of school, the usual fear gathered like storm clouds to prevent a restful night. I used the nervous energy to assemble mental notes about my opening dialogue.
I never had much use for lesson plans on the first few days, preferring to improvise instead. The hand bell rang and they filed into my cramped and narrow effigy of a classroom, the cheap wood panel walls displaying laughingly clichéd posters, including “Just Say No” and “This is your Brain on drugs”.
There I stood, face to face with baby face killers, drug dealers, gang bangers, stickup kids, and some with severe emotional disorders. Strangely, they appeared no different than the thousands others students that I’d taught from New York to Newport News.
Instantaneously, I slipped into my street personality. My countenance hard as stone, my movement displaying a slight swagger, meant to convey my ghetto past. My elocution was sharp and polished reflecting my three academic degrees, yet edged with a inner-city vernacular, one crafted by the streets of Harlem.
I ran down my history of the criminal forays and gang involvement of my youth, followed seamlessly transition into a commentary on the nature of the Crime Justice System and its long criticized relationship with the black community. Slightly disconcerting was the seemingly perfect match. What would be considered shortcoming in an “ordinary” public school were asset here. It’s imperative that a teacher speaks their language.
Unlike most teachers, I spoke their language on so many different levels. It was as much a learning experience for me as it was for them, if not more. You learn quickly that nothing is free in behind bars, everything come with a price. I can’t say that I didn’t experience some tense moments when the novelty of the new teacher began to fade and distraction abound. In the end, I made some adjustment, perhaps concessions would be a better word.
Later I was offered a teaching assignment afterschool and upstairs on the section. There I got my first sobering glimpse behind the mask at the true dark persona. On the section, I pierced through the pretense to the cruelty and the utter debasement that exist in such places.
There are roughly 129 juvenile detainees in this jail inside a jail. Most of which are housed in the “I” section of the jail. Those on protectic custody or PC are in held in smaller sections on the unit, consisting of those on disciplinary lockdown and those in intake or processing into the system.
The fluctuating population on lockdown is remanded to the cells for 23 hours a day and sometimes more. The stink is barely tolerable for regulars and nauseating to visitors. Mice scamper of and down the tiers feasting on discarded food, including sandwiches or brinks as they are sometimes called because of the cement-like texture. Big-timers, roaches the size of an adult index finger, strut about and can be witnessed carrying off pieces of refuse twice their size.
After earning their trust, no easy feat, I began to decipher a peeking order, one supported solely by violence, cunning, and apathy. Though they be young, they be mighty. These children of our urban wastelands can be devious, working together expertly. So, it was no surprise that many excelled in the game of chess and have read The Art of War by Sun Tzu.
Gang affiliations also play a major part in establishing the order of things. As with most jail and prisons across American, gangs rule. The Bloods, the Crips, and the Black Gorilla Family or BGF often vie for control of this particular jail.
New arrivals may be spared a beat down or being placed in protectic custody if they are able to verify their street connects to one of these “families”. The weak or unaffiliated detainees are subject to having their commissary taken, the meals reduced to the least editable items on their trays. But, mostly, they are constantly harassed and often put in positions of having to steal, to launch hits against other detainees or lie to protect the guilty.
Everyone tries to appear hard when they first arrive, but the weak are soon weeded out. Some are able to prolong the process by remain silent and aloof. Often, this is the safest strategy. But, all are put to the test in time.
Now, most would say that they deserve this living hell. Others would argue jails are not supposed to be a playground. They say that it will teach them a lesson that they will never forget.
When confronted with that line of thought, I had to go home and contemplate on their reasoning. But, then it came to me. These young boys and girls are, according to the Constitution, innocent until proven guilty. In addition, they are children.
But, more importantly, most can be saved or diverted from the path that they have mistakenly chosen. However, if you treat them like animals, they will learn to behave animalistic. If you cage them away for 23hours a day, with rotten food, and no way to vent their frustration, you will only create monsters.
Weather sentenced or released, most will return to their neighborhood one day. Now, the system can take serious steps to reform these young people or allow them to continue to descend into a that will only mean bloodshed and death for those unfortunate enough to cross their path.
That brings me to the next question. Who’s the real victim in this anyway? It is the child who grows up in a gang infested and crime ridden community, who must learn to be violent in order to survive, a child whose school is under staffed and under financed and a recruiting ground for some of the nation’s most dangerous gangs. What about the thousands of child who grows up with drug addicted parent, who only concern is their where their next fix is coming from.
To say nothing of the constant exposure to violence in movies, rap lyrics, and television. Children with parents who monitor what they what and even sit and explain how these songs and program are unrealistic glorification of violence and sex are fortunate indeed. But, what about the ones that don’t have this benefit. Many of the ones I see every day never had the ever present hand to guide the development.
Are these children not victims of a cold and insensitive society that will spend billions a month on wars and weapons procurement, while constantly cutting budget to program that might make a difference in the lives of some of our nations most needy.
Let’s cut to the chase. No one cares, or sure I say few care about those children locked away for alleged felonies. In reality, the have been come a valuable resource. With some many jobs are outsourced and the crumbling of the United States industrial base, the government has to create job wherever they can.
While I am not implying that there is some back room conspiracy to use black youth a natural resource for the jail and prison mill, but bureaucracies tend to protect their budgets. This includes thousands of employees and millions in daily expense and capital project.
The state in which I reside spends close to 50 thousand a year to keep each youth behind bars, while spending only a fraction of that amount to educate them while in public school. So where does all of that money go, It goes to paying the salaries of correction officers, probations officers, case workers, judges, magistrates, teachers, principal, and support staff of every kind.
More broadly, prisons and jails are big business. There are contractors Plummer, carpenters, construction firms, retailers who provide commissary where a tiny bag of tuna fish cost up to $2.00, phone that charge exorbitant per minute rates for each call.
Parent of incarnated children have to send hundred of dollars to assure that they children are eating properly. This is an enormous burden on those, in many cases struggling to survive as it is.
