Men are from Venus, Women are from Who Knows!

Sitting in my office looking out my window at the inmate’s recreation yard, I am troubled by the current state of affairs in the department. I spent the first four years of my career working with the states most dangerous felons. Before we had Pelican Bay, we had Corcoran. At that time the most dangerous prison in the state, and assuredly one of the most dangerous in the nation. Corcoran is where I cut my teeth, were I made my bones. Well that was when gas was $1.00 a gallon, and Bush Sr. was running things.

Jump forward to today. I no longer have such a lengthy commute (60 minutes one way), but I have spent the last 13+ years working with the women. I have moved up the food chain to rank of Lieutenant, which with .50 cents will get you a USA Today. I have supervised the Death Row, the Substance Abuse building, AIDS building and that states only prison within the prison, the Security Housing Unit (SHU). And once again, we are about to embark on another departmental exercise. This one is called Gender Responsive Training. Apparently, the Governator (Arnold) and the Department as bought off into a study by a Sociologist from the University of Cincinnati that indicates female felons are different from male felons. By the reaction of the department, you’d think this is earth shattering news of course! The problem is, the state will not amend current law pertaining to the mandatory rules of detention, what we call the California Code of Regulations, Title 15, or CCR. Without this change, there is no real solution. You see, we are bound by the law (CCR) which has been established by our legislators. This law directs our missions, and the due process rights afforded every inmate in our custodial care. That said, the “new” direction regarding the females raises some serious concerns. Early indication suggests that we are to look deeply into the reasoning for the various crimes. We are to try and understand the needs of the female felon, their backgrounds, past abuses and so and so and so. This is all well and good until there is a problem. A problem like, her behavior was so bad we must place her in segregation, however she has acted out like this in the past do to her lifetime use of cocaine. As you can see, we “guards” are put into a cross. On one hand we have the black and white written law, but on the other, we are to take into account the needs and reasoning behind the behavior. What are we to do? The department has a very long history of doing so dirty work. Here is the history. We are handed documents (training) to review and sign for. This training is in the form of a memo with the explanation of “here sign this”. Do to program requirements, we are not given time to actually train. So you sign the form and continue on with you duties. Well, Mr. Murphy steps in, and something goes wrong. If you take action, and it is different from the “training”, the department will pull out the document and say, “Here, you have been formally trained.”, so you violated policy and enjoy your 30 day non-paid vacation. If you ask to be formally trained, then you’ll here, “Just sign it, we don’t have time to shut down the program.” So you see the cross we are placed in on a daily basis. As I say, WTF! PRISON