Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Jailbirds
I can’t remember what they’re supposed to be called. Certainly not prisoners. Clients? Guests of the State’s hospitality?
I live in a prison town. The economy here, depressed as it is, would tank were it not for our local maximum security prison. Since I share my Wednesday OR day with our general surgeon, I’m here with the jailbirds. At least two correctional officers accompany each shackled . . . um, client. Yeah, let’s go with client. Sometimes more than two if they’re especially nasty.
Due to my contractual disagreements with the State, folks with ENT problems get shipped down to Eureka. I’ve never felt motivated to reopen discussion with the State; they low-balled me when I first came to town, then took more than a year to pay me for the two patients of theirs I saw in the ER. Not a great way to make nice with the doctor. And you know something? I don’t miss it. I’m busy enough as it is.
In training, I didn’t mind the clients. We had a whole floor full of them. Many of them were either gang members or drug dealers, and neither group had any animosity towards the doctors who were, the clients realized, only trying to help them. True, we had the occasional sociopath — like the 60ish-year-old white dude who listened carefully to everything and learned the names of our female residents’ spouses and children — How’s Julie? Doing okay in third grade, I hope? At Clover Elementary, wasn’t it? — but most of these people were nicer than our standard trashy fare. (I’m not talking about the poor folks we treated by the thousands. I’m talking about the occasional TRASH who made our lives miserable.)
But I suspect this crowd is different. Ours is a maximum security prison, best known for having been at one time the home of Charles Manson, but also host to the occasional lethal riot. Many of these folks are lifers who have absolutely nothing to lose. They’ve hit rock bottom, chipped themselves a cave, and crawled in beneath the gravel.
I’ve been thinking about these folks ever since Ahnold gave his state of the State address last night. I listened to it on NPR, on my drive home. He wants to build more prisons due to the overcrowding problem.
I’m wondering if there would even be an overcrowding problem if we decriminalized drug use. I doubt it. Our local prison would still be full, I’m sure, but I’ll bet the medium security prisons would suddenly find empty cells to spare.
But hey, what do I know? I just pick boogers and scoop wax for a living.
D.
Yeah, I think that even if they made a lot of things that are currently illegal legal, max security would still be full. Because there’s always going to be murderers and rapists and such like.
Yup. But wouldn’t it be nice if we could reserve prison for those violent criminals? Not to mention the Ken Lays of the world. Preferably sharing jail cells with members of the first group.
It would be nice. It would especially be nice if people could just open their eyes and see that sending bazillions of young inner-city men to warehouses filled with violence isn’t actually helping anything.
Ah, but that would require laws based on logic and science rather than hysterics . . .
Guess I’m still a wannabe Vulcan.