Here it is: the full text of a piece Whit wrote from DCI as published in a local alternative newspaper. The title "Out of Place" was the one Whit gave it.
Over the years I’ve heard prison called lots of things. The
Joint, Up the River, Slammer, the Pen, and probably a dozen other things. Me,
what do I call it? Until 2005, I call it home. I am inmate #428-341 in Dayton
Correctional Institution, currently serving a three-year sentence for robbery.
Most people have never seen the 11-foot high fences with the six rows of razor
wire and motion sensors, much less been inside them. Inside these fences is a
society unto itself, a whole different world. In here, there are no coffee
shops or casual Fridays. We’ve got things like “3:30 stand-up count” and “Yard Day.” This society even has its own economy, where
packs of cigarettes weigh the balance. You can get literally anything, if the
price is right. We’ve got corner stores and ‘fast food’ venues; barber shop
hustlers and bank-like loan sharks; and, of course, what society would be
complete without drug dealers and thieves. A whole different world, run by
criminals.
Some of the people I talked to about writing this article found themselves questioning what makes me such an authority on
prison life that I think I can write an article on the subject. In a way,
they’re right. I’m 19 years old and have only been down for 2 years; there are
plenty of guys who know a lot more about prison than I do. But I see things a
little differently than they do. I guess you could say that I have a unique
perspective of life in prison. Here’s why: I am, for lack of a better word, a
yuppie. I grew up in Hyde Park. I
went to private and parochial schools; went on vacations to Costa Rica and Italy; and when I was younger, my mother would take me to soccer practice in her big Chrysler minivan. It probably won’t surprise you when I say that I am somewhat of a minority on the inside. I have no idea what “Fo-schizzle” is. And who is “My Nizzle”? It would seem that I am the only one who doesn’t know.
Bingo night behind bars
Sometimes I will sit in the doorway of my cell just to observe my surroundings.
I have seen things that are more than a little peculiar, but are considered
normal behavior in prison. For example, I will often see someone walking around
our housing unit who will just start dancing. There is no music, no beat, and
no apparent reason for doing it at all. It’s always funnier when it inspires a
whole group of people to do the same.
Also, I never would have thought that a group of grown men could get so excited
over Bingo Night. It’s quite a sight when there are 500 convicts packed inside
an undersized gymnasium. When someone gets Bingo, you’d think that he was
winning an early release instead of a few bars of Irish Spring soap. They’ll
start jumping up and down, yelling “Bingo!” It’s a very emotional experience
for them, I guess.
I suppose I can’t really talk about what’s normal and what’s not, though. I
can’t think of too many “normal” people out there who would go out and rob a
store. I had everything I could have wanted, every opportunity, and I ruined it
all for $700. I wish I could say that I was innocent, or that I was set up, or
even that I did it because I was hanging out with the wrong crowd. I just did
some really dumb shit, and now I’ve got a three-year bit to think about it.
The “campus” of DCI is actually pretty nice: lots of green, low-cut grass; a
baseball diamond; a few benches; a tree here and there; and nondescript, red
brick buildings. Actually, if you were to take away the fences and the bars on
the windows, it could almost pass for a boarding school, or a really boring
summer camp. DCI houses about 500 inmates at any given time, which is a
relatively small number by prison standards. Most prisons hold between one and
two thousand. Almost all of us are medium security, so there are no Charles
Manson or Ted Kaczynski type criminals here, which is fine by me. We do have
our share of murderers, but no one is what I would call criminally insane.
DCI was built in the mid-to-late 80’s as what I like to call a “transition
camp.” When a maximum or medium security inmate has served a majority of his
time, he is eligible to have his security level dropped. When this happens, the
inmate has the option of transferring to another institution that has more
privileges and less restrictions. DCI was built for
that purpose. Because of this, there are a few more privileges here than most
other institutions. We’ve got washing machines inside the units, food and
clothes boxes from home twice a year, and we are
allowed to buy televisions for our cells.
As it turned out, there were more cells built than inmates to transfer to them,
so the state filled the surplus with brand-new inmates, many of whom had never
seen the inside of a prison, like myself. Most people never think about those
on the inside, even though they know we’re there. I always knew that there are
people in prison who have spent almost their entire lives there, but it is
always mind-blowing when I ask a person how long they’ve been down and they say
something like 10, 15, or 20 years. Can you imagine meeting a person who has
been in prison longer than you’ve been alive?
In the hole
”The Hole.” Sounds a little like some cheap 80’s horror movie, doesn’t it?
Actually, calling it a horror is a pretty accurate description. It isn’t like
the movies, where an inmate is put in a dark cell with no toilet and lives on
bread and water, but it isn’t too big of a difference. Being cut off from all
human contact for anywhere from 1
to 6 months might not seem so bad at first, but it will eventually wear you
down. As soon as you’re brought in, all of your clothes are taken, and you are
given a jumpsuit that has more precarious stains on it than I’d like to
remember. Keep in mind that they’ve taken ALL of your clothes - socks, shoes
and underwear, too. During my one trip to the Hole, I discovered that, to make
things worse, there is an invisible, yet extraordinarily loud leak in every
single toilet. I firmly believe that it was intentionally put there by the
prison management in a cruel attempt to drive the inmates insane. Anyway, what
do I know? A month in solitary would make anyone a conspiracy theorist, and a
month was more than enough for me. You won’t see me back there again.
It’s easy to get frustrated in an environment like this. On the streets, if you
have a problem with someone, you just stay away from them, but it’s kind of
hard to avoid them when you live with them. Also, being around guys all the
time isn’t as fun as it was when I was 8. I miss girls. Yeah, there are a few
female officers, but if they catch you looking at them in a way that they don’t
like, they can send you to the Hole for an offense called “reckless
eyeballing.” Thank God for my buddy’s Playboy subscription.
A lot of guys in here say that they’re not afraid of coming back to prison. I
am. Not because I might get stabbed or beat up, though. I’m scared of having to
eat watery grits for breakfast 6 days a week. I’m scared of having to pay $6.50
every time I want to make a 15-minut phone call. I’m scared of some punk
correctional officer having the authority to tell me when to lock down. I may
be only 19, but I’m a grown man. This isn’t a life worth living.
DCI may not be exactly how prison is portrayed in movies like “Shawshank Redemption,” or television shows like “Oz”, but
it is still prison. You’re still behind the razor wire, and you can still get
your teeth knocked out by a guy named “Big Baby” if someone gives him enough
cigarettes. I can still find humor in my surroundings, though, which is the
only thing that’s kept me going.
As you can imagine, prison gives you a lot of time to think. I go to sleep
every night in an 8x10 cell, with my head no more than 2 feet away from the
place I piss. The first thing I see in the morning,
and the last thing I see at night is cinder blocks. Likewise, I think the same
thing when I wake up in the morning as I do when I go to sleep at night. I
think to myself, “This shit’s for the birds.”
