What I Learned in Prison: Women in Front and Behind Bars #5

photo via Colorado Int’ School

When you want to learn a new language, experts say that ‘immersion’ programs work faster and better than taking semi-regular classes. This applies to working in the law enforcement field. A couple of weeks ago I talked about the initial training I received when I began my career in corrections. Much of the training was OJT-on the job, not only training from other staff members but also the female offenders or wards, as we called them back in the ’80’s.


                                             The full immersion program is known as the Academy. 


It’s the same concept as a military boot camp or a police academy. You are there to learn discipline, the language, customs, and rules of the Department. Notice I capitalized ” Academy” and “Department.” That’s how certain things are referred to in quasi-military training academies. In this regimented world, you can bet that it wasn’t welcoming to women. Most of the women who worked in the prisons were nurses, teachers, social workers, or  MTA’s (Medical Technical Assistant).


It was a man’s world. And I don’t say this in a negative, judgmental sense. It is what it is (or was in those days). In my class, there were five women out of sixty men.  An outcome of having few women in the Academy was that we were tested more often than men, to see ‘what we were made of.’ Consequently, we tried harder, sometimes acted more masculine than needed, and often times tried to outdo our male classmates. 


The Academy stressed that the trainers objective was to get a person ready to work in a high-stress environment as safely as possible. It was drilled into us that order and safety were the priorities. 


                                               How can you supervise inmates if you’re dead, 


one of the instructors said. Made sense to me. After the first week, one of the women dropped out. 


The classroom lectures were reinforced by the dozens of ‘war stories’ one hears during breaks and from the veteran training staff teaching said, classes. The field trips to the closest correctional facility: Duel Vocational Institute-DVI, frighteningly referred to as “gladiator school,” further reinforced why one needed to pay attention in class, learn the self-defense techniques, proper handcuffing, and so on. 


Again, all this made sense to me as a twenty-one-year-old, that is until we were told about the tear gas shack. Say what? 


An older guy, in his thirties, told me that the trainers were going to herd us into a shack and then shoot tear gas through the open windows. His buddy, an earlier cadet, told him about the scenario. 


                                           Don’t worry, I went through this in Nam. Piece of cake.


He told me to cover my face with a handkerchief, close my eyes and run. “You’re going to be disoriented, but run in a straight line.” My first reaction was “Hell No.” 


My second thought was the idea of me sobbing from the stinging chemical, laying in the middle of the tear gas shack and all the men standing outside shaking their heads, saying “That’s why women shouldn’t be allowed to work for the Department.”


 “Oh, hell no.”   I swiped a hand towel from the women’s bathroom and stuffed it in my pocket. 

 The scenario played out exactly like my Viet Nam friend said. Twenty of us were herded into a 16×16 wooden building and told to line up against the wall-I was the first and only woman in the group. Two open windows were on opposing walls. 
  
                                         Two tear gas canisters will be shot into the windows,


our instructor said and pointed to each window. “Your objective? Make it out the door over there.”
“Where are our gas masks, sir?” a male cadet asked. The trainer smirked in response. My VN friend elbowed me and whispered “cover yourself as soon as you hear the shotgun sound. When you get outside, kneel down and take in some air.” I listened for the sound and ran like a bat out of hell. 


The tear gas stung like a swarm of bees. Immediately, the eyes and nose gushed with tears and mucus. I felt like dropping to the ground. My friend and I crashed through that front door first and fell forward on our knees, gasping for breath. 


A few guys didn’t make it out and the trainers, in their gas masks, went into the building to haul them out. One of the cadets asked the trainers, “why did we have to do this without gas masks?”


                                    So you know how it feels to use this on a human being. It’s not a toy.


That was the best moral lesson I learned in the Academy. Treat others as human beings regardless of the circumstances. Sometimes you learn wisdom in the most roundabout ways, like in a tear gas shack. It’s a lesson I carried with me and hope I never forget. 


For former post in this Wednesday series click on:
First post  in “What I Learned in Prison…”
Second post
Third post
Fourth post


If you have any questions about life inside please share in the comment section.