The Incorrect in the Correction Center

After one week of working in a prison, I have yet to be stabbed.

This is a good thing.

In fact, I haven't even felt the slightest bit threatened... dare I say that most of the guys there have been polite, compliant, pleasant, and even friendly. It's strange. This shouldn't be.

The tattoos on your arms, in old English text, spanning from near the elbow, to the wrist "Hard" on the right, and "Time" on the left.... well, they seem less legitimate with all the yes sirs, no sirs, and the inability to read, properly take your medicine, and complete any task without absolute permission.

It's as if you've resigned yourself to being a felon for your entire life.

It's a cop-out, for lack of a better term. My tenth grade English teacher would kill me right now. "Don't use these trite sayings! Say what you mean!" Well, I mean that it's a cop-out.... it's a cowards way out. It's this guy's way out; his excuse. If he has these tattoos, then he has to be a criminal. He's accepted it, embraced it... used the tattoos to make it official. He can say, "well, people won't hire me, cuz of my tattoos.... they won't hire me because i did time." but really, it's because he's mentally handicapped, and self admittedly, lazy. He doesn't want to work, he doesn't want to learn, he doesn't want to better himself, he doesn't want to have to try..... so he'll get these tattoos that preclude him having to live a legitimate life. He can just do his time, get out, then go back to molesting little children.

way to go.

this guy was pleasant, polite... albeit, very slow. and he was the face of a child molester; a rapist. a 5th grade education, if that.... so he decided to find a child of equal arithmetic age, and raped them.... not one, but many.

he should never get out.

should he even get health care? why should he? i found myself thinking this.

there are countless people in the US who obey every single law; who are GOOD people, hard working, honest and moral.... and they do not get any health care. so, why should we give this "man" care; antibiotics, CT's, MRI's and cancer treatments even, when on the outside, he had none. He broke the law, and the cost is your freedom, yes, but your reward is good, free, healthcare?!?!

why shouldn't he get exactly what he had when he was on the outside? nothing. nothing but being able to go to an ER, for an actual emergency..... by the same tenet, someone with reasonably good healthcare on the outside, well, maybe they should get the same on the inside.

I'm all about being fair.

and fair, well, I got a good dose of fair today after i saw a man with metastatic prostate cancer, after already having his prostate removed, and the cancer was still there. his only chance for a cure was radiation.... though it was unlikely to save him. i felt sorry for him, at first, for he seemed a nice, intelligent man. again, 'why are you here?' i thought....

well, the unfair of prostate cancer, and certain demise, turned into fair when i found out he, on a weekly basis, molested his own granddaughter starting at age 4.

i didn't feel bad for him anymore.

there are mistakes which we all make, and ought be forgiven. I'm the first to say, i've made more than a few.... but there's a mistake, a lesson, and a fix... ideally. and then there's a pattern - a sickness, a disease... an evil. and it's one thing to lie to your friend about one thing or another, getting yourself into a pickle, then having to own up to it, and begging for forgiveness... and it's in a whole other league to do what these men have done.... repeatedly.

a weekly basis, for years... i read the transcripts... it was like something out of a horrible movie, exactly like you'd imagine. I couldn't believe it was real.

then, the horrible flashback, during the interview, prior to my knowledge that he molested his own family member.... he had said that it was just his other granddaughter's birthday recently, and he had bought her a stethoscope.

i'll just let you feel in the bottom of you belly what I felt in mine when this information slapped me in the face.

the audacity of this guy! did he intentionally do that? do it to rub it in the faces of the parents? i have no idea.

anyway, I hope I don't get too embittered by this place and it's people. The good news is, the folks I work with all seem to be quite nice, and friendly..... and i doubt they have as dark of secrets as the captive tenants of this prison do.

it's funny, as I walk out of the place, there's a big sign that says 'Airway Heights Correctional Center'.

Correctional Center.

What exactly are we correcting? I don't think we'll ever correct the wrongs that have been forced upon the victims of these men. And I don't think we'll ever correct many of the men themselves, like the stethoscope grandpa. I guess the term correction could only apply to their health, their physical health, not mental health. In my mind, that's the only thing we've got a shot at correcting.

So, that is what I will do.

that's the only correct thing in this incorrection center.