The Only Consistent Thing in Prison? Its Inconsistency!

Allow me to disabuse you of the idea that prison is a place of predictability and rigorously kept schedules. It's not. And while it's not quite twenty-four-hour-a-day havoc, either, a guy expecting dinner to be on time will grumble with disappointment just as often as he'll be satisfied.

Custody counts here at ERDCC are scheduled daily at 6 and 11:15 AM, as well as at 4:30 and 10 PM. The facility's locked down for these, with everyone but kitchen, maintenance, and factory workers confined to their cells until each count clears. This happens within about forty minutes. Unless it doesn't. Because the staff is either incompetent or negligent, recounts, which drag the whole process out for at least an extra hour, seem to take place every week. Worse yet, the later a count clears, the farther back every other activity gets pushed — mealtimes, recreation periods, school classes, religious services.... Shit rolls downhill, always.

A count can also begin late. On occasion, an ambulance has to drive in to handle an emergency beyond what on-site medical staff can handle. For institutional security reasons, all movement on the yard is halted until a visiting ambulance is back outside the fence. On days when the facility is below the minimum number of staff Missouri DOC is understaffed), guards have to shuttle from post to post, from housing unit to housing unit, to help out with counts. At least when delays are due to ambulances we're allowed back out of our cells before the next shift comes on duty. Staff shortages, on the other hand, suck for everyone, in both the short- and medium-term.

Of course, drawn-out counts aren't the only interferences that spring up in the midst of prison life. Even more disruptive to prisoners' day-to-day existence are the lockdowns regularly called for less serious matters. Beginning a few weeks ago, the seventy-two residents of my wing have been made to lock down every time a guard wants to access the fire door. Guards have passed through this door multiple times a day for the past five months without it being a thing. Now, suddenly, prisoners in 1B have to pause their card games, cut short phone calls, turn off the microwave, leap from the shower, or log off the kiosk just so someone can briefly open a door to the outside — outside, yes, but still separated from freedom by two twelve-foot razor-wire fences and a lethal electric one. I guess this is what the "max" in "maximum security" refers to.

As with everything else, I try to stay flexible. Getting my hopes up, developing expectations, or believing that I'm in some way entitled to more stability just because I'm innocent and wrongfully convicted won't get me anything but grief. This is the world; I'm just living in it.