My fieldtrip to prison - revised

I'm back from my fieldtrip to the State Prison. It was tons of fun and I survived, so that's always a bonus.

When we got there we went through two big metal electric doors. The second door did not open until the first door had closed. Then we gave our driver's licenses to the gaurd, who exchanged them with passes that said "Escort". I pretended that being an "Escort" was what I was "in for". Then we were "escorted" to a trailer/portable where we were to speak to 31 prison women for an hour on our housing program.

As I entered the courtyard I felt a twinge of disappointment. The grounds were beautiful, for a prison. The lawn was mowed, the grass was green, and there were bunches of beautiful flower gardens around the courtyard. I was just begining to wonder if I was really in prison at all. That's when I saw a few prisoners, dressed in maroon scrubs that say "Inmate" on them. And I'm not kidding. This was their conversation:

INMATE #1: I bleeping-ing hate you bleep! How could you "bleep" with me like that? I'm gonna kill you.

INMATE #2: So what. Bring it on. Let's go.

INMATE #3: Get in there at beat that bleep up.

"Yep." I thought, "I'm in prison after all." Just when I thought I was going to be able to witness my first prison shanking we arrived at the portable classroom where we would be giving our presentation. So, unfortunately I didn't get to see how the argument ended.

As we gave our presentation on our sobriety-based housing program a few women were disappointed to find out that Housing Authorities nation-wide have a rule against housing people who have ever had a meth lab charge. Others were not excited to find out that we didn't house people immediately out of prison because we have a wait list. More women were disappointed because they were either going to parole in just a few days and weren't on our wait list yet, or they were paroling out of the county and would not be eligible for our housing program. And then there was the non-using crowd. Those who don't use drugs or alcohol They were incarcerated for things like fraud, violence, or other non-drug charges . They were disappointed that our agency only works to house people who are in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. All in all I thought the presentation went pretty well. It was chalked full of hope and inspiration.

We plan to return in three months to speak to the women again. In fact, next Tuesday I will be giving a presentation to the Warden and other prison personnel. I plan to attend a four-hour training sometime soon at the prison. After the training I will be bestowed with a "key to the prison", much like the "key to the city." I will be allowed to come and go as a please for one year without having to have them run a 90 day clearance check on me. How cool is that?

A funny thing I did on the way out: As we were waiting for the electric metal doors to open, I instictively lifted up my remote key access for my car and pressed the button to open the prison gate! It's amazing how technology can actually make us dumber.

I'm going to prison

Well it's finally happened. On Monday I'll be going to prison. I guess it was inevidable really. No I'm not pulling your leg. I'm really going. I hope I'll be able to do the time. Maybe I'll get out early for good behavior.

The strange thing is, I didn't even commit a crime or stand trial. I'm actually going to prison to meet with the inmates there and take a tour. Don't worry. I think I'm only meeting with the female inmates (some of whom I'm sure I already know). No. I'm not kidding again. I can think of at least two former clients who are currently in prison.

Sometimes at my job I get to do some pretty fun and unique things. Like this coming Monday when I get to go to prison. I plan to take a tour and speak to some women about how to apply for housing. My supervisor is going with me. She'll be talking to them about coming to drug and alcohol treatment. I'm really excited. I love getting out of the office, and I love to do interesting things for work. Am I weird? I don't think so.

I've done another really cool and unique thing at work. A year ago I was able to help in a special police training on how to approach and work with the mentally ill, or other people with a diagnosis. We taught the police how to recognize if someone is high, mentally ill, has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or other diagnosable conditions.

Police trainers would act out a true senario and have the police in training attempt to respond to police calls of these senarios. Here were a few examples: A suicidal person who was thinking of jumping off a building; a suicidal person who had a machetti; a drunk veteran who has Post-Truamatic Stress Disorder and has a flashback while talking to police; A family dispute where one teen daughter is hyper-sexual and histrionic (which means she always wants to be the center of attention. . .she was constantly hitting on the police officers); and a delusional homeless man at a restaurant who believes aliens poisoned his food. It was interesting, and hillarious to watch how the policemen and women reacted to these situations. Some of them followed the police rules to the letter, which made it difficult for them to interact with the people. For instance, the man at the restaurant. One police officer told him he had to leave or he would be arrested. Another officer did better. He offered to taste-test the food himself to prove it wasn't poisoned.

It was really interesting to watch the "actors" because they absolutely stayed in character. It was fun to have to have the police ask us for advise. I was able to attend this police trainng twice. Unfortunately, my boss, that helps train the police about every three months, has gone back to working at Valley Mental Health. I'm sure he is still training the police, but I no longer get to go along for the ride.