Does the Punishment Fit the Crime?

Here is the front of the kimono from the last blog post.

When I tell people that an inmate got 15 days in seg for slapping my hand people on the street think such a punishment is extreme. "Why did you even write her if you weren't hurt?" I sometimes get asked. Others seem confused as the why my inmate/patient should not hug me. Such a gesture would be pretty normal on the outside.

It has been brought to my attention that prison, with all of it's rules and restrictions about contact, is the perfect place for me to be a nurse. All physical contact is kept to a minimum, which works pretty well for someone who walks around wearing a cuff bracelet stating "touch me not" in Latin. If I worked in an outside hospital I would probably have to endure being hugged and touched by patients as well as families.

In the penitentiary the no hugging rule is about safety. Even though that inmate is a woman, she is still a convinced felon in a maximum security penitentiary. Hugging can look a lot like shanking. If she wanted to shank me she would have been smarter to wait until I took my coat off.

In the case of the hand-slapping the reason to punish the inmate is to teach her about the enforcement of rules and boundaries. Many of the inmates grew up in very chaotic environments with few rules and little structure. As prison employees our role is to teach them lessons that their parents failed to impart. Just like you have to teach a little kid not to hit others with a time out, seg is like big-girl time out in my mind. I hope that if we model good behavior for them and teach them self control and respect for rules they will be more successful on the outside.

In the case of this particular inmate, my run-in with her was her third or fourth assault on staff. She was already doing a stretch in seg for aggravated assault involving serious injury to one of the Watch commanders wrists. She had been good in seg for quite some time after that episode. Evidently though she had not totally learned her lesson. After she was charged for slapping me she was disappointed in herself for messing up again. I think that this level of self reflection was significant progress for her.

Granted I am here writing about modeling good behavior and learning self-control when I recently assaulted one of my own staff. See the blog entitled "Reaction" from 3/4/06. The irony is not lost on me.