Human Need

In order to warehouse people the details of daily life must be taken away, processed, and returned in systematized form: laundry day, lunch trays, med lines and sick call forms. Correctional employees are keepers of the sacred machinery of commissary, property boxes, and over the counter medications. Human need often overflows the walls of the system, someone has an oozing boil and needs her clothes washed but laundry day is next week, someone has a stomach ache that can't wait till the clinic opens in the morning, someone else can't possibly get up on the top bunk. We all pray for a smooth tour of duty where we can lower our shoulders into the giant wheel of the shift and inch it along for our twelve hours without the grit and reality of an inmate who needs something extra, something different, a toothache that can't wait till the dentist comes in two weeks. When an inmate approaches me I can tell by the look in his or her eyes "I need," it will be an extra washcloth for a hot compress, a medication adjustment, the asthma inhaler ran out too soon this month. "But this med pass was going great," I used to think to myself as she began to explain why the system wasn't working for her, she was allergic to the blankets, the soap, or the shampoo. She was out to court when we did self meds, Her roomate was incontinent, the motrin just wasn't taking care of the pain in her tooth.

One of my Sergeants at the prison was never annoyed when the inmates came to him about a sock getting lost in the wash, gaining weight and needing to go to property to get a new shirt, or a missing walkman. I watched them complain to him about the rotation of movie night, receiving dirty sheets in linen exchange, and commissary snafus. He never looked at them as though they had thrown a wrench in the machinery of his perfect day by making him think. A lost sock could involve paperwork, a trip to property, and hopefully the inmate would not "lose" another sock any time too soon. He never begrudged them for having human needs extending beyond the boundaries of the system.

I decided to become less obsessed with executing the perfect shift like a gymnastics routine geared towards sticking the landing and walking out the door on time. When inmates come to me with broken glasses, long fingernails from missing clipper day, or menstrual cramps I endeavor to creatively address with situation as part of the job, not an impediment a to the job. When new intakes come to me claiming pre-existing issues and explaining why they should not have to pay for inhalers or pain medicine because they were chronic care at their Department of Corrections facility and it should all be in their file I take a deep breath and explain that they are in another world now and we need documentation, either our own evaluation or records from the facility. And I still walk out the door on time