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Vice Blog

I'm Busted - Cops Issue

Along with a bunch of other cop stories like yesterday's, the glut of high-qualtiy crap that went into the Cops Issue forced out all our regular columns. Sorry, regs. Here's the edition of "I'm Busted" that would have been in the issue if we'd just had this much more space.

In the Bureau of Prison the guards are called correctional officers, or C/Os for short. It doesn't take much training to be a C/O, a prospective officer just needs a GED and the time to take a couple of basic training courses. And let's keep it real, they are nothing more than high-rent security guards or low-rent cops. A pig is a pig is a pig. With their big unions and political clout, the C/Os are in the business of job security—and what makes for a more secure prison-guard job than tough drug laws that fill prisons with nonviolent, first-time offenders. Could someone have asked for an easier job? Gone are the days of hardened convicts. These days, the position of prison guard is basically a glorified babysitter or turnkey. But what do the prisoners of the War on Drugs think of their keepers?

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"I feel that the C/Os were picked on as children, and that's the reason why they come in here with their authority role. But in reality they are rejects from the police academy who couldn't hack it as a cop," says Big D, a Huntsville penitentiary veteran, and he is right to some extent. A lot of the C/Os are ex-military who couldn't find any other job and couldn't qualify for the state police or other law enforcement agencies for one reason or another, and it seems they take this failure out on prisoners by treating them not as humans but as cattle. The power tripping can be vicious or downright ugly but that's not to say that all C/Os are that way. Some are just trying to put in their eight hours, but it's the remainder who make the most lasting impression on their charges, the ones who talk to prisoners all crazy like they're a drill sergeant.

"They need to be a little more humble when dealing with convicts. They shouldn't bring their personal and social problems to work with them," says DV prisoner and oldhead Chuck. Behind the walls some of the cops revert to different personalities. They are taught that all convicts are horrible, violent people that are out to scam and harm them. This might be true in some cases, but most prisoners nowadays are just people that got caught up in bad circumstances beyond their control.

Prison is cauldron of hate and mixed races but the issue of the C/Os disrespect toward prisoners transcends social and racial boundaries. A Dominican doing time for dealing coke commented on the cops in his broken English, "Some do a professional job. Some talk to you like a kid. I'm not a kid, I'm a grown man. They don't answer your questions. They scream at you." A Chinese dude just shook his head and said, "They bad, very bad police. No good." Some prisoners were a little more specific in their complaints.

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"The ones that treat it as a job are more or less respectable. The ones that make it personal are assholes," one convict, Red, says. And if a prisoner gets on a cop's bad side, he can be subjected to constant harassment, shakedowns, and trips to the hole with no avenues for recourse besides punching the cop—a move that would add years to the prisoner's sentence. Convicts learn quickly that the C/Os are always right, no matter the situation, and that they will always back each other up and lie to serve their purposes. It's like another dude, RK, says, "I think they need to get themselves together. They some garbage."

And in today's gender-equal world, there are even women C/Os working in the belly of the beast. Imagine that, a tiny little defenseless woman working in a unit surrounded by 150 so-called hardened criminals who are doing decades of their lives. "A lot of guys feel the women shouldn't even work here," says Big D. "They are here to prick-tease us. They are here for attention because they can't get any on the street."

But in the netherworld of prison these women C/Os are lavished with attention by the prisoners and male staff alike, wanted or not. Fat, ugly—it doesn't matter. Like one vato says, "I want to fuck all the C/O girls. I don't care if they are fat or ugly." But it works in reverse too. With the C/Os shaking dudes down and feeling up their nuts, some convicts have attitudes like the Chief.

"I think they want me," he says. "They have a fetish for guys. I think their wives beat them." And his words might be true in some cases. Imagine the C/O whose wife rules his life at home and when he comes to work, his latent homosexual tendencies start coming out in all the strip-searches and pat-downs he has to perform every day.

Still, some prisoners are way more vocal in their hate towards their oppressors. "Off all the pigs," says one brother doing life. "Fuck them and their families making money off my misery. They could all die as far as I'm concerned." The same vato who wants to fuck all the women C/Os says, "Fuck the cops. I'll gut them if I could get away with it." But that type of bravado is seldom backed up. Tough talk and hyperbole is rampant in prison but most beatings or stabbings are committed against other prisoners. The cops keep a unified front and the prisoners are all on opposing sides. Separated by race, color, creed, geographical locations or gang loyalties, divide and conquer is the cops mantra and ultimately they do their job well—maintaining the security of the prison. Because if not, all the madmen who commented in this article would be loose in the streets.

SETH FERRANTI