5/19/09: Prison life

The cold, hard, steel door slams behind me, and the one in front unlocks and opens up into a court yard. There are flower gardens, a beautifully manicured lawn stretching between me and the next building, and the sun is bright and gorgeous shinning on everything. Is this really prison? The only indications are the few men in all tan outfits working in the courtyard.

Where are the armed guards? Where are the snipers’ towers that can shoot down any man at 500’? Where are the gigantic, towering cement walls shadowing over everything that are so impenetrable?

My first impression of this prison is that it is aesthetically beautiful. I later learned that this was one of the last prisons grandfathered in to allow flower gardens and landscaping within the walls of the prison. This facility will be 20 years old in one year. Inside the buildings they are clean, well lit, and well taken care of. The inmates can get jobs to earn small amounts of money by working in food service, janitorial services, or even (in some circumstances) watching other inmates who are on suicide watch.

“Have you been involved in activities that are high risk for getting Hepatitis?” questions my preceptor.

“No,” says the 40 year old inmate wanting routine screening labs.

“Did you get those tattoos here in prison or on the outside?”

“Here,” says the inmate with tattoos completely covering both forearms, and I have no doubt much more of his body.

“That alone puts you in the high-risk category for getting hepatitis. You know that don’t you?”
There are no tattoo parlors in prison, only improvised needles with the ink from ball-point pens that are often shared among many inmates.

I had the preconceived notion that all of my patients would be coming in after some huge brawl, or some contagious disease that has spread throughout the compound; not so. These guys are just like any other patients: strained back, runny nose, headache, rashes. The only difference is that these guys aren’t very original in the clothes they wear (tan is very popular), and they don’t travel very much.