I know I know I know - I haven't posted anything since July 8ish. I have been hugely slacking on this whole blogging business, but it isn't like I have such a fascinating life that you need to tune into every week to read about. However, I do have things to talk about since July but right now, what I did today is way more pressing than anything else (just because I am apt to forget some things that are just too good to not share with people). What did I do today you ask??? Well it was my first day at my practicum at the Department of Corrections!!! Here is how the day panned out.......
In the morning, while getting ready, I had to get some inspiration to get into the mindset of the atmosphere of where I was going, so what better to do that than the King himself.....
The whole time getting ready, I am thinking to myself - should I have my hair up? Down? Heels? Flats? Can I wear a skirt? Should I wear pants? What about a necklace? Rings? A watch? So many unanswered questions had me very frazzled and unprepared as to what was going to happen when I arrived at the prison. Still, at this moment, they are unanswered as we never had the chance to sit and talk with our supervisor(s) about our schedule and whatnot so hopefully all those questions will be answered on Friday when we meet with them. Settled on some clothes, packed some food and headed out my door for the great unknown. Oh the places I will go!!!
We arrive at the prison (half an hour early) and go inside to ask where we are supposed to go for the training facility. The guard at the reception desk tells us to go outside, to the right, walk up the road and the facility is on our left. So, we do exactly that - go outside, turn right, start walking up the road. Yeah, we weren't supposed to do that. At all. A security guard drives up to us, very loud, barking, mean sounding dog in his truck (K-9 unit) and asks us where we are going so we tell him. He tells us that we are on an unauthorized road and walking where we were, we could have been shot or the dogs could have attacked us if they were roaming free (cause apparently there is an invisible fence that the dogs know not to cross to go into the parking lot.....I highly doubt that.....). Well, needless to say, not a good start to our day (however, seeing as we were three girls in dress pants and blouses and whatnot, I think they could have been a little bit more personable in telling us that we were in the wrong place instead of treating us like inmates that just broke out of prison - some of the classiest, nicest looking inmates ever!!!!).
We get to the training facility and there seems to be some confusion as to why we are there and what we are there for. We were sitting in the classroom, waiting for the training to start, and the security guard comes in, telling us about the place - you get spit on, feces thrown at you, inmates on suicide watch are pretty much naked, how inmates will try to get power over you, how the ERT works, things like that........he told us one story about an inmate attacking another one on the head with a shank or something like that and all I could think of was an inmate stealing one of my zombie shoe heels and stabbing another inmate in the head with it......gotta find the comedic relief in everything hahaha. Once all the hullaballoo about how we were, why we were there got sorted (and at this time it was about 10:30) we learned that we were supposed to be over at the main building for training, so we start to hoof it over there. However, we get held up as the security officers were working with a dog - we got told to wait until the training was over, but then the guy said to come forward, so we did, but he was talking to the dog, so then we got yelled at again by him.......I kind of hope he doesn't remember us so we can get off to a better start than that. Riya looked at me, saying she didn't want spit or feces thrown at her, but I think (desperately hoping) that those acts are more towards the guards and not the interns......I am going to keep my rose coloured glasses on for that thought.......
Get into the training session and what are we learning about - Prison Rape Elimination Act (with a test afterwards). This day just keeps getting better and better. After the wonderful tutorial on prison rape, we get a tour of the facility. It was almost like we got into the mentality of inmates as every time someone came down the hall or we saw people, we all went into a single line against the wall - some wonderful conditioning right there hahaha. It was pretty interesting the tour - got to see into some of the housing units, the medical center, the library, the processing room. Some times I felt bad for the inmates as there we were - 7 girls and 1 security guard peering through windows to look at them, watch them. I guess it is something that they may be used to and I guess it is something that I will not have to think about when there. When we were passing the release cell, there were two guys in there, and they were watching us, so I wanted to look at them, but didn't want to, and then found myself in a quandary - if I did look at them, should I smile? Should I not smile? Am I to be stonefaced in there? Can I be my Canadian niceness? Again with the plethora of questions that went through my head while there. One funny part during the tour was when we had to go through security to get into the housing units, the guard that was giving us the tour was explaining to the other guards who we were and said "no, this is not the Chinese tourists". It was pretty funny. I am glad some people are there have a sense of humour.
After the tour we go back and get our ID badges (it is official!!!! but we don't get to keep them when we are all said and done with our internship, which sucks balls) and parking passes and then we get the short version of the orientation training - was told where to park, how our ID badges work, who to talk to if we have a problem and what to do in the event of being held hostage. Yep. That's right. A hostage situation. The guy told us to remember four things if we get held hostage: 1) do not show the captors fear (does fainting show them fear???) 2) do not fight them but try to sit back and observe the people involved, what they are doing, etc etc 3) go along with what they are doing and do not try to fight them (but if we have the chance to escape, take it) and 4) always remember the Army motto - never leave a man behind - so keep up the hope that somebody will be coming in for us. He added a fifth one during his speech - if we hear guns going off, drop to the floor. He then went on to explain what would happen after we were rescued and all this jazz, telling us that we would probably be at the prison for about 20 hours for the aftermath and crap like that - this time it was Riya who found the comedic relief in it all when she asked if we could claim all of those hours against our 700 we need to do. Thankfully, in all the years the guy worked there, he has never seen a hostage situation - it sounds like they have a pretty good plan if it does ever happen.
So, after that whole day, I didn't learn what our dress code is, what our schedule is, who our supervisor is, if there is a guard in the room with us when we are working with the inmates, how to protect ourselves if an inmate comes after us (the emergency relief team (ERT) will get called but it will take them 30 seconds to get there - a lot can happen in 30 seconds....) or what area of the prison we are working in BUT I did learn what happens if a prisoner claims he/she got raped, how security guards should not have sex with the inmates and how to conduct ourselves in a hostage situation. I am pretty sure I am missing some things from today but there was just so much to look at and take in and panic about. This will be a very interesting place to work at and if I can get out of it unscathed, I think I will be able to work with just about anybody. This will be an experience of a lifetime, that is for sure.
