Inmate life offers lessons for all of us

QCS Managing Editor

I taught adult education classes at the prison in Santa Rosa for a while before I rejoined the ranks of journalists.

I know I learned at least as much as I taught about the men we place behind block walls, chain link and concertina wire.

Some of the lessons apply to any time of trial. Here are a few:

• Humor will get you through times of no freedom better than freedom will get you through times of no humor. The inmates in my classroom spent more time making each other laugh than in any other pursuit.

• Watch out for the quiet ones. The loud ones will bluff and boast and bluster, but the quiet ones act. The quiet ones would turn up in segregation — it used to be called solitary confinement or “stir” — for fighting far more often than the loud ones.

• If you want friends, go along and get along. If you want respect, accomplish something. If you have friends, you have a nickname like Buckwheat or Fatty. If you have respect, usually for doing something brave or worthwhile, other inmates use your real first name.

• Mind your own business but look out for your friends, and don’t snitch. This unwritten rule was the one most firmly etched in the minds of the inmates I got to know. I think it applies to any situation where you have to work with equals against a common enemy.

• Sometimes it pays to be in the box. To think out of the box, you have to start from inside. The inmates, by and large, never climbed in. They were as smart, creative and resourceful as anyone else I’ve ever known, but they didn’t think our rules applied to them. If we could re-channel the inventiveness, entrepreneurial spirit and resourcefulness of many of those we end up incarcerating, we would be richer for it.

• Intelligence isn’t confined to a classroom. The practical smarts of many inmates go unrecognized because their minds aren't geared for classrooms. There are a lot of very smart people who just don’t perform at a school desk. I saw a lot of them wearing prison blues.

• Never let them see your guard up but never let it down. Life in prison is like life in combat. You’re either scared or bored, sometimes both, but you play it cool — always.

• If there’s trouble, walk away slowly. Keep your mouth shut and play it cool, especially when you’re being grilled by corrections officers.

• If you’re challenged, stand your ground. Better to take some lumps now than to be a target for rest of your term.

Steve Hansen is managing editor for the Quay County Sun. Contact him at [email protected]