Prison, Inc.: A Convict Exposes Life Inside a Private Prison

6. The Zoo

The Zoo This is your second UA within sixty days. If I didn’t need the cell, I would overrule the hearing examiner. —Chief of Security Walker I will get you out today unless you don’t want to plead guilty. If you don’t plead guilty, then you will have to have a hearing. That will take some more days since I don’t have you scheduled. —Hearing Examiner Hanson “Hey Officer, come here God dammit,” the man in 102 yelled under his seg door for the third time. “What do you need?” the officer replied rather disgusted. Officer Pooch was young, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two years old. By his facial gestures, you could see he was tired of the shit today. What a way to make a living, he thought. “Did they get me a cell yet?” The prisoner was yelling into the door’s crack. In seg, in order to talk to a guard, you had to yell through the door cracks. The doors and food slots were never opened unless they wanted a prisoner to sign something or he was getting a meal. “Martin, stop asking about your damn cell.” “Hey, come on now,” he looked at the officer offended. “They told me I would be out two days ago. My paper work says the fifteenth, it’s now the seventeenth. You’re violating my motherfucking rights.” “Okay, okay. You-all act like the world has to stop to let you out of seg. I’ll see what I can do. Maybe they forgot. What are you here for? Maybe that is why.” “I’m not here for nothing more than smoking weed.” “How many days have you been here?” 6 61 “Twenty-two long days!” “How much time did Hearing Examiner Hanson give you?” “Fifteen days.” “When did you go to court?” “The tenth, Wednesday. Why all the questions?” “Figure the days. You have to sit from the day after the hearing until the twenty-sixth.” “No, no. See, look here,” Martin held his hearing results to the cell door window, “he gave me credit for being here since the first.” The officer read the slip: Time credited for prior segregation. Time from the first to be subtracted from the fifteen days. “Okay, I’ll call.” “I’d appreciate getting out of this fucking zoo!” “Hey, you don’t like my hotel, stop coming back!” * * * Prisons generally have two types of segregation units. In this case, the “zoo” was Enterprise’s disciplinary segregation unit. Prisoners who are suspected of violating the prison rules are placed in this unit. While the prisoner is locked up in the segregation unit, the prison goes through an elaborate process of determining whether or not the infraction occurred. This is the investigation phase. Then a disciplinary report is written and served on the prisoner. Finally, a man can waive all his rights and “plead guilty” or he can take a formal hearing. In virtually all prisons, in 99.9 percent of the cases where one takes a formal hearing for the infraction, he will be found guilty. One way or the other, once the prisoner is found to have committed the infraction, then he will remain in the “zoo” for a certain number of days until his time given for the rule infraction is completed. At Enterprise, you could be released from seg at any time, or remain there for any length of time, or be sent to administrative lockup, which is a different type of segregation unit. Generally, arbitrariness is the rule. * * * “Hello, Chief Walker here,” he spoke into the phone. “This is Moss from Internal Affairs.” Internal Affairs, or IA, was the investigative arm of the prison. In addition to investigating serious rule infractions by the prisoners, they investigated the other staff, particularly in relation to drug trafficking and things of that nature. They also investigated the gang activities of the prisoners. “What can I do for you, Moss?” 62 | The Zoo “Well, Chief, we are doing a gang investigation and have certain inmates to go to segregation . . . four for assault, two for tattooing, and one for weapons.” Not another gang investigation, Walker thought, he does more investigating than anyone. As chief of security, Walker was in charge of the segregation unit. Moss’ investigations were always filling up the seg cells, making life difficult for Walker. Sometimes...