Culture:
Ok, so the first thing you need to understand is that being detained at Elkton was like being detained at a terrible summer camp year round. In other words, it’s only terrible if you’re an adult; because, the majority of the campers act (at best) like teenagers and (at worst) toddlers. I’m being absolutely serious. I had always suspected that the USA was a totalitarian police state, but my time at Elkton confirmed it. It was shocking to realize just how similar life at Elkton was like life on the outside, although at Elkton an upper class person wasn’t able to ignore the poverty class.
The main tension at Elkton comes from the FACT that most of the campers (75%) are from the poverty class. But the prison is set up for working class people, so an immediate clash of cultures begins as soon as a poverty class person arrives at Elkton. The higher class campers (working, middle and upper) and the camp counselors (working class “guards”) do not understand the poverty class camper’s behavior at all. Thus, if Elkton got rid of the poverty class campers, it wouldn’t be a “bad” experience. To understand this dynamic fully, I’d suggest reading a Framework for Understanding Poverty By Ruby K. Payne. Bottom line, the people in the poverty class really are much different than the rest of us…
Another book you’ll need to read to understand the USA is Police State: How Americas Cops Get Away with Murder by Gerry Spence, to understand that we now live in a police state. Once you understand the information in those two books, you’ll understand why my experience at Elkton wasn’t diametrically different from my experience outside Elkton. The illusion of freedom was completely stripped away (as I couldn’t leave the compound) but my daily routine was identical to what it would be anywhere in the USA. Working/Middle Class culture permeated every minute of my stay.
Sleeping / Living Area:
I arrived at Elkton after “lights out”. The camp counselor turns off the lights after final count between 9 and 10pm (some counselors struggled with this task; because, they were stupid. Two counselors were required to do the count, one after each other and their counts had to match at the end, otherwise they had to do it over. Cameras in the dorm made it so cheating on this task was impossible). In sum, a camp counselors job consisted of two mandatory functions, 1) count the campers at specific times and 2) lock and unlock doors at specific times. When the doors at the camp were unlocked, it was called a “move” and you had about 15 minutes to move freely about the camp also know as the “yard”. During the day, the moves occurred on the hour, so the campers would make plans around the moves (i.e “meet me at the gym on the 1pm move”). Just like summer camp, we lived in dormitories. Elkton FCI had three dorms and the FSL had one. The dorms have two floors, thus the campers identity soon became entwined with their dorm. I was on the second floor of dorm 1, so I was with the B faction on the compound. (Dorms were called A, B, C, D, E & F)
Each side of the dorm had a bathroom with 8 urinals and 6 stalls and 12 showers. We slept in cubicles just like you’d see in any corporate office building except these were made of cinder blocks stacked 6 feet high. Each cubical in the center of the dorm had three beds (a bunk bed and a “Cadillac”) and three lockers. The cubicles on the outside walls had windows and just a bunk bed with two lockers, so they were “coveted” areas. I spent my first three months in a 3 bed cubical and was recruited to join the top bunk in a window cubical when Fred’s roommate went to the “Special Housing Unit” (SHU). The SHU is really the only thing they can do to punish you besides taking away commissary. Outside of skin color, the best way to tell if a guy was from poverty class or the upper classes was by what they wanted to you call them. Without exception, every camper from the poverty class used a nickname, all upper class campers used their first name. (More on that later)
Camp Life (Daytime):
The day started at 7AM and you had to have a “job”. You were supposed to follow all the rules and the “cops” randomly patrolled the camp to enforce the rules – but campers vastly outnumbered them, so they really couldn’t do much. Thus, mostly along class lines, 25% of the campers did what they were supposed to do and 75% didn’t, making the experience worse for everyone. Because, most of the “jobs” were a joke because the place was over crowded (I’ll discuss that in another post about the Covid-19 fiasco), so most of the jobs consisted of just going to an area at the camp and staying there for a fixed amount of time. If you laughed at that sentence, exactly! My first job required me to get up and go sit in a very large room at a table from 8am to 3pm. The only perk of this “job” was that we went to lunch first.
There were 4 places you could be during the day, 1) at your job, 2) at the library, 3) at REC or 4) in the dorm. During my first months at the camp, I noticed something pathetic, a significant portion of the campers were elderly and were in wheel chairs or using walkers. In fact, the actual security assessment you’d have to pass to be at a low or minimum federal prison proves that they should not exist. Proving that there is something very wrong with our system of justice.
I soon began referring to the poverty class as “hoodlums” because of their behavior. And my letters confirm that I hated them. The focus of my letters revolved around my illegal kidnapping, the hoodlums and how pointless this particular camp was…
Camp Life (Nighttime):
I did not participate in nightlife. After dinner, I read books & magazines in my bunk until lights out, then went to sleep. The hoodlums spent their time in the 5 different TV rooms in the dorm, where they talked very loudly (part of poverty culture), played games and some pursued illegal activities (mostly drug use).
Social Structure:
The culture at the prison is dictated by the security level. In Medium and higher security prisons you must join a “car” (otherwise you’ll be brutalized). A car is a group of individuals that form a gang and they fight (physically) to keep themselves safe and for the limited resources in prison. The safest car in a prison (if you’re black) are the muslims, so there are many temporary muslims in prison. The biggest cars are prison gangs. But, none of this car nonsense is tolerated at a low or minimum prison. And it’s the only thing that I’ve witnessed that the warden has a zero tolerance for and they would “ship” you back to a medium facility if they even suspected car activity outside determining who can be in a TV room. Thus, to watch TV in a particular TV room you had to be in their Car. Other than that, there was no car activity at Elkton. Thus, I didn’t have to and never did join a Car. I “stayed in my own lane” and minded my own business.
FYI, In poverty culture, the worst thing you can be is a “snitch”. Thus the only thing that would get you run off the yard at Elkton is if you were a “snitch”. In other words, mind your own business and you’ll be left alone. The process of running you off was called “making you check in”. That meant you had to go to the guard and say “I don’t feel safe here”. Most times the guard would be “seriously? Here? Get out of my office” And the guy would have to try multiple times to get the guard to check him in. I only witnessed it once, a Gangster Disciple arrived one day and all the GD’s knew he was a snitch, so they made him “check in” and I never saw him again.
Paperwork:
Now, as I was told (at medium and higher institutions), before you’d be accepted into a car, you had to provide your paperwork (court documents) proving that your weren’t a snitch. If you were white and wanted to join a white car you also had to prove that you weren’t a “cho-mo”. As I mentioned above, cars are forbidden at low and minimum security federal prisons and as such no-one could actually get their paperwork (the guards aren’t allowed to print it, but they can view it – so a TV room car could eventually find out) but many people would lie. One white guy lied about it for years. He was always spouting off about how he hated “cho-mos” so none of us were surprised when one day a guard who gave no fucks overheard someone complaining about him and he just said “what? that dudes a cho-mo” and walked off. He was kicked out of the TV room a few days later. Bottom line, you’ll need to have “clean paperwork” at medium and higher prisons, at low or minimum it’s not a thing.
Transfer to the FSL:
After a year at the FCI, I’d had enough of dealing with the hoodlums and wanted more intelligent campers to be around. I put in for a transfer at my yearly review. I was granted my wish and was transferred with my best friend and bunkmate Dan. I’ll write about that in my next post.
