Mommy, I want to be a Prison Guard

Everyone knows a kid who wants to be a fireman or a nurse or even a cop. You don’t hear many wishing to grow up and be a criminal or an addict... well, we can sidestep the growing popularity of gangster rap. But some people just kind of become these things, without planning for them. I know there are careers like "data analyst" and "warehouse manager", but I can’t picture the kind of kid who would dream wide-eyed about these in their future. It may just be me, but those jobs sound about as stimulating as counting the bricks in the walls of my cell. But at least they're some productive part of society and not a compulsion that is driving a wedge between the poor vacuum salesman and her family. I doubt there are lines out the psychiatrist’s office for interventions on uncles who can’t stop janitoring.

Yet if any of us heard our child's ardent desires for any of these career paths, it wouldn’t necessarily cause handwringing or keep-you-up-at-night questions about how you failed the kid.

There may be some ‘questionable professions’ though. The type that if your kid broke to you one sunny day on the playground. "Daddy, I want to be a mortician." That may make you choke on your Starbucks. Reason however you want, the kid is basically telling you they want to play with dead bodies. At least it not just a hobby. They’re not doing it for free, right?

Then there's the obvious: proctologist. I can't.. I’d rather not get... into that. Avoiding long diversions and references to the misadventures of Alice.

But even these, strange though they may be, don't require the torment of people or animals. Really, you could even clean it up if anyone were to ask. I mean, they are both medical degrees. "He wants to be a doctor" and if anyone probes deeper (still thinking about the proctologist?) you just change the subject with questions about the weather.

But there is no cleaning up "prison guard". The prison guard is a person(ish) who locks human beings in cages, starves, strips, and torments if told to do so or... if they feel like it. The power is practically endless for them. What kind of people could this job attract? Can you imagine the parents of these people?! "We always knew he'd be a prison guard. He'd have so much fun locking our pets up in kennels." Even if the kid reaches the highest attainment in the field: Warden. So what, head sadist? What kind of parent would beam with pride at the one who directs all the worst parts of humanity to hurt people who can’t defend themselves under pain of the full force of the state's government? And they pull a 6 figure salary of tax-payer money!

I know, it seems like I’m being harsh. But I’ve spent more time around these people than I’d ever wish on anyone else. Maybe I’ve missed the guard or warden who is working hard to rehabilitate prisoners better and make the place more humane. Maybe she lives with the heart-of-gold heroin dealer who is slinging his way through college. Probably... not. In my experience with these people (14+ years so far), the only good people quit and most within the first week and that is for the best. A good person can’t stomach seeing what is done to other animals, let alone human beings. It’s a sad thing to see what you thought was a spark in their eye turn out to be the last light of hope that died. It happens… and often. This place is bad for everyone: Zimbardo's "Bad Barrel".

Most of us knowingly broke the law and a few of us were even in a sound state of mind when we did it, but what lands us in prison is rarely a purposeful path set out from youth. Society is promised rehabilitation. There is no excuse for the inhumane daily treatment we endure though. It’s also no surprise that the reoffending rates are as high as they are.

These are people who are able to ignore pleas from us: pleas for food, for basic medical care, for toilet paper! They’re trained to lock us in cages, to take food from the hungry who dared to save food to hold them over between the TWO meals a day (Maricopa County Jail. Look it up). They take "extra blankets" (i.e., any more than the one threadbare blanket issued) from people living in a cell whose toilet freezes over in the winter. Can you imagine this person, this guard? Imagine what they’re doing to people on a daily basis. Willingly. For MONEY. In your mind's eye, is this person wearing a red arm band? That’s not far off.

It’s important to remember that while some are trained to do this job, many more come by it organically. They were either drawn to the job, or came by it through necessity. In order to be successful in the job though, they need to become cold, heartless and unempathetic people. They become irreversibly changed. They don’t leave that at the gates when they leave either. Also, remember that the people running it, those who have been here, are training any of the good right out of the newbies. This is why the few good ones don’t last.

Forget that there are literally no skills necessary (or seemingly wanted). A warden doesn’t even need a college education (so I was told by a staff member) to have complete control over the lives of thousands. In order to get to that position, the warden will have worked their way up the ranks, being rewarded for the misery they have inflicted on so many. Think of the many horrendous behaviors that would have had to become embedded by this point. Can you imagine a worse type of person? They come to places every day on purpose whose several hundred residents had to be drug, against their will, in chains!

Now imagine a kid, looking straight into his mommy's eyes and telling her, "Mommy, I want to be a prison guard." Does that turn your stomach? If it doesn’t, it should!