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I Was a Corrections Officer. The Initiation Was Messed Up.
The author of ‘Barker House’ on his time working in a New Hampshire jail
We’re standing in the sally port, 11 cadets, and even though just four weeks ago we were strangers, we’ve bonded. Team-building exercises did it: assembling Legos together while blindfolded, sweaty PT drills, communal showers, Friday night dollar drafts at Murphy’s.
Our class is a mixed bag of excited newbies and recession driven start-overs. Mainly white men in their early twenties, like me. But there’s also Tammy, a former hairdresser. And Morales, a retired gang member who’s missing the better half of his middle and ring finger on his right hand. Frank, a former actor, has bragged about a stint on NYPD Blue. Michelle, who got a medical exemption from PT after the first week of prisoner squats and was allowed to sit in the bleachers while we did lunges across the echoey gym. Rhabdomyolysis. I googled it.
This is our last Friday in the Hillsborough County academy, and we’re dressed uniformly in navy blue BDU tactical pants, academy T-shirts that read, on the front, Almost A, and on the back, HCDOC Corrections Officer. We’re antsy at the day’s task, which we’ve all known was coming, because the schedule issued on day one was designed to lead the eye to it. Bold lettering, extra-large: April 13, 2007 — Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) Certification.
“What’s oleoresin capsicum?” asked Michelle.
“It’s military grade pepper spray,” the training director said. “The equivalent of rubbing ghost pepper in your eyes.”
“How do we get certified in that?”
“We spray a shitload of it on your face.”
We’re not talking. We’re looking from behind the glass onto the housing unit: an open dayroom with metal tables, two tiers of cells. It’s been emptied for our training, the inmates given a rare hour of full-court basketball in the gym. Field training officers (FTOs) with crew cuts and muscled arms in tight-fitting uniforms carry five-gallon orange buckets filled with water from the chemical closet to the recreation yard. I’m trying to slow my breathing, stay in control.
