Journalist Ted Conover in his correctional officer uniform at Sing Sing Prison, Ossining, NY. Photo by Jennifer Klein/TedConover.com
I have probably seen The Shawshank Redemption (1994) too many times. I’m not sure which viewing set my mind on the topic of prison guards — probably the first one — but I’ve come to expect all of them to be a little dumb and very abusive. The inmates? Largely victimized. The warden? The devil personified. Prisons are such mysteries, and The Shawshank Redemption confirmed my preconceived notions about what’s behind the ominous walls. (I suspect perhaps that’s also what listening to a Morgan Freeman narration for hours can do to a person. His voice just becomes the truth.)
Ted Conover, a veteran journalist much more curious and much less impressionable than yours truly, has always been fascinated with prisons. Taxpayers pour so much money to the Department of Correctional Services, Conover thinks, but they never really get to see the inner workings of its prisons. He also saw a gap in the media coverage: the inmates are covered, but what about the correctional officers? He set out to interview the department’s workers. He scheduled visits to prisons around New York state. But officers mysteriously canceled interviews. On a prison tour, he noticed guards would stop talking when he entered the room. When he asked officers questions, they would trade glances with their supervisors before answering. Conover knew he was never going to get the real truth the conventional way.
Conover's graduating class at the Albany Training Academy. Photo courtesy of TedConover.com
He applied to be a correctional officer recruit. What kind of schooling do officers get? What kind of training qualifies civilians to become jailers? Conover set out to find the answers. After a two-year wait, he received an appointment letter and reported to the Albany Training Academy shortly thereafter. Seven weeks of intensive courses and hazing rituals later, Conover began his on-the-job training at New York’s storied max security prison, Sing Sing. It’s often considered the most troubled of all the state’s maximum-security prisons.
He ended up working as a correctional officer at Sing Sing for close to a year.
Photo courtesy of TedConover.com
Here’s an excerpt from what became of Conover’s experience:
[Arno] had been working the first floor of the Hospital Bilding when an officer in B-block was struck on the head with a broom handle by an inmate. Officers had brought the prisoner down to the Hospital Building, which also housed the disciplinary offices and the watch commander’s office, where most of the white-shirts hung out. There, from a room near the ER, Arno said, he and many others, including inmate porters, had heard a white-shirt shout, “You think it’s funny to hurt an officer?” and the guy responded with prolonged cries of pain. Arno said this went on for about twenty minutes. A month earlier, I would have reacted negatively to a story like that. But now, seeing how outnumbered officers were and feeling more like prey than predator, I found in the tale a grain of comfort.
— From Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing (2000), p. 93.
It’s an impressive work of journalism — probably near perfect, thanks to its acknowledgments of its own flaws. Journalist-Conover freely admitted that Correctional Officer-Conover can’t help but feel a little comfort when a misbehaving inmate was illegally tortured. Nothing quite like admitting your shortcomings to heighten your credibility, am I right?
Still reading this. To come: Things I learned from Newjack.
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