Other People in the Federal Prison Camp

The other people I want to share with you are the ones in administration, correctional officer (guards), chaplains and the warden.

Let’s start with the warden. The federal prison camp which I was in also had a high security prison next door where the warden’s office was. He was in charge of the camp and prison.

During lunch time the warden would come once or twice a month to oversee the inmates eating and the camp administrator would accompany him. This was sort of a time where inmates could ask him simple questions and be comfortable asking because the warden is responsible for all activities under him.

The problem with this arrangement was that the camp administrator would deter inmates from bothering him because any valid complaint would reflect on him. With that said, how can a warden know how to improve the camp if inmates were not allowed to express there concerns. I’ll let you ponder on that one.

The camp administrator is like an associate warden and handles all the camp related issues but not all camps have a camp administrator. The thing about camp administrators is that you really do not want to be on their list of bad people because he is the one who approves all your requests.

The chaplains usually visited the camp at random plus Sundays. They catered to all the needs of an inmate’s faith what ever it was. That’s right all recognized faiths in these United States. I’ll touch on this more in a later posting.

Education was also assigned to a person to over see the teaching of GED to inmates with not high school diploma and provided extra curricular classes for those with educations.

As I mention in earlier posting there was also officers in charge of recreation. These officers encouraged inmates to stay fit and to have something to past time.

Medical staff was also a group of people that catered to the inmates twice a day as routine.

The correctional officers or guards are the ones who interact with the inmates the most. There is only one officer that was present at all time in the camp but others would stroll in at random times. Some officers would take time to talk with the inmates to gain their trust and respect which did make the camp run more smoothly. Others would just keep to themselves and not mingle with anyone.

Then there was a selected few officers that were just plain mean (bullies) because they knew and took advantage of the fact that inmates could not raise a hand or harsh words towards them because camp was a privilege. Violating that privilege would be grounds to put them behind bars and inmates were usually threatened with that very fact.

Work details were supervised by different officers but these officers were usually skilled in other professions and actually appreciated the assistance of inmates who wanted to help in similar professions. I respected these officers because even though they were still over us in authority, they treated us as coworkers.

Now there were some officers who treated the inmates as expendable personnel and they are quickly identified because they are the ones who have a big turn around in inmate personnel.

In conclusion, being in a camp is no different than working for a large company because the people’s attitudes are no different. In other words a federal prison camp is a business and the administration is the ones running the business.