“You Did What?”: A Retired Prison Warden’s Recollections
He read the critical incident report again, not sure he understood it the first time.
Prison critical incident reports are used by shift commanders to inform wardens of important or unusual incident during their shift, incidents not so alarming they require emergency phone calls: minor fights, equipment breakdown, routine medical transports, those sorts of things.
The incident Warden Biggie Biggins reviewed happened during supper chow hall operations the night before. Unusual dining room developments are important because the chow hall is a place prisoners congregate. Crowd a lot of convicts in one location and anything can happen: old scores are settled, turf disputes erupt, race issues are inflamed, debts collected, or someone makes a snide comment to another prisoner and all hell breaks loose. Consequently, corrections officers are particularly alert to anything unusual jumping off in the chow hall.
Many prisoners work in prison kitchens preparing and serving food, cleaning, unloading and storing food items. The prisoners are supervised by a civilian food service director and civilian staff. Warden Biggins was careful to hire good food service staff because his mentor told him, “Biggie, never fuck with a prisoner’s food, visits, or weight pit if you can avoid it.”
The department tried privatizing its food service operations and learned the hard way that hiring a private food service operation may seem to save money but, in the end, will cost much more. The company served food so bad prisoners boycotted dining halls in multiple prisons. Privatized workers smuggled drugs, had sex with prisoners, and in one instance gave a contract to one convict to assault another. The DOC eventually dumped the private company and rehired its own workers.
Warden Biggins’ critical incident report said that in the evening in question operations were smooth. As usual, housing units broke for chow according to an established rotation to minimize dining room congestion. The housing units compete for the privilege of being first to break for meals: the unit judged the cleanest earns the privilege for a month after which another contest is held. This is desirable because prisoners get more yard time the earlier they go to chow. Once the contest was for the cleanest unit to get Big Mac’s for all its residents. When Warden Biggs inspected the unit, he remarked to a nearby officer, “Wow, I’ve never seen a unit so clean. Just think what they’d do for a piece of ass!”
Last night meal was fried chicken with cornbread, a food service specialty and prisoner favorite. Convicts know how to make great cornbread; soft, sweet, and dense, with a crispy crust. The food services director perfected a secret recipe for seasoning fried chicken that convicts dubbed “Jailbirds.”
Everything was relaxed and normal when a civilian female food service supervisor started chocking and got the attention of a nearby corrections officer. Acting according to his training, the officer hugged the supervisor below her ribcage and sharply pulled against her abdomen, causing the supervisor to eject the stuck food.
Later, the officer completed the incident report for his shift commander stating, “On seeing the supervisor choke, I quickly performed the hymen licker maneuver on her, after which she appeared relieved.”
After reading the report a second time, Warden Biggins said to himself, “Yeah, I’ll bet you got her attention.”
When Biggins called the shift commander to ask if he too noticed what the officer wrote, all he heard was laughter.
Warden Biggie Biggins forwarded the report to Central Office with no changes. “Let’s see,” he thought, “if they actually read these things.”
