The First Writings....

Saturday, January 22, 2011

   So today is officially the first day of my daily logs.  I will be trying to recap the last month while here at Dodge Correctional Institute (DCI.)  Sorry if at times I seem sort of vague while describing my daily routine as it is quite redundant.  Today was only slightly different.  I'll explain in a moment here.  It started off when I was awoke at 6 A.M. by a Correctional Officer (C.O.) yelling, "Seven! Standing count!"  We then have to get off our bunks and silently stand away from the door while the C.O. walks from cell to cell turning on our light to count every inmate in our unit.  I am in Unit 7 which only has 16 cells, 15 of which are two man cells and the last is a single cell for our unit "swamper" or inmate worker as they are more commonly called.  Next we all get ready for breakfast.  Pants on, shirt tucked in, shoes on our feet and I.D. badge hung around our neck.  Sometimes while we're doing this the C.O. walks the unit unlocking the cell doors.  Then we wait...

  After a short time a telephone will ring by the C.O.'s desk followed by him yelling once again.  This time it's "Seven! Chow!"  Then we all exit our cells, shut our doors and walk single file out of our unit, down the hall and down the stairs to the chow hall.  We get a napkin, a knife (plastic of course) and a spork just before getting our tray with our luxurious breakfast of a fruit cake, bran flakes, two pieces of toast, one serving of peanut butter, 6 oz of grape juice and Waupun Dairy whole milk in a 1/2 pint carton.  Now this is where the race begins.  You would think since the breakfast is so small we would have plenty of time to eat and still have time to spare, but no.  The C.O.'s conveniently time every meal so you have to nearly choke to finish the food on your tray before they yell at you saying, "Let's go fellas! We need this table!"  We usually finish our milk on the way to dumping out tray and walking out.

  As we exit the chow hall there is a C.O. who is waiting to pick out inmates and randomly pat them down for any contraband.  After another groping we walk up a flight of stairs and down a hall to our unit.  We enter our cells and close the doors behind us.  Typically a few people get yelled at during this for passing magazines, books or a canteen item we paid for ourselves.  This is where everything we've been taught since birth goes out the window.  People raise their children to share, then one day they land themselves in prison and get yelled at, wrote up and sometimes taken to Solitary Confinement (The Hole) for doing just that, sharing.

  After we are back in our cells the C.O. comes around locking us back in.  I kick off my shoes and lay back on my bunk, usually trying to go back to sleep.  Sometime in the next thirty minutes the swamper comes and opens the trap-door in our door and tells us if and where we have any appointments at any of the different areas of the prison (i.e. H.S.U. for any doctor appointments, dental, A&E/Psych, A&E/CIP Orientation, A&E for staffing, Library or Law Library, etc.)