Getting Noticed

We all want to be noticed. We need other people to see us and acknowledge, if not our uniqueness, at least our existence. My stories and blog posts are an example of this. I need my existence to be validated by others. This is, perhaps, one of our basic human traits. But, sometimes it all goes so very wrong.

Within the prison walls where I work there are a couple of thousand guys who wish they had not been noticed. Getting noticed got them caught, convicted and incarcerated. Some of them will modify their behavior and, when they get out live out their lives quietly, being noticed only by their families and friends. Some will never learn.

Some of these poor bastards are so starved for attention or recognition that they will do or say anything to anyone. In prison, if you attract the attention of the guards it is usually negative attention. Running “cadillacs” across the wing gets the attention of our control officer.

A cadillac is anything small, usually a piece of soap wrapped in plastic, tied to a string and tossed under the door. If two offenders want to pass something, both will toss a cadillac into the wing so that they cross and then one will retrieve both, thereby establishing a link between cells. Cadillacs are used to pass notes, known as kites, postage stamps which is are used for prison currency, and contraband. The most common form of contraband in Adseg is tobacco and lighters. Smoking is not allowed in Adseg.

We have general population inmates that come into the unit as workers. Some are there to serve the meals and some perform janitorial work. Some of them are mules carrying contraband into the unit. They will compress tobacco into the finger torn from a plastic glove and then “keister”, insert into their rectum, the “bullet” and bring it into the unit. Once inside the unit, after their strip-out, they will remove the bullet and drop it and kick it beneath a cell door.

That cell has now become a store. The control officer will see a flurry of cadillac activity centered on a cell and we know we have a store in operation. Cadillacs going in contain stamps or IOU’s and cadillacs coming out have tobacco and rolling papers. The store keepers have our attention.

As soon as we know a store is in operation we go in and search it. Both occupants are stripped out before we bring them out of the cell. Most of the time one or both will have the tobacco concealed in their clothing, beneath their scrotum or between the cheeks of their butts. Sometimes they don’t both hiding it, as they know when we enter the wing that we are coming to their cell and we will find the stuff.

My wingman and I are very good at what we do. Our control officer pays attention. This past week we collected 7 disposable lighters and several pounds of tobacco. They hate us. We cost them a lot of money. The newbies coming in are being told by our long term residents that cadillacing on our shift is a good way to get bad attention.