Pubdate: Thu, 06 Sep 2001
Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
Section: To The Point
Copyright: 2001 St. Paul Pioneer Press
Contact:  http://www.pioneerplanet.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/379
Author:  Ron Ellis, Guest columnist

A VIEW OF PRISON SYSTEM AS SEEN BY BLACK OFFICER

As a black man and state correctional officer, I feel that the 
prison-industrial complex is akin to a "plantation." Anyone familiar with 
sharecropping and plantations would understand corrections today. It's long 
been perfectly clear to me that if America's crime begins to fall, as it 
has, and if we became 100 percent law abiding, that America's prison 
systems would look for ways to either import crime or import prisoners.

We have already done the importing of prisoners, and probably would opt to 
do the other if that opportunity ran out. It has always troubled me how so 
many minority men and white men on the bottom of the socio-economic scale 
always end up in prison for unfair drug-related charges.

You never see upscale white men in Minnesota prison systems. And that is 
confusing because drugs do not emanate from the minority communities. They 
merely end up there.

Most drugs first start in the upscale non-minority communities. So I agree 
with letter writer Paul M. Bischke (Aug. 30 letter) that poor American men 
- -- and especially black and Latino men -- are used more for fodder then for 
any supposed payback to society or any rehabilitation effort. As a 
correctional officer of 12 years, I can assure you this is the case. Also 
because I work on the inside and it is a closed world for political 
reasons, I can assure Bischke that we also carry a very "aristocratic" 
class of bureaucrats for leadership. They are numerous and they make sure 
that they compensate themselves expertly.

This causes much angst in the system because correctional officers deal 
directly with inmates and we do put a mandate on ourselves to do this hard 
job well and we look at our job as the "primary" job in corrections. After 
all, this system was not made for our very well-paid and numerous 
bureaucratic leaders; it was made for inmates.

If speaking candidly, most correctional officers that I work with would 
share with you that our leadership behaves in a fashion consistent with a 
belief that this department was first made for them. Just check out our 
Department of Corrections Web site ((http://www.corr.state.mn.us/) and see 
how Commissioner Sheryl Ramstad Hvass keeps herself very prominently 
displayed on it. You would think that we didn't have inmates and 
correctional officers in the system.

One might make the assertion that Commissioner Hvass feels her political 
portfolio is more important then her correctional job responsibilities. 
Minnesota correctional officers do an expert job in this system under very 
trying circumstances. Our governor is in great denial about us and other 
fine state workers.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D