Stories From a Former Correctional Officer

Due to legal reasons, I will not be naming the prison that I worked in, nor the agency that I was employed with for confidentiality reasons.

Christmas will always hold a very special place in my heart. My reasoning for this however, is much more different than the typical person. Most people tend to embrace the joyful spirits of the holidays and look forward to spending time with their family. For me however, my reasoning is because of one of the funniest and yet equally disturbing situations I saw as a Correctional Officer.

Christmas night, 2020, will forever be the only thought that I have during the holiday season and for one reason in particular. At the prison that I used to work for, we had a drug, alcohol, and sex offender rehab unit(s). These units were split into an upstairs and a downstairs. Upstairs were the sex offenders, another story for another time. Downstairs, had the drug and alcohol rehab offenders. The goal of the rehab system was simple: once an offender was accepted into the unit, they began "therapy" for their disease and upon competition of the therapy program, offenders would be given a parole board and a chance to get their freedom back. Some offenders took the program seriously as their incarcerating crime(s) came with life sentences. Other offenders enjoyed the unit because they had communal bathrooms. For those who have not worked in a prison, communal bathrooms means that offenders are only POD restricted, not cell restricted. This lead to us Officers on night shift dealing with offenders refusing to lock down, drink alcohol, and use drugs (shocking I know). This wouldn't have been too hard to stop except for the fact that offenders knew when we conducted our rounds and would even listen for our keys that always bounced off of our legs, in the most annoying fashion possible. Secrecy was earned, never given.

All those precursors set aside, I was in the drug and alcohol unit on Christmas night. I was in the office putting my gloves on and making sure that my taser was fully operational, also another story for another time, and I grabbed the shakedown mirror to conduct my nightly shakedown of the common area in F-pod. I walked out of the office and conducted my round backwards, meaning I started H-pod and would end in E-Pod. After clearing H-pod and G-pod, I reached the center of all chaos: F-pod. The most combative offenders who liked to create a problem on graveyard shift because it was the training shift. At this point in my career, I had become an FTO, a Sergeant, and a pretty damn good drug recognition expert.

As I slowly inserted my key into the pod door, cautiously pulling the door open, hoping to avoid the inevitable creek, a smell hit me. A very particular smell. The smell of spice. A common drug found in most prisons/detention centers. Immediately, I tucked the shakedown mirror into my cargo pocket on my pants. My plan was to play dumb. Naïve to the smell, in a what would be failed attempt at hoping to catch the individual in the act.

After tucking the mirror in my pocket, I pulled my flashlight off my duty belt and began my round. Appearing to mindlessly wander through the pod looking into the cells. The plan was going accordingly as I had already spotted the offender looking out his cell door at me, but his cell would be one of the last cells that I would walk by. Sticking to the plan, I continued my round, only to find what I never thought I would have to find. A summer sausage. This sausage was different from the rest of the sausages ordered through canteen. This particular sausage was being used by an offender to pleasure himself.

At first glance, I couldn't believe my eyes. I took my thumb off the button on the butt of my flashlight and stood there for a brief moment in complete and utter shock. My shock was broken by the sound of this offender moaning. In a brief hope that I was just imaging what I saw, I raised my flashlight back up to the window on the cell door and to my disappointment I was correct. I was now looking at a grown man pleasure himself with a canteen summer sausage. And the cherry on top of the confused pie was the sentence moaned out to me, "If you're gonna watch, you might as well join." The statement sent shivers down my spine and ruined my drug hunt. I finished my round and went back into the office where I sat for fifty nine minutes until my next round, trying to process what I had just seen and what I had heard.

Now, when the holiday season approaches, all I can think about is the time that I was looking for drugs, and instead was gifted with the sight of a grown man sexually pleasuring himself with a sausage.