[ articles i've written ] BEHIND BARS WITH 1,000 MALE CONVICTS
From New York Times Magazine, September 9, 2001
IN MAY, Sgt. Sarah Lehane was overseeing evening
chow in the mess hall at Souza-Baranowski, a large Massachusetts
maximum-security prison for men, when an inmate hit another officer
in the face with a tray. Fights in a prison mess hall are like sparks
in a powder keg: officers know they can lead to full-scale riots
unless they are quickly contained. As officers (there were 10 in
the room and a few more just outside) rushed to subdue the inmate
and inmates (there were more than 200 in the mess hall) rushed to
his defense, Lehane, standing across from the gates that computers
had begun to close automatically, chose not freedom but the fight
-- she ran to the defense of a young officer who was down and getting
kicked. After three minutes, the melee was over, and Lehane extricated
herself from what she describes as "a pig pile." Nine officers had
been injured, including her (a twisted knee and a banged-up shoulder);
the one most badly hurt is still out with a fractured skull and
swelling of the brain. Though the knee quickly healed, Lehane now
admits that the incident rattled her. As it did her husband, Capt.
Tom Lehane, who happened to be watching the mess hall on a video
monitor as the incident took place. "That was about as ugly a jump-off
as I've ever seen," he says. And while at the time he extolled her
bravery to friends, privately he felt she should quit. "The incident
really put a strain on our marriage," Sarah Lehane says.
Souza-Baranowski, located in Shirley, was named
to memorialize a corrections officer and an industrial-arts instructor
who were killed by an inmate at Norfolk state prison in 1972. Bitterness
at the new prison, which has the bland, linoleum-and-fluorescent
aesthetics of a hospital or high school, clearly runs both ways.
"It's been open three years, and this is like the third incident,"
Sarah Lehane says. "They're just testing us. One of them even stabbed
our superintendent. Inmates want to do things their way, especially
since the place is new. It's a thing of who's got the power to do
what."
Exactly how much power does a 42-year-old female
officer wield at a max for men? In certain ways, a lot. ''Seniority
is everything, and inmates respect officers who've put in time --
they'll pull stuff on a rookie they wouldn't with me,'' Lehane says.
Inmates also respect consistency and the balance between harshness
and sympathy that most officers develop over the years. And when
push comes to shove, as it did in May, physical strength isn't everything.
Even if she had been male, 23 years old and weighed 300 pounds,
Lehane says, it wouldn't have helped her in the mini-riot: ''When
there's 12 inmates on you, it's not a strength issue. You just lose
because of the numbers.''
A typical workday for Lehane begins at 3 p.m. She
supervises the work of line officers (she was one at the beginning
of her career), but the job involves a lot of contact with prisoners
too. She oversees ''inmate movements'' from one part of the prison
to another, directs searches for contraband, assists in applying
and removing restraints and, in the inmates' ''pods'' (their living
quarters), helps to enforce the rules regarding cell cleanliness.
''I'm a clean nut; I drive people crazy. I said to him, 'You can't
have it like this: no dirty dishes; put the food away; you're gonna
get bugs.' They come from prisons that are roach city. He said:
'The cell's clean! It's just my lunch stuff.' I'm like, I don't
care. Every excuse in the book.'' Once in a great while, she says,
an angry inmate will toss an epithet her way, but most are respectful.
Still, it is the contact with inmates that makes the job wearing.
''It's constant communication all day long, to the point where sometimes
you don't want to answer.'' Her shift usually ends at 11 p.m., and
she is home asleep by 1 a.m.
Divorced from her first husband when her children
were teenagers, Lehane went on to raise two sons, now 21 and 23,
and a daughter, 25, mainly by herself. Only last year did she marry
Tom, who is two years her senior. (The tattoo on her right shoulder,
which she gave herself as a 40th-birthday present, is a rose with
the name Sarah inscribed below on a banner.) She bought the bathrobe
with the ''Princess'' applique because that is Tom's nickname for
her around the house.
Despite her husband's wish, Sarah wasn't ready to
quit. But she understood Tom's fear, admitted her own and in July
transferred back to Framingham, the state prison for women, where
she had spent most of her career. Fear is something that corrections
officers are practiced in denying, but the melee forced Sarah to
confront it. ''You tell yourself you're safe, and you wouldn't walk
in the door if you didn't think so, but deep down -- logically --
you know it's not true, that if you've got guys doing triple life,
nobody's safe in there.''
It is better at Framingham -- I've never seen a
shank'' there, she says, whereas at Souza she found them constantly
-- but this facility presents a different kind of challenge. ''The
thing with females is they're more emotional. You actually have
to be even more people-oriented. They question everything. They
cry and -- omigod, not more crying! You think of their crimes, and
then you think, Now she's crying because I told her to clean her
room? If a man hasn't seen his son, they keep it inside, but then
get in a fistfight every couple months. Whereas the female will
cry for 20 years.''
She and Tom both plan on retiring next year: she
after 20 years of state service; he after 25. They are not sure
what they will do next. Sarah notes ruefully that corrections doesn't
really leave you qualified to do much of anything besides security,
and you sense a hint of nostalgia for the factory job that preceded
her state time. ''It's hard working with people,'' she has concluded.
''My next job will be machinery, something that doesn't talk back.''
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