Teaching In Da Joint

It's 0730, the inmates are at first meal (breakfast). My day started much earlier and, thanks to mud season, now features a half mile trek to the car. The drive to Ray Brook Federal Correctional Institute takes another hour. It's a breathtakingly scenic drive, more enjoyable when the mountain passes aren't icy. 

Prisons are traditionally repurposed buildings around here. The former Olympic athlete dorm is now a federal prison, across from the state joint that used to be a tuberculosis hospital. Many years ago, Adirondack mountain air was considered therapeutic by health pioneers such as Dr. Edward Trudeau (the cartoonist's great-grandfather), who established the first TB sanatorium in Saranac Lake. 

Aerial View of RB FCI

I've taught here for several months but it's still hard to go inside. I triple-check my pockets as much to delay getting out of the car as to ensure they are empty. Then I leave the cell phone in the car, take a final deep breath of freedom and head in. The guard retrieves my ID badge from a locked cabinet (every door here has a lock) and I offer both hands, only one will receive a UV-readable stamp. I sign in, surrender my car keys, go through the metal detector and proceed through remotely controlled steel doors into the outer perimeter. Another two such doors, another security check, then my chit goes on the board (for personnel accountability in case of an 'adverse event') and radio issue, then I emerge into the inner yard. Overhead it's the same sky, dark and cold in the winter, brilliant blue most other times, mountains towering all around, but this air certainly doesn't feel therapeutic. I'm in. 

Growth in the Prison-Industrial Complex

Ray Brook is a medium security prison. These inmates may have started out in a maximum or even a super-max but they've sufficiently demonstrated good behavior to be trusted at a 'medium'. With about a thousand confined men, there will always be some violence, but it's usually inmate-on-inmate attacks, occasionally using shanks. Even though I'm alone in a room full of former bank robbers, murderers, drug dealers, sex offenders, gang members and terrorists, I feel safe. The red panic button on my radio is false security. I just trust in The Universe. Letting go of any pretense of control is oddly peaceful.

No Croissants Here

The Education building is across the Commissary and next to the Chow Hall. The breakfast menu changes but, no matter what's served, it always smells like pancakes. First movement is underway. Inmates look away unless they trust you, and then it's disrespectful to pass by without at least eye contact. Some nod or even say hello (often, 'hola') and some will approach to (conventionally) shake hands. 

The Resistor

My first class is Electronics. The inmates are seated in the windowless classroom and waiting patiently. Patience is an essential life skill here. I usually storm through the door; the energy gets their attention and some laughs. If I can make someone laugh here then the drive was worth it. I have total academic freedom, today I decided to focus on discrete solid state devices - diodes and transistors. 

But first we discuss CPR, and since this is electronics, the cardiac conduction system. Many have never heard of CPR beyond the insipid depictions on TV. I found a good video on YouTube ('good' meaning it had a female instructor) and we discussed the main points afterwards. The class watched intently and many asked to get officially CPR certified so they could help save a life someday. 

Now, it may seem absurd that someone who took a life now wants to save one. Such is the paradox of the convicted murderer. Unless they are clinically insane - an infinitesimal number of inmates at a medium - the average murderer serving life without parole (LWOP) is probably the lowest risk inmate, far more inclined to atonement and reflection than violence. One of my best teaching assistants was sentenced to LWOP for a double murder - as a juvenile. 

Each class nominally runs an hour and a half, often I hang around after class to chat until the room gets a security sweep. During class I often show YouTube videos. Most of them are in response to requests involving hard-core physics, such as how absolute zero was calculated. 

But we also discuss practical skills, for example how to wire a household circuit. We've even studied two- and three-phase residential wiring. My classes are hands-on so electronics is in an electrical shop and math is in a computer lab. We'll discuss any topic of interest. Although I've had to explain to a student how to use a 'shift' key, most of these guys are quite skilled and highly literate - Scientific American and the Wall St Journal are ubiquitous. I've borrowed the NY Times Book Review section that is usually floating about - but only after promising to return it. The range and depth of subjects are phenomenal, this is the most learning-starved environment I've ever seen. With no Internet, it's also a haven of old-school literacy, many inmates carry books with them constantly and they love to talk about what they are reading. 

A Typical Class - Inmates Learn Programming at San Quentin

Math class has morphed into a programming class...without any hardware resources to code! One learns to improvise in prison. Eventually the BoP will ease the rules on inmate access to programming resources, following the example of San Quentin, where inmates write code for Silicon Valley companies. Until then, I may be the only person trying to teach Scratch and Python using a blackboard and chalk. I'll show a video of a programming sequence, then review it, step by step, on the blackboard. It's exhausting and tedious for everyone. But it's also amazing to see students begin to grasp the concepts, especially the ones with zero programming experience. A former software engineer (serving 25-to-life for terrorism) usually stops by, always willing to assist when I need a bit of technical help. 

A Few Lines of Python Code

And so it goes, every week we do another four hour stretch in da joint together and everyone learns something. Unless we're in lockdown, they depart to midday meal while I'm escorted outside to breathe the air of freedom again. If there's a lockdown, well, we all just wait it out. It can be frustrating and hopelessly difficult work but I've never felt more appreciated. Come to think of it, I've yet to spend a bad day in prison.