Somewhere along the way, I stopped counting the years. It is easier that way. If you start measuring time in too much detail, you start thinking about how much of your life has been spent behind these walls. Just like them. The difference is, I get to go home at the end of my shift. At least, that is what I tell myself.
But some faces stay with you. No matter how many times you swipe out, no matter how much you tell yourself it is just a job, there are some things you cannot leave behind.
I remember the first one. A kid, because that is what he was, no matter what the court called him. He could not have been more than eighteen, barely old enough to vote, already old enough to have thrown his whole life away. He had that look in his eyes, the one that said he was scared but trying hard not to show it. You learn to recognize that look fast. It is a mix of fear and pride, of not wanting anyone to see how terrified you really are. He kept his head down, did what he was told, did not give anyone trouble. That should have helped him. It did not. The quiet ones are easy targets. One night, they found him in his cell, sheets wrapped around his neck, body limp against the bars. The next day, another kid took his place in that same cell. Just another face, another name, another number.
Then there was the old man. He had been inside longer than I had been alive. They called him Lifer, like his real name did not matter anymore. Maybe it did not. I saw his file once. He had been locked up before the internet existed, before cell phones, before half the people working here were even born. He did not talk much. Just shuffled through the halls, shoulders hunched, head down, going through the motions of a life that was not really a life. When they finally gave him parole, I thought I should have felt good about it. But I didn’t. I knew he would not last out there. Sure enough, within a year, he was back. Caught stealing from a grocery store. I asked him why he did it. He just shrugged. Said he did not know how to be out there anymore. He had spent so long being told what to do and where to go that the idea of freedom felt like a burden instead of a gift.
I have seen men walk through those gates with their heads high, swearing they will never come back. Some of them don’t. But a lot do. I remember one in particular. He had a wife and a little boy waiting for him. He cried when he got out, big sobs shaking his whole body as he held his kid. Said he was never going to put them through this again. Eighteen months later, I was doing roll call, and there he was. Same jumpsuit, same number, same tired eyes. He would not meet my gaze.
I try not to think too much about the worst ones. The ones who came in already broken, the ones who were never meant to leave. The ones we found in the morning, cold and stiff, their demons finally winning. The ones whose families stopped calling, whose mail stopped coming, who became ghosts long before they ever died.
People like to think prison is about justice. Maybe for some, it is. But for most, it is just a place where time slows down and people fade away.
And some of us have to watch it happen.
– Anonymous, Guard at a facility
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