Corrupt

by Russell Judd

After successfully moving the three somewhat normal prisoners from the van into their cells it’s time to get number four. I mean Harley into his cell. As I open the door to his compartment I’m instantly overwhelmed by the stench of his body odour. Fuck no wonder he doesn’t want to be in a cell with anyone else.

  The cells aren’t a very welcoming place. The walls are painted a horrible pink and the insides of the cells are a faded yellow. Each cell has been uniquely decorated with various statements, gang regalia, profanity and the stereotypical “enter ball bags name here…was here”, by the pieces of shit that occupy them. I would liken it very much to a zoo. As soon as you walk past little heads pop up all wide eyed and is usually followed by “hey boss, what’s the time?, or when’s lunch? And when am I going up?” If I can be bothered, the majority of the time these are all answered with “it’s only been five minutes since you last asked, at lunch time and I have no idea”.

  This is pretty much the only dialect for most of the prisoners. Some tend to be needier than others but occasionally you get the diamond in the rough who will just sit there and keep to themselves. I like these ones. The best way to manage the real ball bags is to put no more than three prisoners in a cell. Any more than this and you will start to see the savage, animalistic side of humans. They seem to feed off each other and one will always put on some alpha male bravado. It’s almost a defence mechanism to show the others that they are not to be messed with.

  The morning carries on as usual. The prisoners appearing today from Rimutaka are brought in to Court and placed in their cells. The Corrections staff that ‘babysit’ them seem to have a different relationship with the prisoners than we do. Because of this they don’t seem to be able to control their monkeys all too well.

  It’s almost as if they are trying to maintain some kind of friendship with them rather than being the authoritative figure they represent. I’ve seen on countless occasions corrections staff letting prisoners roam up and down the corridor while they are escorting them to a cell. The monkeys run between each cell window in an effort to see if they recognise any of their other caged associates. If they do recognise someone they then begin a kind of ceremonial dance. It’s almost as if they are celebrating the adversity they have triumphed over to get back in here. The routine continues and the usual sentences involve the words, chur, bro and pigs. This is all code for, got any smokes, lighters or here’s a note. The corrections officers then seem to laugh it off as if it’s nothing, and then wonder why they get no respect.

  Just the other week we had a corrections prisoner threaten another with a broken pair of scissors. It wasn’t until we made some enquiries with the prison that they said oh yea we had a pair of scissors go missing off our counter this morning. We thought it may have been him. That sent my blood boiling. If they knew they were missing a pair of scissors why didn’t they tell us. It’s this kind of fucken complacency that ends up getting some one seriously injured or even killed. We could have a lot of explaining to do as this particular prisoner was alone with a lawyer for a considerable amount of time. He even showed the lawyer the pair of scissors and told the lawyer that he intended to stab another prisoner after an altercation they just had.

  I walk past Harley as he hurls an incoherent sentence at the door. I stop and give him some human attention that he is obviously craving.

  “What’s up Harley?”

  “These fucken Jews are going to burn when Satan returns. Adolf fucken Hitler knew what to do and if these bitches come near me”, he rants, while pacing back and forth.

  “Whoa, Harley where’s this coming from?”

  He walks up to the door and quietly speaks through the window.

  “I have a mission for you” he exclaims.

  “You need to make sure all the sprinklers work in all the Police stations”.

  “And why is that Harley?” I ask even though I already know the answer.

  “When I get out of here I’m going to stab all these bitches on the street” he says with a deathly stare.

  Suddenly a figure wearing a dark suit erupts from an interview room. His sandy coloured hair is ruffled up and mustard coloured tie flung over his left shoulder. A look of pure shock encompasses his face, this is being followed by a tirade of expletives. It’s the duty solicitor Anthony, his eyes lock with mine. “Nate, that prisoner just attacked me!” By now Terry has emerged from our office while taking a sip from his Chinese tea and doesn’t seem to be bothered by all the commotion. The yelling becomes louder, “come on Terry” I say. We both run down past Anthony who is standing outside the interview room obviously bewildered at what had just happened. We find one of the Rimutaka prisoners sitting in a chair. He is visibly shaking with his fists clenched. I make a quick glance over this prisoner to assess the risk and make sure he doesn’t have any weapons, but I do notice a red mark and a bit of a lump to his forehead. This guy just looks plain crazy. He’s got intensely blue eyes, the left one is a little lazy and tends to drift off at random. His hands begin flailing around, ‘he fucken attacked me’ he screams. ‘Time for you to go back into your cell’ I instruct.

  “I’m not going anywhere” he yells accompanied with an unsettling head twitch. The anger in his voice is extreme. This isn’t going to end well.

  The male jumps to his feet, his fists clenched and standing right in my face and demands to see another lawyer. “You’re not seeing another lawyer until you’ve calmed down”, “I…I am calm” he stutters. “There is no way you’re going into the same room with a lawyer in the state you’re in at the moment. You’re going back into a cell and we will sort it out later”. He looks at me with a stern look of defiance then sits back down in an attempt to demonstrate his refusal.

  I give Terry a look that suggests that we are going to have to drag his sorry arse into a cell. Terry takes the lead and gets in his face. There’s a moment silence and just as the male is about to say something Terry opens his mouth and out comes a booming voice in broken English, “get out of the room, now!”

  The male stops and looks at him. Again Terry’s voice dominates the little room we are in and completely overpowers him. Reluctantly the male stands up and takes a step forward. “Keep moving” Terry yells. The male knows he has already lost, but again he attempts to put up some form of passive aggressive protest. Dominance is the only way to control this shit stain. Terry keeps up the verbal barrage. Anthony is standing in the corridor as the male is herded out of the room. When he sees Anthony he directs some abuse towards him, accusing Anthony of attacking him. Terry interjects with his commanding voice and silences his efforts. The male seems to finally give up and sheepishly retreats into his cell.

  I shut the door behind him and turn the key. I turn to Anthony “What the fuck did you say to him?”

  Anthony is still in a state of shock and confusion, his eyes remind me of an animal that’s just been caught in the headlights. “I don’t know” is all he can manage.

  That afternoon we sit down for an informal debrief about the morning’s incidents. Anthony sits in his usual chair by the phone and still has a look of shock on his face. His clothing is still somewhat dishevelled, his shirt half hanging out at the back and the once tidy Windsor knot is loosened and pulled to one side.

  “I still can’t believe he attacked me” exclaims Anthony.

  “I can believe it the guys a fucken nut” I reply somewhat sarcastically. “Well now we know he’s nuts and in future he shouldn’t be left alone with anyone”. I painstakingly point out the obvious.

  It seems that Anthony’s world has just imploded on him. You would think that a criminal lawyer of more than ten years’ experience would realise that his customers are actually capable of committing crimes.

  “I didn’t realise he was like that” Terry chimes in. “I would have at least stayed outside the room”.

  At this point Anthony begins to reveal a bit more of what happened in the room before he called out for our assistance.

&n
bsp; He hands me a piece of paper. “I’ve written down my account, I want this recorded” says Anthony.

  I begin to read through it and it seems straight forward enough.

  “After I sat down with Samson Jones, I began to explain to him that I am merely representing him today as a favour to a colleague of mine as she is unable to represent him in Court today. Because of this we are going to ask that this date be put off until next Tuesday, simply because I do not know anything about your charges so you’re going to have to spend the weekend in remand. Samson become enraged at this and began swearing and waving his arms around. I told him to calm down at which point he lunged towards me. I believed that he was going to punch me so I struck out and hit him in the head. I got up and he again came at me while I was trying to leave the room. I pushed him back into the wall and rushed out into the corridor and called out for assistance.”

  “Well if that’s what happened it’s quite obvious that you were merely defending yourself. I can’t see anything wrong with what you’ve done” I say trying to reassure Anthony.

  I look over the letter again. I drift off from the conversation the others are having visualising what has taken place in the letter.

  Chapter Fourteen