Prison Riot: My Bleeding Heart was Effectively Stopped !

Let me tell you a story. When I first started in the corrections business I thought I could relate to the kids inside my prison, my prison has a dorm that is all juveniles convicted as adults. I thought, erroneously I soon found out, that I could talk to these kids. I have kids of my own and I have coached kids in football, T-ball, baseball, wrestling, soccer, and basketball. So, I thought I could relate to some of the kids we had incarcerated.

Boy was I wrong. The very first week I worked in the system I listened to the violent Rap lyrics these kids would come up with and I told one kid, "Why don't you rap about something positive, all I here coming out of your mouth is, kill the niggas, pop a cap in his ass, dope this-dope that, slap the bitches, pimp my ho's and crap like that. You should use your creativity for something positive." Well needless to say the kid looked at me like he wanted to kill me.This kid, I later found out, was never going to get out of prison. He was serving 198 years for kidnapping two young white kids, gang raping them both, sticking broom handles up their butts and then murdering them.

Later that week I was in their unit once again, and while I still had the illusion that I could talk to these kids, a riot broke out amongst the youth inmates. I ran to the first two I saw fighting and tackled them to the floor (they both were big kids, just as big as me or bigger).

Once I got them down I looked up and seen two more fighting in front of me. I grabbed the closest one to me and was holding him from behind. As I was holding him another inmate started hitting him in the head and kicking him in the side. Well, I couldn't let this inmate get beat up while I held him so I turned around let the inmate go and grabbed the one who was hitting the one I had.

We aren't allowed to carry batons, PR 24's, or chemical munitions. The only thing we have is our hands. A few minutes went by and in came reinforcements, with cuffs and chemical munitions. I had tunnel vision because of my adrenaline and didn't realize how bad it had gotten in the unit. There was fighting and blood everywhere. The OC spray had the inmates noses running long streams of snot out of them. I was even sprayed but didn't even realize it. There was inmate on inmate and inmate on staff, fighting going on all over the place, top range, bottom range, everywhere.

That was the point I lost all my illusions of trying to help these kids. They don't want help and it's sad to say, but they are a product of their environment and most will never change. My bleeding heart was effectively stopped that day.