Review by Ed Quillen
Prisons – October 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine
Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing
by Ted Conover
Published in 2000 by Random House
ISBN 0-375-50177-0
SING SING, the famous New York penitentiary, is a long way from Central Colorado. But prisons are a major employer hereabouts, and as more “correctional facilities” are built to accomodate the laws passed by tough-on-crime politicians, such employment will increase here as elsewhere.
Ted Conover, who grew up in Colorado and in 1992 wrote an entertaining and wickedly informative book about life in Aspen (Whiteout), wanted to find out how correctional officers are trained.
He asked the New York Department of Correctional Services if he could follow a successful applicant through training and then onto the job. He learned that the academy “was off-limits to journalists — no exceptions, end of conversation.
“Now, why should that be, I wondered. With prisons so much in the news, and confining such unprecedented numbers of people, it seemed to me that their operations should be completely transparent.”
So he filed a job application (using his real name and experience) and took the tests. So much time passed afterward that he nearly forgot about it, but one day he got a call — he had a spot in the next seven-week class at the academy for new correctional officers.
It greatly resembled basic training in the military: plenty of physical drill, but most of the conditioning was aimed at the trainee’s attitude. After that, Conover had the story he was after, but he also had a slot at Sing Sing.
He started there as a “newjack” — prison slang for a rookie guard — and he stayed for about a year.
The resulting account is not some scathing exposé of brutal guards, a callous bureaucracy, or convicts running rampant behind the walls, though there are occasions of each.
Instead, it’s a close examination of the guard’s job. At first, he often felt terror and confusion; the corridors were chaotic at certain times as convicts came and went, and many of them were, of course, violent felons.
But with experience, Conover’s confidence grew. He also realized that guards need respect to do their jobs, and that most prisoners will grant that respect if the guard is firm but willing to make an exception once in a while. Too many exceptions, though, and the respect vanishes as the cons start taking advantage.
Along the way, Conover covers the history of corrections in America (penitentiaries were a Quaker proposal, to give an isolated miscreant a place to become penitent), as well as the dilemmas he faced in his personal life — the job produces stresses that often lead to divorce.
This is just plain good writing, an engrossing book about a significant and interesting topic. Read it just for the pleasure of reading it, or if you need a more practical reason, then read it for the insights you’ll get about the lives of our many friends and neighbors who work in correctional facilities. I know I’ll never again think that they’ve got cushy civil-service sinecures.
— Ed Quillen
