Behind the Walls: Fifty Two Weeks and Counting

By Ella Henderson

Behind the Walls: Fifty-Two Weeks and Counting was written to give the reader an inside look at a social economic depravity system existing within the United States, a place where individuals migrate to achieve the American dream. Here in the United States, a country that has the largest prison population in the world, reported as of April 6, 2020, for every 100,000 in population, there are currently 737 inmates locked up (worldpopulationreview.com). If you think that's bad, look at the state of Texas. According to Prison Policy Initiative, for every 100,000 in population, 891 individuals are incarcerated, and this does not include federal prison inmates. And of course, it's no secret that most of the incarcerated population are people of color.

The Texas prison system is none other than a business, and though Behind the Walls: Fifty-Two Weeks and Counting does not reflect on the business side of it, it does give the reader an inside look at the community, a community where a different type of social conflict exists. It's a conflict which produces a struggle for power and respect. This conflict not only affects the incarcerated inmate but the correctional officers as well, whose number one goal is to make sure he or she leaves the same way they walked in. Behind the Walls paints a picture of the daily life and struggles from an officer's perspective and will have you asking yourself, "If I was convicted, whether wrongfully or not, could I make it behind the walls?"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662414275

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Behind the Walls

Fifty Two Weeks and Counting

Ella Henderson

Copyright © 2021 Ella Henderson

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-6624-1426-8 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-1427-5 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Being a Correctional Officer

On-the-Job Training

Flying Solo

A Dysfunctional Unit

Sleeping on the Job

Working Like a Hebrew Slave

Death of an Inmate

Sick Inmate, Bad Decision

The Forbidden Act—an Officer and an Inmate

Death, Stroke, Diabetes, What’s Next?

It’s Hot as Hell

Shackled After Death

I’m Going to Hurt You

Go Before We Get in Trouble

Working with a Pierced Heart

Boy Crying Wolf Syndrome

Shit on the Wall

Feast for the Inmates

Another Suicide

Be Careful and Stay Safe So You Can Return Home Safe

Acknowledgments

The writing of this book is a product of three individuals who believed in me and had no doubt that I would succeed. Dr. Everette Penn, Professor of Criminology, College of Human Sciences and Humanities at University of Houston Clear Lake; Dr. I.D. Onwudiwe, who served as a Chairperson and Professor of Administration of Justice at Texas Southern University; and the late Dr. Llewellyn Alexander Swan who served as Chairperson of the Department of Sociology, Economics, and Social Work also at Texas Southern University. All three professors had high expectations for their students and were always there for them. Working on my master’s in criminology, Dr. Penn believed I was up to the challenge of summiting articles in an upcoming Encyclopedia which turned out to be extremely rewarding. Dr. Onwudiwe, the best jewel an academic student could ever have, would say write the book Ella, write the book, and that phrase stayed in my mind. Dr. Swan, one of the most positive thinking individuals I have ever met, would say when you’re in the grocery store standing in line, pick up a magazine and read it, you can write that. Just write and submit, do not worry about anything else, just write and submit., you can do it. Behind the Walls: Fifty-Two Weeks and Counting is a result of positive encouragement received from setting under three of the most influential professors God has allowed me the pleasure of meeting. To God be the glory!

About the Author: Why Prison?

Why Prison?

This book is about my experiences as a correctional officer for the State of Texas. But before I tell you what’s going on behind the walls that very few people are aware of, I would like to tell you a little bit about the road which led me to this place. My life has not been easy. In fact, I look back in the past and wonder how I made it this far. I really don’t have to wonder. It was nothing but the Lord and, of course, my grandmother. Without the love and care of my grandmother, I probably would have ended up in a nuthouse or six feet under. She was my earthly savior. She was there for me when I almost lost my right eye from a car accident as a young girl. She was there and saved me from losing my left leg from a hole that was eating away due to a beating my mother gave me using an extension card. She was there after I had my first child at the age of sixteen, and she even raised my son for me the first two years of his life. My grandmother was there when my first husband died from a gunshot wound, and I just knew I was going to lose my mine. Oh, what a lady she was! She was my everything. I can’t even recall her ever telling me I told you so. She was an instrument God used to make sure I was around to do His work.

As years passed and I had three more boys, I went through a bad divorce, which left me penniless, jobless, and with a house that was going into foreclosure. It was bad enough that my family was homeless months before we got this last house, but now a divorce and no job. I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do. I can remember one of my best friends and I were sitting in the living room, and I said to her, I think I’m going to have to sell my body to feed my children.

She looked me straight in my eyes and said, You must have lost your f——ing mind. Right then, we both laughed our heads off. It was funny, but I was serious.

After getting my resumé together, I landed a job at a grocery store. I have been there for a total of twenty-three years. Nineteen of those years were on a full-time basis, and the rest was part-time once I accepted my position with the state. I wanted to move up the ladder with the grocery chain and went as far as department head. Every time I tried to climb, I was always told the position called for someone with a degree. That’s it. A degree it is. At the age of forty-six, I enrolled in an institute for higher learning. I went ten years straight without a break—spring, summer, and fall. I took as many credits as I could handle. I was working full-time, raising kids, and going to school full-time. I earned a bachelor in sociology and my first master’s in criminology. My grade point average (GPA) remained the entire ten years at a 3.5 or higher. For me, that said a lot. I was very proud of myself. As I was working on my PhD in administration of justice at a historical black college and university (HBCU), I managed to earn my second master’s in sociology. Again, I was working on both my master’s and my PhD at the same time, and my GPA never fell below 3.5. I finished all my core work for my PhD ending with a 3.6 GPA; however, I never wrote the dissertation. I was blackballed! I should have listened to my adviser, who told me she could get me a scholarship at the top university in Houston. But I wanted to have at least one of my degrees from a HBCU. Well, I’m going to leave that along because that is a book all by itself.

I substituted within a couple of school districts for many years and was even an adjunct professor at both the schools I attended. I love teaching! I tell everyone that when I’m in a classroom. I feel like a kid in a candy store. It’s crazy, I know, but it brings me great joy. I have been trying to get at the local community college for almost a year. We have here in Houston one of the largest community colleges, and most teachers there, in my opinion, either die or retire. They just don’t leave. The community college paid for my background check, fingerprint, and completed the necessary paperwork and told me I was ready to go. The problem was that there was never a position available for me to teach since classes went to full-time staff first. One day, there was a job fair, and for some reason, my mind was focused on the school hiring for teachers. Wow! When I entered the parking lot, it came to me: Job fair, Ella. Job fair. Well, I was there. I might as well check it out. After I listened to this guy talk about the state and how they could benefit with me as a correctional officer (CO), I just took the information home and placed it on a shelf.

A couple of months passed, and I realized I needed a better job than the one I had, because to be truthfully honest, I have been living off school loans for several years, and it was coming to an end. My school loans are a little over $200,000, and I wouldn’t change a thing (at least I don’t think so), because that is the best investment I could have made for myself. No one can take that away from me. I mean no one. I applied for the position as a CO. I passed their written test the first time, their agility test, and the weapons test. I knew nothing about guns, but I can remember shooting that .357 Smith & Wesson. It was the bomb, and the AR-15 wasn’t bad either. I took the position starting as a CO III, and now here is a snapshot of my experiences behind prison walls. At the time of this writing, I have roughly six years from retirement with the state. I can tell you now, it ain’t going to happen. I can’t wait to get from behind these walls. Keep reading and you will see

why.

Introduction

Keeping It Real—Straight Talk

Real-Life Situations in Its Raw Form

Those of us who have never lived behind prison walls can only imagine what it would be like to live in such coldhearted conditions, where your autonomy is taken completely away from you and you’re looked at and treated as animals. Yes, we have read various textbooks, we have listened to individuals who think they know what it’s like without really being incarcerated, and occasionally, we might run across someone who has been imprisoned and is willing to share his or her experience with us. Although there is a lot of speculation on what it’s like, I can say that the series Lockup does an excellent job in informing the public and making them aware of the hostile treatment a correctional officer goes through daily involving incarcerated individuals of serious and sometime deadly crimes.

This section on Keeping It Real—Straight Talk is a glimpse of my personal experience behind the walls of one of Texas’s correctional facilities housing inmates serving six months to life sentences, with three-fourths of the facility consisting of inmates serving real prison time. No! I have not been incarcerated; however, the prison was my home away from home as I performed the duties of a correctional officer in the State of Texas. It is my intention to keep this section just as real as I possibly can. The language will not be polished in order to give you, the reader, a real look and somewhat of a feel of what it’s like to be behind prison walls. I will do my utmost to present each situation exactly the way it happened. The information I am about to reveal will be based on information obtained from three different versions: (1) what I witnessed, (2) what was said in turnout, and (3) what my coworkers shared with me.

I can say this: no matter how often I prayed to God to not let this job change me, a change did occur. For me, the change came in the form of profanity and presenting myself at times as the underground bitch. Yes, you heard me. I used words I buried long ago, but somehow at various times they tend to surface, and I carried myself when my buttons were pushed to the limit as the bitch of the day. Although the tongue of destruction occurred from time to time and the body moved as if I was the ghetto queen, I never lost focus on the fact that the individuals I was paid to oversee were human beings just like me and yearned for nothing but respect. And believe it or not, in the beginning, each day I reported to work, I looked forward to being with the inmates more than my fellow coworkers because at least they wouldn’t try to stab me in the back. The inmates were real all the time, even with the games they tried to play. Yet they stuck together like glue. Most of the correctional officers had their heads stuck up their asses, acting like they were the boss of bosses while tearing down their fellow coworkers at the same time. It is my desire to give you, the reader, a glimpse of Behind the Walls: Fifty-Two Weeks and Counting, into a world that most of us never think about or have no idea of the things which take place behind those walls. So hold on to your seat belt as we enter a place you hope will never become your home. And by the way, the names have been changed to protect the officers.

Part I

Chapter 1

Being a Correctional Officer

Week 1

June 1, 2015

It’s going to be a good day. It’s going to be a good day. That was part of the lyrics to a song I was listening to on my way to work that Friday. It was the end of my first full week in training as a correctional officer, and I was determined that it was going to be a good day, not that the others were bad. I was filled with the Holy Spirit and was on top of a cloud until I pulled into the parking lot at six thirty that morning. What the hell, everyone was in workout clothes, and I was in full uniform. Oh no! I was in trouble. How was it that I was not aware? I rolled my window down and started frantically saying, What am I going to do? Cadet Sanderson, our class leader, heard and jumped right into action. I asked if anyone had any pants, and one of the cadets told me she had an extra pair. Okay, what about a shirt? It couldn’t be white, and it couldn’t be red. You see, white was the color of the inmates’ attire while the sergeants wore red. Someone found me a black shirt, and as I held the pants up, I could clearly see that they would not fit. I needed a large and not a small size. I was mentally spaced out and didn’t know what to do. Cadet Sanderson’s pants were a little baggier on her, and she quickly gave me an order to switch with her. We ran to the restroom to change, and believe it or not, we were at the flagpole in an at ease position at 6:45 a.m. Although a little tight at the legs and buttocks, the pants worked. I was glad my sergeant was not there and had another sergeant to fill in for her. She had told us that our pants couldn’t be tight because she didn’t want to see our panty line and had just intimidated a cadet the day before as an example to let us know that she meant business. God was watching out for me because not only were they tight, you could see the panty line, and the panty just kept crawling. I knew I should have changed before I left home, but I had finished dressing, and the uniform pants were loose enough to wear. No panty line would show.

Week 2

June 8, 2015

Wow! Thursday. I could not wait until it was over. You see, today was the day my cadet class was going to experience being gassed with a chemical agent. I’m not going to lie, I was scared. Every sergeant that taught the class told us something different about being gassed. Our eyes were going to burn, our noses would be running, and snot would be going everywhere. We would be gasping for breath because we would not be able to breath. Our eyes would shut down, and we would have to use our fingers to pry them open. You would be fine, they said, yet scaring the hell out of us at the same time. I was in squad one, so guess who went first. There were nine people in my squad. We were lined up in three rows of three. We were instructed to lock arms at the elbow, and cadets in row two and three were to catch hold of the belt loop of the person in front. Once the gas was released, we were instructed to remain still, not to fall to the ground or run. If we fell or ran, they would catch us and put us back in place if they could, or we would have to start the entire process over from the beginning. No way was I going to start this inhuman experience all over again. We were told that the gas would come in front of us and again at the back. The wind was blowing strong, so believe