Correction Service of Canada Recidivism Rate 2009
Thirty years ago I was an unwilling guest of the Correction Service of Canada for one long day.
For twelve hours as prisoner number 8675309 I soaked up the ambiance of inmate life.
To exist longer than a flesh in the pen it was obvious to me that I would have to develop a deference to condescending authority and begin accepting the guidance of currently undesirable leaders who actually ran the rooms that could be my world.
My life wouldn’t be just upside down it would be scrambled too and
I realized that everyone who ever thought anything of me
Before or in the future would necessarily have to see
A newer, harder, more street smart version of
Myself if I was to continue living with a
Modicum of respect and dignity.
That brutal realization shook
My very foundation and
I knew that my daze
As John Q. Public
Were over if
I stayed.
Thank you, friend.
Barry out.
Dodgy answers about Canada’s prison system recidivism rate. Average = 37%
http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/pblct/forum/e053/e053h-eng.shtml
I have no idea what my prison number was and maybe I didn’t even get one for the day. Who knows.
The number in this story is a phone number in a song.
Someone brings sandwiches out and put them on a table in this large room in remand where I was being held.
A couple of inmates saunter over and pick up a sandwich each.
A guard comes unglued on them and hollers “Did I say you could eat?! Put those sandwiches back you stupid motherfuckers and don’t do anything less I tell you!”
Then, two seconds later. “Okay kids, lunchtime!”
The two inmates look at each other and shake their heads and roll their eyes. I could tell they’d just learned a lesson.
Fucking smartass eighteen year old kid who was obviously still in shock was there in jail. He had just killed two people in a drunken head on collision on the 18th street bridge in Brandon, Manitoba.
He had casts on a couple of limbs and was in a wheelchair.
Boy, did motherfucker brag. Most everyone else was quiet but this new killer feigned toughness. Another joker asked dude how he thought he’d make out in the “Big House” where they fucked boyz.
Dude’s reply was that he was going to smack the first guard he came to and get thrown in the hole. Every time they went to let him out he would smack the guard to get thrown back in again.
Until his time was up…
Man, I wanted out of there in the worst way.
I was picked up by Brandon City Police who told me I had missed a court date.
Probably The Powers That Be were trying to put the fear of god into me but that ain’t close to what got in me.
In one day from the right vantage point I could see that our “correction” system was broken. I sure didn’t feel corrected by any stretch of the imagination.
That fucking visit to Brandon’s prison scared me.
I started zig-zagging from that point forward.
Silly beggars.