When Debra Schaefer goes to work, gates and doors lock behind her. For eight hours she is unable to leave. If something catastrophic were to happen there would be no escape. But the psychological impact of her incarceration every working day isn’t something she dwells on.
She wears a Kevlar armoured vest to protect her from shanks, spikes and knives. It is heavy and she finds it uncomfortable, but she knows it could save her life. But violence does not frighten her. She was never a dainty girl. What scares her is infectious disease. Debra knows that at any moment someone might spit on her, or throw urine and faeces over her. There is a protocol for such assaults. There are eye-wash stations and an assaulted officer is taken to hospital to be checked out. Clothing is bagged for evidence and the inmate responsible could have up to two years added to her sentence.
For those on death row or serving life sentences, what is there to lose in venting their frustration at those who watch over them?



The pink mile: women on death row - Times Online

But women like Debra have choices. They get to go home every day to their families.
They don’t have to be there. So why are they?
The road that leads to Muncy is lined with maple trees. It is disarmingly tranquil. The limestone administrative block built in 1920, with its white cupola and faded charm, could easily be mistaken for a quaint college campus. Only as I get closer do the fence and razor wire become apparent.
Stepping inside a cell is enough to stop anyone ever wanting to take a pencil home from the office. They are little more than 6ft wide, 8ft high and 12ft long. Everything is fastened to the wall, toilet and bed included. The cells are airless and smell pungent and institutional. The sound of steel doors closing is amplified. It is an atmosphere heavy with despair, remorse, anger and loneliness.
Who would choose to enter here willingly every day, vulnerable to volatile criminals in a job that casts them as the enemy?
Not everyone can handle it. For those who work in a prison, there are two lives: inside and outside. Once they put the uniform on and go through the gate, they are in an alternate universe. Here they must be able to navigate a psychological and emotional labyrinth, inure themselves to being suckered, and sublimate instincts to react. Mental stamina is as crucial as physical strength.
We know very little about what the job is like: the pressures, the cycle of emotions, what they experience on the inside and the impact it has on the outside. SCI Muncy in Pennsylvania is the only correctional facility in the US with a “death row” for women that agreed to allow me inside. Correctional facilities and officers have nothing to gain from opening up. One of the most salient features of the job is anonymity. Officers make sure the inmates know as little about their personal lives as possible. They need to remain unknown. It’s safer for them and for their families.
The perception of corrections officers as callous and hard-nosed is bolstered by the Hollywood myth of the sadistic guard and the constant atmosphere of repressed violence. Yet it becomes apparent that mental strength is not the only facet women officers require. Compassion, too, is very much on display. There is understanding, a recognition that the female inmates they work with have made mistakes and bad choices.
Most of the officers don’t know the reasons the women they guard are in prison. They choose not to read the prisoners’ files so that they can remain objective and avoid judgmental attitudes that may poison their relations with the inmates.
For them it is a good job. There is job security and health insurance. The starting wage is just over $13.82 (£7) an hour, and their mandate is to provide custody and care. But the real challenge is making sure that who they are on the inside does not define who they are on the outside.
Perhaps surprisingly, Muncy’s death-row inmates are not as violent as those prisoners who have something to hope for: the end of their sentences and release. They are compliant – the best behaved – because the prison is their home for life, or at least as long as the state decrees their life will be.

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For that wage i wouldn´t get up in the morning.

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Guess who i will see soon live in action.

I would roll over and not hit the snooze button with you Andreas

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You always have to remember - no matter what you're told - that God loves all the flowers, even the wild ones that grow on the side of the highway."
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Life is short, live every day like its your last

A large number of US prisons were built in rural areas. The people there get jobs, benefits and the people that are in the prison as count in census for population. For some people, this is a career that pays the bills and puts food on the table.

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"I'm done with propagandists who are willing to use any issue - race, cost, deterrence - to spare murderers' lives. Their attempts to shame a country out of delivering justice are terrorism of the intellectual variety." Brian Hickey

"The right to bear arms is the right to be free."
A. E. Van Gogt
THe Weaponshop of Ishtar

Good point Elric but I could not do the job.

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You always have to remember - no matter what you're told - that God loves all the flowers, even the wild ones that grow on the side of the highway."
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Life is short, live every day like its your last

Nor could I. But I support those that do.

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"I'm done with propagandists who are willing to use any issue - race, cost, deterrence - to spare murderers' lives. Their attempts to shame a country out of delivering justice are terrorism of the intellectual variety." Brian Hickey

"The right to bear arms is the right to be free."
A. E. Van Gogt
THe Weaponshop of Ishtar