BLOG No. FORTY SEVEN

Welcome back to my blog on anxiety and depression. Today I want to really stretch the borders of my normal blogs. I want to discuss the topic of corrections, and in particular, the topic of jails, prisons, and the inhabitants of each. On any given day, 2.3 million men and women reside behind the walls of concrete and razor wire. And I am very familiar with this topic, because I have personally been inside 22 jails and 1 prison. Before you think you have been duped into reading the manifesto of lunatic, let me explain.

After I completed my residency and Family Practice and ER, I applied for a part-time job at a local jail. I spent about 12 hours a week as the jail’s medical director, performing physicals on new inmates and doing sick call for others. The company I worked for liked the care I gave, so they had me teach doctors at other jails all of my secrets. That put me in jails all throughout the Midwest.

Most of the people I examined we’re pretty nice folks who just made a mistake or two—drunk drivers, drug addicts, prostitutes, and the like rounded out my daily rounds. And on some occasions I needed to go down to solitary confinement to examine someone considered too violent to bring up to medical. Once there, I would move into a 5 x 8 cell constructed of concrete block, adorned by a steel door. It was claustrophobia on steroids.

These inmates spent 23 out of every 24 hours locked in this tiny room. There was no TV, no medication, just the noise of shouting inmates. Many became suicidal. They were rewarded with a paper gown and a 3-minute visit from psychiatrist. Perhaps it is time for a joke.

A guy goes to prison for the first time. As evening falls, he hears an inmate yell “24”. Everybody laughs. Someone else yells “9”. Once again everyone laughs. The man asked his cellmate, “Why is everybody laughing?” The cellmate replies that for a long period of time, a joke book was passed from cell to cell, and the prisoners memorized the numbers of all of the jokes. So the man yells out “10”. Nothing happens. Then he yells out “44”. Once again, no one laughs. He asks his cellmate, “Why isn’t anyone laughing?” His cellmate replies, “Some people just can’t tell a joke.”

Why would modern humans, most of whom are pretty familiar with jails and prisons from the TV and books, end up there? Why wouldn’t they want to stay out? For about three months after my six-year stint of jail medicine ended, I had recurring nightmares of getting arrested from an unpaid tax or like and imprisoned in that 5 x 8 cell. Eventually, they went away.

But again, why would someone knowledgeable of how horrific a jail or prison was, still and up there? Any given time, 2.3 million men and women make that choice. Of course, a few may have been innocent. But what is the neurochemistry behind the poor choices people make that lands them in such a defiled place?

Well I think that discussion is too much for this blog as I am running out of writing room. I am returning from my business trip to the beautiful city of Kansas City and I am on my final leg to Dayton. And yes, as usual, I am having a glass of Chardonnay but in a plastic cup. I guess that makes it “plane” Chardonnay. Until next time when we take up more on correctional medicine and the neurochemistry behind it, this is Dr. G saying keep the faith!

PS: Oh, and if you want to read my first novel regarding my days working in jails, go to amazon.com and look for “Desperate Vines” by Rick Gebhart.