ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO KILL ME WITH THAT?
THE CASE OF THE MISSING SPORK ...
No prison movie is complete without at least one scene where an inmate is in the process of making a “shank” or a “shiv”. These are meant to be prison weapons sometimes used to stab another inmate or even maybe a prison guard. Prisons are full of (often exaggerated) stories about how people have made shivs and shanks from whatever is at hand. There's even a story about how someone made a shank from a bunch of Jolly Ranchers, the fruit-flavored sugar candy! Stab a man with it and then eat the evidence! At least that’s the theory. That story went around on that prison TV series Orange Is the New Black (which takes place in a minimum-security prison. Jails are run more like a maximum-security prison).
Some people bought Jolly Ranchers in jail, but I never saw anyone make a shank out of them. They tended just to eat them. My 5th cellie in jail - we called him “Crazy eyes” (he had shockingly beautiful blue but rather large eyes) - used to buy a bag every now and then, but he would hide and jealously guard them in his cell. He didn’t want others to know because they would ask - or beg - for one. If asked, he would always just say sorry, I just ate the last one. I always found it a bit incongruous to have “candy” in jail - and a brand named “Jolly Ranchers” of all things!
This is a rather fragile shank. But more dangerous shanks are real, but they are rare, at least from my point of view. Neither in jail nor in prison did I ever see or hear of one. But for COs it's always in the back of their mind. Part of their training involves being exposed to a collection of assorted shanks that have been confiscated over the years. These may be rare, but constant exposure concentrates their mind on that possibility. Pictures like this for example:
Prisons in the US have three levels of security: Minimum (Martha Stewart style!), medium security (where I ended up), and maximum security. This last category is reserved for the most violent and most dangerous inmates. If a truly dangerous shank is to be found anywhere, it would be there. One reason that jail (as opposed to prison) is so stressful is that it tends to be run more like a maximum-security prison. This is their default assumption. Inmates have not been sorted out yet. Some are destined for very little time, but others may be facing life in prison.
In the course of doing a bit of research on prison shanks, I saw many interesting collections of prison shanks collected over the years. Who knew inmates could be so creative? But actually, it dawned on me that human beings have been making shanks for tens of thousands of years! For example, this:
Consider this gang of men making stone tools. This could be a prison gang making shanks!
Gang of Stone Age Men Making Tools
Well, at least they had sticks and stones to make tools, but what did we have in jail?
Out of an abundant sense of caution, everything is carefully regulated and monitored. What we are allowed is highly controlled, all with security in mind. I could only write with a tiny golf pencil. And I had a toothbrush like this one. Who knew a toothbrush could be so tiny!
And the flex pen! Every now and then, I had a Flexpen! You had to buy those from the canteen store. You can even get one of these on Amazon (about $3)! Hospitals use them for patients who might want to hurt themselves. I couldn’t afford one, so I traded many puddings and cookies for those flex pens! My prison diary frequently alternates back and forth between pencil and ink.
I wrote hundreds of pages in my diary with “security flex pens” like that one!
They have adopted them in prisons in the UK:
"The Prison Pen is made with a soft rubbery material that bends under the slightest pressure, making it nearly impossible to do lethal damage with it. It is as close to a stab-resistant, non-lethal weapon you can get, whilst still providing a workable ballpoint pen to write with. It is ideal for use in NHS secure wards, interview rooms, holding cells and in any secure prison or jail environment. When dealing with a patient or taking someone into custody you go to great lengths to confiscate any potential weapon to create a safer working environment, so why would you want to hand them one afterwards? This pen is now in official use in most U.S. federal prisons. "
And then there is of course the spork. These we could not keep. They came in on the food trays. The COs count them before lunch; Put them on the trays. We eat. We return them. The CO counts them again. There better not be a missing spork!
A missing spork was always high drama. Normally, when lunch is done, you empty your tray in the trash can and return the tray to the rack which then gets taken by the CO. But not before he counts all the sporks. If 25 sporks came in, 25 sporks had better come out. And today (it was just my 14th day in jail), one spork was missing. “Learn to count!” someone yells. Some of the more seasoned inmates who had been there for months knew that a miscount was frequently a false alarm.
A miscount is frequent. So the CO counts them again. A spork is still missing. And then an inmate counts, and yet another. It’s confirmed. We are one spork short. Let the drama begin! Everything comes to a stop. The spork must be found and accounted for.
Time to turn things upside down and see what shakes out. I happened to be near the trashcan where the trays are emptied out, and start digging through leftover food. It’s a bit surprising to see so much food go to waste, but things like beans are not that popular. But it had to be done, so I wadded through the leftovers and, lo and behold, there was the missing spork! Someone had accidentally thrown it in the trash. I was elated! I felt so proud of myself! I had come to the rescue. I fished out the spork and proudly held it up in the air and yelled out “found it!” much to the relief of all. This is how I entered it in my diary that day. That vision of myself holding up that missing spork like a “trophy” clashed in my head with the vision of who I thought I used to be, and what my “trophy” was back then when I had written a prize-winning essay. I couldn’t help but make the contrast:
***
All that drama for a missing spork!
But really … why all the drama? Yes, those prison shanks look fearsome, but all we had in jail were tiny pencils, miserable little toothbrushes, those stupid plastic sporks, and flexi-pens. How dangerous could that be? Amazingly, I found a picture of what that hypothetical “weapon” might look like! Children, avert your eyes! Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes on this “horrifying weapon” and be prepared to be amazed!
Really? Are you going to kill me with that? ….
Maybe you could kill someone with that … but they would have to die of laughter first!