In the novel, "100 Years of Solitude," and in the documentary from class, we catch glimpses of how the prison/farm of Parman was run. One astonishing function of the prison was the fact that it was prisoners that were the watch guards. They were known as the trustee shooters.
These select individuals were prisoners who had gone through a process to become a guard, and once a guard they patrolled the perimeter of the prison searching for escapees. The most mind-boggling aspect was the fact that these individuals had access to rifles and would shoot down anyone who tried to run.
Why would these people who have committed heinous crimes to be allowed guns? The benefits. Imagine being provided with a personal room, better food, and healthcare all for free. Now add on the fact that conjugal visits were established. The power of being able to take lives with no punishment was also an added psychological benefit that added to their conscious.
Why would they ever give that up? In the outside world, they were probably poor and struggled just to stay afloat. Frankly, at Parchman, they were given the opportunity to do nothing at no expense. Which sounds rather appealing to someone who doesn't want to work and/or is a criminal.
The administration at Parchman knew how good of a deal it would be and they were willing to take the risk, and it mostly paid off. No guards had to be hired for twenty for seven watches and all it costs them was the payment for building a place for conjugal visits.
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3 comments:
Wow! Yes, I too was astonished when we saw this in the documentary. I agree that it was a great idea by the prison to bribe inmates with certain privileges in return for their trust on keeping watch on runaways. Obviously, the system worked because if anyone tried to escape, they were shot down by the trustees. What surprised me though was how the prisoners did not empathize with one another. Most of the people there were African-Americans, and a large amount were there for small crimes or no crime at all, yet were sentenced to extreme labor. I would have thought that prisoners would feel some sort of connection with one another or a feeling of unity from their suppression. Some probably did not want to kill another inmate who was trying to escape, but ended up doing so because they were a stranger and also for the rewards that would be presented to him for doing the deed. The decision is east for them because the whole system is run on greed itself. The prison is "every man for himself" or "survival of the fittest." In reality, people don't care about each other. They will do whatever to make their life better. They want to maximize their utility. This is the reason these trustees are willing to kill for better living conditions. On the other hand however, I am still questioning why the trustees and the inmates never tried to unite together to take down the guards and all escape at once, but I guess there are a number of reasons we are not considering.
My theory behind the prisoners not being able to unite against the guards is that they do not possess the collaborative skills for it to work. A lot of them were arrested in groups for attempted robberies or other acts that may have avoided detainment with better teamwork! On a more serious note, the guards in the documentary claimed that there are fights in the prison every single day in addition to occasional murders. If the prison was truly a prisoners vs guards scenario, then the prisoners would not continually fight and kill each other. Therefore, a larger amount of prisoners than any gang or alliance group ever formed would have to set their differences aside that would otherwise cause riots and organize a plan that is ultimately too high risk given the benefits of the lucky “trustee prisoners.”
I think every point brought up in this chain is accurate— from Ritchie’s take on the benefits of the trustee shooters to Samuels discussion on the lack of skill the prisoners have to overpower the system due to the fact that they’re in their the first place for not doing a crime “well”— however, there’s still one thing that has me scratching my head, and it can be brought up by Ritchie’s notion that the trustee shooters get a psychological kick from getting to shoot people without punishment. The whole point of point of a prison is like a huge time-out, isn’t it? You remember how when you talked back to your mom or maybe threw a fit as a little kid and you got sat in time-out to “think about what you’ve done”—whether you actually did think or not. Well isn’t prison basically supposed to be like that but on a much larger scale? Well if that *is*, then why would you proceed to give a convict a gun if the ultimate goal is to see the error of their ways. In order to instill some sort of enlightenment or change in someone you can’t rightfully let them continue in the act that’s in attempt to change. You wouldn’t give someone in AA a bottle of bourbon and let them go to town would you? Maybe that’s just my take but.
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