INSIDE THE FENCE: The Voice

Being that this prison is of low security and we are allowed to roam around freely within the compound, getting information from the staff to an inmate becomes a challenge.

You must also understand that the guards would prefer not to communicate with us in the first place.  We are inconsequential to them.  An inconvenience to their "busy work schedule".  The last thing they want to do is track us down.  In fact, they will not physically go and look for any of us.

The solution to this problem is "the Voice".  They have an intercom system wired throughout the compound and in the buildings.  The speakers are located on the ceilings every 30 feet.  You cannot hide from the Voice.  The speakers are connected to the phone system rendering every phone a "microphone".

There are some limitations to the Voice.  Rooms like the chapel, the bathrooms, the unit laundry and the recreation yard do not have speakers for the Voice.  In these areas, you have to make sure you wear a watch and remain aware of critical count times.

The Voice is available 24/7 but normally stops after the 9:30 p.m. count.  It starts up again in the morning around 5:45 a.m. when the laundry workers are paged to report to work.  Around 6:00 a.m. the Voice will call the cadre to breakfast ahead of everyone else, as they need to report to work outside the fence.  Soon after that, they announce the opening of the mainline for the rest of the unit.  Breakfast mainline is not heavily attended as most choose to sleep.

As the day moves forward, the Voice continues to call inmates to medical or to see their counselors or case workers.  Occasionally the Voice calls people to the compound office to see the on-duty lieutenant.  These calls are the most dreaded of all, as it could mean that you have not been responsive to other pages, or you are in trouble, or that you are going to be transported off site for medical treatment.  You never know what the purpose is until you arrive at the office.

On one occasion, I heard the Voice call an elderly inmate to the compound office.  He disappeared for two weeks and we had no idea why he was gone.  The cops went to his cube and collected his personal belongings and locked them in storage.

When the old man returned, we learned that he spent a night in the SHU and then went to one of the local hospitals where they performed heart by-pass surgery.  The entire time he was there, he had a cop with him and was kept handcuffed to the bed by his legs and one hand.  He knew that he was going to have this procedure done, but he had no idea when it would happen.  He had to wait for the Voice to call him to the office.

The Voice takes on many different personalities, since every staff member has access to the system, we hear a wide range of styles.  Some struggle with making the Voice work.  They might hang up the phone too soon and cut off part of the message.  Others start pushing buttons on the phone while the Voice is on sending shrills through our ears.  Still others have a problem speaking clearly while using the Voice.  This may be because many of them are chewing tobacco.  This would explain why their Mountain Dew bottles are partially filled with brown, chunky liquid.  Sorry for the detail, but it is true.  A good majority of the staff here either chew or smoke tobacco on the job.

Some of the cops use the Voice to audition for their retirement career.  Every time the Lieutenant announces recall, he is rehearsing for his career as a boxing referred.  First he will clear his voice while the speakers are on.  Then he will announce "RECALL" in a deep commanding tone as he builds with a crescendo!  The lieutenants are quite arrogant and like to hear themselves.

Our unit cops can also be creative as they interject their own brand of humor on the Voice.  Every day the cops must fulfill a quota of breathalyzer tests.  Some cops will walk around with the hand-held analyzer and have us blow into it.  Other cops will take a more lazy approach and select a group and page them to their office.  One of these cops maintained a sense of humor by calling six men whose last names began with the letter "H".  After he read off the names he announced over the Voice, "This breathalyzer test was brought to us by the the letter "H"!  Just as if he was on Sesame Street!!

There are even lazier cops than these.  One example is the cop who came to a group of us and took down our names.  We did not blow into the analyzer, but he told us we all passed.  He also told us if anyone would ask us to verify his report, we should lie and tell them we did blow and it was zero.  I was not worried about having to lie as nobody has ever challenged the results of these tests.

The limitations of the Voice can get you into trouble.  There is only one speaker for the Voice in the outside yard.  One speaker is enough if there is no wind, you are not wearing a hat over your ears, and especially if you are wearing headphones and listening to an MP3 player.  But, if any of the above is happening, it is highly likely that you will miss an important announcement.  This is how I almost got in trouble.  I was walking the track on a winter night and listening to music.  I knew the rec yard would closed in 15 minutes so I double checked my watch before starting my last lap.  I had made the turn away from the building and I could see a cop back at the entry point so I turned around and headed back.  I got to the place where the cop was standing and he asked me in the standard gruff and demeaning tone if I had heard the page for recall.  I told him that I could not hear anything with the wind blowing the wrong way.  I also let him know that I had been checking my watch for the standard recall time.  I assume that I had satisfied him with my responses as he stood in silence as I walked passed him back to the unit.

Our day-to-day activity is directed by this Voice.  We are compelled to obey its commands, if we are tuned in to it.  Some choose to ignore the Voice which results in more demanding pages.  Before I came to prison I had two cellphones, two e-mail accounts, a home phone and a facebook account.  These became the Voice on the outside.  They too compelled me to obey them with responses.  They gave me more tasks to perform and obligations to perform.  They hit me from all different directions.  Now I only have the Voice from the speakers.  The problem is we all share the same Voice which can be annoying especially on the mornings we get to sleep in.  So I guess you could say that I traded in all the many sources I had on the outside with the Voice here inside the Fence.

With the exception of the few areas where the Voice cannot reach, there is not much you can do to escape its reach.  The best way to drown out the Voice is with a pair of headphones and an MP3 player.  Both are available from commissary and I am blessed to have them both.  The head phones are not as good as the Bose headphones I had at home, but they are pretty amazing for being in prison.  They fit over my ears comfortably and have a clear sound when you turn up the volume on the MP3 player.  They are made by Koss and have a built-in sub-woofer that requires batteries.  They call them the "HQ1 Vibration Stereophone".  I call them my sanity savers.  They allow me to escape the noise around me including the Voice.  They are my escape from this place.

I planned to end this entry with the previous paragraph, but I couldn't help but realize how this discussion about the Voice has become an unintended analogy about how God communicates with us.  God is our Voice.  God's Voice may not be audible, like the Voice here at Elkton, but it is still the Voice of God, who communicates to us through His many personalities.  He speaks through His Words in the Bible.  The story of God is revealed from Genesis to Revelation.  We learn of His character and how He loves us despite our failures and short-comings.

He speaks to us through our conscience and our thoughts.  He is woven into our sense of right and wrong.  He speaks to us through our Worship in songs of praise.  He speaks to us through the messages of our Pastors, who teach from His Word.  He speaks to us through our friends who encourage us and speak words of life into our lives.  He speaks in theh majesty of the towering mountains and in the roaring of the sea.  He is in the raging water of the mighty rivers and in the quiet streams.  He speaks in the storms of life and in the quiet moments of prayer and solitude.

There are times we drown out the sound of God's Voice.  We ignore His calling and hide in our busy life-style.  We suppress His Voice by turning up the volume of our career, our softball leagues, our televisions, our video games, our pornography, our alcohol, our drugs.  They all can become the headphones we use to drown out the sound of God's Voice.

God is speaking to us every day.  He is calling us to Him, so He can lead us and guide us through the storms of our life.  Are we listening for His call?  Are we responding to His call?

"The sheep hear his voice, and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out.  When He has brought out all His own, He goes before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His VOICE!"  John 10:3-4

Don't put the 'headphones' of life on and drown out the Voice of God.  Answer His call and He will lead you.  Slow down and listen.

-McFreedom