Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing

“I don’t know, I don’t care, they’re not my friends, and I don’t like them.” 

Officer Sims, the night OIC (Officer in Charge), responds to Conover’s inquiries about the inmates by stating that she has absolutely no interest in the prisoners. Conover is amused by Officer Sims’s bluntness, which is indicative of the jadedness that many officers feel as a result of their work in prison.

“Maybe the instructor was just saying he didn’t care either. Maybe he was saying that forgetfulness and shows of weakness or emotion wouldn’t fly in prison. Maybe he simply believed, along with a number of his colleagues, that abuse was perfect preparation for prison work.” 

The excerpt depicts the constantly abusive nature of the training program at the officer recruit academy. Abuse is passed from the top of the hierarchy down to the lowest rung and is redirected back from the inmates to the officers.

“But I’d had worse pain, duller and more long-lasting, from various injuries. And how did you compare these nerve-related pains with heartache, or with the pain—call it soulache—of imprisonment, the kind of pain, no one seemed to observe, that we were going to administer in our chosen profession? It hardly seemed right to use the same word for all of them.” 

When Conover is being trained in pain management, he wonders if the level of intensity of physical pain can be compared to that of emotional pain. Here, Conover begins to contemplate on the more far-reaching, psychological effects of imprisonment and a career in corrections.