Cumberland County Jail
By J. Grant Swank Jr. (01/23/07)
I was hired as a substance abuse counselor at Cumberland County Jail, Portland, ME.
"I have never been so fulfilled," I exclaimed to my wife one day after work.
I reported in at work to counsel thieves, rapists, murderers and other malcontents of various categories. Some were in maximum security. Others were housed in pods.
Pods were two stories high. On the lower level were some tables and benches welded into the floor. There were showers. There were individual cells. In the pod’s center was the guard station. And there was always noise — talking, clanging, some yelling.
Outside the pod was a small walled in walk-around area. Inmates could go there to breathe in fresh air.
Off the main pod level was a conference room where I held substance abuse counseling sessions — one hour apiece. Inmates filed in, sat down and I proceeded.
Then when I returned to Prison Health Services administrative offices, I picked up notes in my mailbox. They were appeals from inmates for one-on-one counseling.
I kept my records intact. I filed them promptly. I responded promptly to every request slip in my box.
I was not certified by the state; therefore, I worked under John’s state certification. John was hired to do the same work as I did. But he spent most time talking to his girl friends on the phone in our shared office space. Though married, John had quite a list of females' numbers.
I started my day by doing my job — all day long. John started his day on the phone.
Joe was the first administrator that PHS hired. He was a registered nurse by training. As an administrator, he was totally inept. He could not manage a health care service for inmates. It was not long till Joe disappeared.
Replacing him was a woman from the Vermont / Canadian border. She drove that awesome distance to Portland every Monday morning and returned to her home every Friday afternoon. During the week, she stayed in a city motel. PHS could not find anyone else to take the job; so she was it.
When she found out that I was a minister, she set her sites on getting rid of me. She did not like clergy.
So there was John on the phone with his girl friends and the newly hired female administrator who despised pastors.
Administrator held weekly staff meetings. I kept copious notes. In one meeting she joked about inmates and their treatment from PHS. She did not feel the need to give them efficient service. With that, she shot out her appraisal of inmates’ conditions with the words "Sucks to be you!"
Then she spoke further about the services provided by PHS to inmates by saying that if they didn’t like what they got from staff, they could service one another. We all knew what she meant by that — they could serve one another sexually.
Repeatedly she called me into her office to inform me that I was not filling out my report forms properly. I returned to my cubicle, going over the format again and again. But it never was quite right. There was always something amiss. Frankly, the format was exceptionally elementary; there was nothing complicated about it.
The cubicle provided me was nothing really. It was a bare room far from PHS administrative offices. It had no desk, no chair. It had only a table. I had collected a lot of literature for handing out to inmates during group sessions. I had no filing cabinet to store the information so I stacked it up neatly in piles on the floor. I was told that one day I would actually have proper space for my preparatory work; but that space did not appear.
I never felt so happy than working at the jail. I was genuinely fulfilled. I was helping men and women. They responded most gratefully. They sincerely accepted me. They knew I was doing my best for them and I knew they appreciated my work.
The fellow on PHS staff there to serve inmates psychologically bluntly informed the rest of us that he did not care if any of them got treatment. He had no concern whatsoever for their welfare. After all, they were "jailbirds." They weren’t worth it. With that, he was accepted. There was never a protest regarding his laziness or his unprofessional approach to treatment.
So there was John on the phone most of the day. There was the woman administrator bloated with pride that she was running the system. And there was the psychology staff person doing all he could to do nothing.
I must say that the nurses in PHS did do their work ably. They were committed.
One day I returned home from another day of fulfilling work to hear a message on my answering machine. It was the administrator’s voice.
She said that I did not need to report to work the next morning, in fact it would be illegal if I did report, for my state certification had been removed from my position due to my ineptness.
John and she had plotted to slice me off staff by removing his credentials from my work; therefore, I had no right to be in the jail as paid staff.
I emailed to PHS national office the detailed notes I had kept concerning the lack of professionalism on the part of John, the administrator and the psychology staff man. Within a short time, all three were dismissed from their positions.
Then in short order, PHS was replaced in Cumberland County Jail by another health services agency.
I look back on that time as one of the most exhilarating in my life. It was when I could daily help others who were at the lowest of all ladders. And in that I felt as if my life meant something worthwhile.
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