Haunted by his prison job

Former guard compelled to write about it, and it’s not pretty

Mon, Jun 30, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Leila Navidi

Dahn Shaulis worked for the Nevada Department of Corrections for seven years. He has published some observations of prison life that he wrote in notebooks during his time as a guard.

Officers are people, too (5-12-2008)
Face to Face: Victim of Retaliation? (4-23-2008)
Face to Face: Inmate care (12-17-2007)

The inmates run this place. Not the staff. That’s the reality of it.

That’s the graduation speech Dahn Shaulis says he got at Nevada’s prison guard academy. Manage the unmanageable, they said. Learn to provoke power, to play with the “politics of the fist,” to control inmates by pitting them against one another, to perfect benign neglect. This is how Shaulis sucked up “40 hours of purgatory and a paycheck” every week for seven years. He worked for Nevada’s overcrowded, understaffed prison system, the ever expensive thorn in the side of state lawmakers who have been arguing about whether to close some prisons to absorb the blow of the budget shortfall.

He walked into the job with a Ph.D. in sociology and left in July with a binder of bitter stories. While working as a corrections officer and a caseworker, Shaulis carried a notebook everywhere, and not for writing infractions.

He worked Death Row, maximum security, minimum security, gang units, administrative segregation, and as he spent more time inside, his stories changed. At first, they were the restrained observations of a book-bred sociologist. Then they started to sound as if they were written by someone who had bought into the program. In the end, however, they came out as the cries of an angry critic — a man with an eye so jaundiced the world was yellow.

When Shaulis slept, he dreamed of beating up the warden.

Stories from Shaulis’ final phase were published this month in the spring issue of Justice Policy Journal, edited by UNLV criminal justice professor Randall Sheldon.

The stories paint a bleak picture. At times, the view peering into the prisons seems almost as bad as it must be from behind the bars — and Shaulis isn’t shy. He calls Nevada’s prison administration “morally corrupt.” He calls America’s prison system “Pri$neyland.”

Shaulis, 47, who quit the Nevada Corrections Department to teach criminal justice at the College of Southern Nevada, says it was no secret he was writing about his work. The prison administration saw his notebook, knew he had poems published, and never said a word to make him stop. He became a corrections officer only because he couldn’t make ends meet, after all. He was working as a substitute teacher for the Clark County School District, and when the jobs didn’t come fast enough, he decided to sign on with the state prison system. Once he left, he published poetry in newspapers and magazines about the job, and started a blog, Vegas Quixote, where he does more of the same: tell stories about prison.

Excerpts from these stories, as they appear in Justice Policy Journal, appear below. Privately, some prison employees have accused Shaulis of making it all up. Or at least taking liberal creative license.

He says the stories are true, though some names are changed and some characters are composites, based on what Shaulis saw and still can’t shake.

On applying to be a corrections officer:

“There was a physical agility test, an interview, a physical, and a urinalysis, but it seems that almost everybody was hired, even if they didn’t quite pass. There was no psychological testing. There was a background check, but apparently it wasn’t thorough enough for some of the criminals and sadists that were hired.”

On learning how to manage inmates:

“It seemed like we were being given two messages. The formal message was don’t use excessive force, be ‘firm, fair and consistent.’ The second message, the informal message from several staff, was that inmates are bad people, ‘scum,’ and we needed to ‘keep them in line.’ ”

On violence:

“There are the planned gang assaults, hits, we rarely see, except for the aftermath. And there are acts of extortion, drug deals, assaults on staff, excessive use of force by staff, rape, mail scams, inmate demonstrations, cellmate murders and escape attempts. Seems like I’m always somewhere else when things happen.”

On staff relations:

“Collins (a corrections officer) tells us that there are cell phones on the yard, and lots of drugs, sex, and gang activity ... He jokes about putting inmates in the hole, and getting sued for doing his job. He smiles as he talks about accidentally injuring an inmate while he was restraining him.”

On punishment:

“An inmate may get four-pointed: systematically gang-rushed by five officers in riot gear, placed in one of the two seclusion cells, stripped naked, and held face-down in soft restraints. Some inmates appear to enjoy the drama as if it were a form of entertainment.”

On overcrowding:

“The only way to make it work, at all, is to circulate inmates. There is no choice other than to let some inmates out of lockup, even if it may cause another assault. Not surprisingly, we also have had more assaults for the last few months, about one a week.”

Discussion: 10 comments so far…

By WMClarke

6/30/08 at 9:57 a.m.

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I know Dahn,

He's a great guy. We met several years ago at HDSP before he went to ESP. He knows what he is talking about.
By eatingfire

6/30/08 at 12:30 p.m.

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I'm so happy to see someone telling the truth about these sickening prisons. I am looking forward to getting more insight into the warden and his divide and conquer politics among the staff and among the inmates. This man should be curtailed by a governor who is too busy running around with emotionally disturbed women, however. In addition, someone should look into the endless stream of lawsuits against the state due to the warden's illegal actions. I hope The Sun prints a lot of Dahn's work. I would like to see his poems too. If someone could post a link that would be great.
By WMClarke

6/30/08 at 5:24 p.m.

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This is his site:

http://vegasquixote.blogspot.com/
By rodney07

6/30/08 at 9:38 p.m.

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I am a CO at High Desert and have worked there for over four years. I have also worked with Dahn in unit 3 in the past. Remember, society has it set in their minds to lock people up and throw away the key... that is when we, the CO's take over. My family will testify that this job takes a serious toll on our lives. Most people reading this have never had fecal matter thrown on them, had threats made by an inmate serving life for murder threatening to kill my wife and children or have a frivilous grievence that puts us on administrative leave and under investigation, leaving our family to take the brute of the lie. We have to put up with the BS from the prisoners because you the "people" want them out of society. Give us a little bit of a break. It seems to me that when a person commits a crime and gets sent to prison, they automatically become the victim. Let the truth be known, inmates have more rights than the staff do. Too bad Nevada is a soft prison system comparted to most. I am sick of the bleeding hearts that have no idea what it is like on the inside of the the walls of the Nevada Department of Corrections, give me a minute to give my two cents, a different story will told.
By eatingfire

6/30/08 at 10:15 p.m.

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I didn't hear anyone complaining about correctional officers, only administration. I think that makes a lot of sense. No one is saying your job is easy. But I would hardly call Ely a soft prison when they leave people to rot to death of gangrene in their cells. Inmates are not automatically victims, but lawbreaking wardens turn them into victims sometimes.
By VegasQuixote

6/30/08 at 10:24 p.m.

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I agree with you Rodney07 that CO work is a tough and dehumanizing beat that bleeds into everyone. I disagree, though, that the "tough on crime" idea is the best approach both in sentencing and in incarceration. Prisons today often make people harder, serving as finishing schools for criminal behavior. We need to be selective about who we incarcerate, and figure out how to invest in better neighborhoods, decent jobs and job training, schools, mental health services, and drug treatment. Alongside the killers and child molesters who deserve prison, there were inmates in NDOC there for such heinous crimes as starting a fire in a vacant lot to stay warm, stealing small batteries, possession of crack, and killing puppies. As Supreme Court Justice (and Reagan appointee) Anthony Kennedy stated "tough on crime should not be a substitute for thoughtful reflection or lead us into moral blindness."
By eatingfire

6/30/08 at 10:27 p.m.

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Thank you for the link. The poetry is great. I hope the poet publishes a book soon. I'm sorry to hear that the Sun quoted him wrong. I'm actually sorry to hear he didn't really want to sock the warden. There are some of them who would deserve it.
By reeshg

7/1/08 at 11:52 a.m.

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Reading your article, I agree with most of what you said;the overcrowding,being understaffed and that the administration doesn't care about the staffs' safety or security. But as I read on, it seems to me that you let yourself become too involved. Once I learned what the real rules were, I learned how to treat it like a game and won. I had very few problems dealing with the inmates. I treated them firm, fair and consistent, yet maintained a degree of security and discipline in the units I worked,earning some measure of respect from them. I left my problems at the gate house, both coming and going. It was the last and present wardens that created most of the problems that exist at High Desert State Prison today, which could account for the high turnover rate of staff lately.
By eatingfire

7/1/08 at 12:20 p.m.

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I don't know about the warden at High Desert, but that Ely warden is costing the state millions. They should get rid of him.
By ericsmommy

7/21/08 at 12:33 p.m.

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rodney07, your job is tough. Mine is tough too. We all have parts of our chosen careers we do not like. I do have problems when waiting for visiting, as I was several weeks back at High Desert, and hear a CO tell other CO's that if the guys don't cooperate with what you tell them to "just throw them agaist the wall" and use words I don't and are not fit for print. That is not rehabilitation. That is demoralizing. Yes, prisoners, most of them, earned their way inside. However that does not mean they are lower than dirt. Repect goes a long ways no matter what your career choice. Everyone deserves respect.