A Deputy Warden’s Reflections on Prison Work

As a correctional employee reinventing himself, I am getting at this new reality, a bitter sweet pill where words can’t be cheeked and spat-out when convenient. Adria L. Libolt knows all too well how fragile and misunderstood life can be and expresses it in her debut book, A Deputy Warden’s Reflections on Prison Work. Her words, although simple, direct, and minus the gristle, are tasty antidotes of meaning and purpose. She writes:

We are related, not as blood brothers and sisters, but as sharing a common humanity and community. We are in life together. It is why we can’t isolate ourselves ... (p.22).

This, after telling us in the introduction “that we are not that different than prisoners—even the most dangerous and manipulative inmates.”

Doing time, whether in prison or in the free-world, Libolt dispenses a moderate amount of medicinal wisdom:

Being sentenced to prison does not automatically put a person in danger. There is not a ‘before’ when you were safe, and an ‘after’ when you are no longer safe … (p.9).

We all have to take risks, whether driving defensively through a busy intersection or, in general terms, interacting with those we have ‘wronged’. We think and react to each other’s behaviors with our own biased perspectives. Again, Libolt quoting Janet Malcolm from The New Yorker about audiotape evidence involving a 2009 murder trial:

We go through life mishearing and misseeing (sic) and misunderstanding so that the stories we tell ourselves will add up. Our brains work to make disparate pieces of a puzzle fit. (p.55)

And no one likes to be wronged. Libolt:

Justice is not always found through the courts, though we imagine we will find impartiality or some kind of resolution there. (p.73).

And nothing is ever easy:

We are all a mixture of messy humanity; possessing both the capacity to do good and to do terrible things … We judge appearances, but things are not always as they seem on the surface; we may need to look deeper. (p.147).

It’s one thing to dispense sound, logical advice and feel good about ourselves, yet another thing to digest it and follow it. Libolt lends validity to her words through not only her experiences behind Michigan’s prison walls but her voluntary work in her church where she helps ex-felons get re-acclimated to the harsh realities on the outside. It’s people like her that give hope to those experiencing hardship. Her book, although somewhat Pollyannish, shares personal glimpses of what it’s like to work for so many years inside a prison and to retire a better person for it. I recommend this book mainly to those who have no idea what correctional employment is all about.