Hi this is a reading Vlog I have already started reading this I started reading this a few days ago so catch up my friends and I started a book club but we’re calling it smut Salon because that sounds sexier and also if you’ve read that book you get that reference I was
The one that got to choose what book we read for the first go around we’re not really like saying month or whatever it’s just kind of however long it takes us all to read it and I chose a non-fic because that is my preferred genre uh but this one specifically is called New
Jack guarding sing sing and it’s written by Ted Conover it’s a book that I have had on my to be read list for a very very long time and the synopsis is that Ted Conover is an immersive journalist meaning that he puts himself in the situations that he writes about he
Originally just wanted to Shadow correctional officers in prisons just to kind of get the inside scoop of what it’s like to be a correctional officer but you know he just wanted that perspective to kind of get that inside scoop and he realized that shocker they’re very tight lipped crazy I know
Right like why would they be so tight lipped if they have nothing to hide uh so this is the story of him becoming a prison guard and right now I’m only about 50 pages in and it’s already phenomenal I love the way he writes and he is very down toe and
Relatable about how he writes and I also just really like that he points out all of these little moments that really create the experience in the story in such a way that it it just really fleshes it out it really kind of reads almost like fiction
As if you’re reading from a first person perspective um there’s all these different people in the book and uh it he really is doing well of kind of bringing you from an objective standpoint but also just the things that he’s feeling and thinking at the same time um I have
A lot of thoughts already if I’m only 50 pages in but I’m really excited to keep going uh the book looks a little janky because it’s from Thrift Books what was also kind of cool about getting books from Thrift Books despite the fact that they have sent me a completely different book
Than I ordered multiple times this one came with somebody who used their plane ticket as a bookmark and so Elizabeth on June 21st took Frontier and she only got two pages in according to the frontier ticket I can only imagine that she sat down and was like oh this might be an
Interesting read and then got a couple pages in and was like Jesus Christ I will be talking about this in depth um so if you don’t want spoilers I would prefer you not to watch this video My overall question when I first or before I even started this book was am I going
To read this book and walk away with more or less empathy for correctional officers or am I going to shift my focus from just the correctional officers themselves and more to the system um of like you know the academy and how just the whole prison system I mean
Obviously especially here in the US the prison system is so incredibly broken in so many ways and so far gone that I I that’s a whole separate conversation if you want a companion book for this if you plan on reading this book I highly recommend another book called
Cultish by Amanda Montel I believe I’m going to on the screen just in case you want to see that it’s a fantastic book in my personal opinion it was a little repetitive but it really shows how language can be so impactful of how we
Use it and why we use it and how and why systems and education systems and things like the academy for I mean not only the military but also Academy for police officers correctional officers um firefighters any First Responders type of deal like there’s a lot of language around that um yeah it that’s
That’s a really great read if you are curious in that but this book I’m super excited to continue reading and I will update you in the next whenever clip okay here we go I keep finding myself in these darks and I don’t know out now that I’m not you I just
Found somebody else annotated right here that’s not my annotation okay we’re sitting down here and my battery’s about to die so you know just average day of a professional YouTuber don’t mind me I’m yeah that doesn’t look weird I do want to talk a little bit about a couple of
Notes that I’ve already made bro you are kind of being a problem right now okay so Bane please I’m trying to make a video trying to do my job sir oh you’re so handsome okay first off like I said the annotations that I have um are these ones right here I you
Probably won’t be able to read it from here but the top one says questions and talk talking points which is the dark blue the gray is like the culture around the systems and just prison U and then just regular thoughts and comments this whole thing starts off with Ted um going
Into one of his first shifts right and then it kind of bounces from there into his experience in the academy and then it reels back a little further into before he went to the academy and realizing that the only way to really get the true story was to become a
Correctional officer instead of just interviewing them is I was here basically because the department told me that I couldn’t be and I said that’s the spirit live out a spite um The Academy they said was off limits to journalists no exceptions end of conversation now why should that be I wondered with
Prisons so much in the news costing so much money and confining such numbers of people it seemed to me that their operations should be completely transparent now why isn’t that he literally points out it’s the them versus US mentality here and then he talks about the stereotyping of prison
Guards and he says what was interesting particularly to me was it true because of the job that tends to attract tough guys that predisposed to violence or regards normal men who became violent once IM meshed into the system if the stereotype was false then why did it
Persist I really like I just like his mental notes that he puts into this um oh my God read this listen to this California where prisons are already at Double capacity must build a new prison every year to keep up with the flood of new inmates California just
The state not the United States of America just California every year yes so then he kind of talks about his experience of going through and trying to interview people prior to going to the academy and this one man was like really into talking to him it seemed and
He was really excited and let’s see Puma this man’s name was Puma promised that we talk again soon and he would introduce me around and then without explanation he stopped returning my calls so I don’t know if he was got like cold feet or if he was
Silenced I can’t I guess you never know um but then he ended up going in and speaking more to more officers getting a different contact and he ended up meeting this man named Kingsley he’s talking to a correctional officer before he goes into the academy and like you
Know does all the things and writes the book um but he is originally just trying to kind of interview this officer and his name is Kingsley he said prison work was about waiting the inmates waited for their sentences to run out and the officers waited for retirement to
Kingsley it was a life sentence in 8 hour shifts that’s an interesting perspective because if you decide to get this job because you can get this job like fairly young if you decide to choose to stay in this job until you retire like it is you’re you’re at
Prison for the majority of your life but that’s the thing is if you choose to stay in this job that’s my kind of issue with this comment is because you you can change your job right like you can quit maybe there’s more complications in this kind of like Brotherhood cultish mindset
Of correctional officers and like being a prison guard but the difference I wrote the is is that cos get benefits they get pay and they get to go home to their families when they’re living near the the prison when you know they can drive to and from the prison and they
Can quit any time that they like so I don’t know it it was just really interesting but then right underneath this that I highlighted here right here says I knew from the first hour though I was only seeing the surfaces conversation stopped when Rick and I entered the lunchroom and officers in
The parking lot stopped talking when we walked up it was like I was the guy in the loud shirt who steps off a big cruise ship into the commercial District of tropical Port the locals who would show me what they wanted to show me and
2 hours later I’d be gone and their real life would resume that’s exactly how that feels I think that’s such a good way to put that Rick had told me about the academy and it seemed like a great subject to write about place where the values of the profession were first
Imparted where the guys from the sticks first learned the ways of the prison guard he thought my idea of profiling a new recruit following him all the way through was a good one I set about to make it happen but docs which is the academy turned me down flat they offered
No explanation and were not interested in hearing any of my reasons it just wasn’t done I was disappointed and it made me want to know about this world more than ever so far I have a ton of these pieces that it’s just like them versus US them versus us and this like
Very cult-like mentality within correctional officers I mean I knew that going into this book but it’s just like I think being faced with all of the small little things every single page is just ridiculous and so early on in this book and and in his experience another thing that they’re learning in
The academy so there’s an instructor and he says so who can tell me how to do M8 CPR and nobody says anything and he says nobody she didn’t teach you that okay then I’ll teach you the instruct placed his boot on the chest of an imaginary prone inmate pumped five times then
Straightened up looked down blew five times loudly towards the floor and then repeated to titters then laughter can you imagine like kneeing CPR and then somebody just putting their boot on your chest and just stomping on you five times and then just five times and then being like good
Enough I mean granted we don’t use the mouth to mouth anymore more um but still like that’s treated like animals them versus US type of Ideal it’s taught literally in the academy oh and so oh this is another thing is I was telling people that if if you don’t know of the
Stanford Prison Experiment um it’s it’s really really interesting of just psychologically what people do when just given power just cuz there’s actually a movie there is a movie to give you an idea if you would prefer just to watch a story in a movie to give you an idea of
What this is it’s based off of the experiment um and it’s really interesting and I already knew I was like I am going to be really surprised if he doesn’t talk about that in here and he does um so that’s definitely another thing to look up if you are curious and
Lastly before man this is already going on so long I don’t even know how much I’m going to get through this this is going to be a long ass book Vlog I swear lastly for like prison culture of what you’re taught like in the academy and whatnot he’s listening to an instructor
Tell a story about how an inmate was smoking a cigarette and the co was like you can’t have that and the inmate was like just ignored him and the CEO reached over and just took the cigarette but then in response the inmate struck him on the head or broke his shoulder
Bone with his own Baton and punched him in the mouth and and you know there’s like all these different variations like there’s it’s this story of about the inmate and the cigarette and he keeps hearing it and he kept thinking about it and this is one of the things that I’ve
Always thought about of just like being in a position of a prison guard or an officer or like really just kind of in this position right of this hierarchy um with not only having a very intense group of people like prisoners like people are in prison
To deal with and to kind of just like keep at ease and try to keep it Bay um and hold your authority over them so that they respect you at least enough to you know not beat you or kill you but then you also have this like fraternity
Cult like mindset of this like Brotherhood of all of these other guards that expect you to also hold that up I’m having a hard time explaining this because it’s like yes they’re going to have your back and support you but not not in a healthy way I don’t know like
That that sounds so um like soft for what I’m trying to get at like you’re you’re stuck between this and he kind of articulates it correctly of like what are you supposed to do in such a situation the inmate a ticket for disobeying a direct order walk away and
Lose face in how many ways would my authority be challenged inside the prison and how would I react when it was and it’s like you have to really think about how you know like it just depends on how people are going to react and also like you have a reputation to hold
Up that’s the thing is like it’s it’s between all of your safety and the inmat safety the rules actual morals and your reputation like all of these things you have to somehow uphold as a prison guard or in this situation and that’s always been something that I feel like anybody
And everybody would struggle with but don’t really think about when they’re put like before they’re put in a situation like that I mean if they ever are uh so it will be really interesting to hear how Ted goes through that because it’s it’s inevitable that he’s going to have to deal with certain
Situations like this that’s where we’re at right now I’m going to try not to overload you with all of my notes but I just already know that this is going to be an incredibly thought-provoking book and I’m excited about it okay I should probably go teach Class good morning I am currently about a little over 100 pages in we’re finally getting to his shifts and just him learning about how the academy really doesn’t actually prepare you for anything because as I suspected all of the rules are not really enforced there it just
Depends on each officer so one officer could be incredibly strict and not allow you to even get close to breaking one of the rules whereas others are I guess I wouldn’t say friends with the inmates but friendly with the inmates and very lenient about what rules they are
Allowed to break but it depends on the inmate depends on the officer and so of course this goes into this whole like hierarchy and this power Dynamic of like well where do you lie because if you’re too lenient then you don’t have respect with your officers not lenient enough
You don’t have respect with the inmates so it’s like again you’re in this uh between this like rock and a hard place and you kind of have to battle yourself of do you fight for respect with the inmates or with your officers like how do you balance that because again
There’s not really there’s rules but they’re not really enforced at all the way that the academy teaches you that they should be and further there’s a note in here that I made that was so he’s basically needing to lock up all of these inmates after wreck and he’s
Asking them all to get in the cell so that he can lock them in a couple of them are kind of just you know taking their time they’re being really slow so he’s getting upset and he’s kind of trying to like hurry this along because
He has to get them all locked up at a certain time and so it says a group of three or four senior officers strolled by to my relief I was sure that they’d been sent to help me Usher the stragglers in but they had no such plan a couple of them glanced disapprovingly
At their watches and then at me they didn’t have to help so they weren’t going to thanks guys I muttered to myself this part was stood out to me because I said it’s interesting how there’s no teamwork and at least from what I know especially from knowing and
Growing up with a lot of people in the military and also you know like I had a lot of officers around me and a lot of people in that career and all of theems really hone in on teamwork you work as a unit you are all a unit and
You work as a team um and this I don’t know he didn’t really say in the academy that that was taught for CEOs here but if it’s anything like or similar to the othery I would assume that they do and I think that’s interesting because like there’s
This almost facade of brothers and blue brothers in Gray I guess here um that you just have each other’s backs right all the time but is that really true because these senior officers couldn’t give a [ __ ] about what he’s doing they are just more like oh new guy [ __ ] up
Of course instead of like going in and helping him and being senior officers so it’s I just think that that’s kind of interesting that they showed up and they didn’t didn’t have to help and they didn’t because they don’t want to and instead of being a unit this really
Hones in on that it’s less of a mentality of teamwork and being a unit and more the mentality of them versus US of like we’re not a team but I know that it’s them versus us so like if I had to choose it would be you over them type of
Deal it’s more of just the hierarchy and lesser of two evils essentially of what I’m what I’m kind of seeing like nobody nobody really gives a [ __ ] about each other obviously in this book um I just feel like they have it out for each other also like if it’s them versus us
If it’s work as a unit if it’s brothers and gray whatever why are we treating each other like [ __ ] gaining respect with your higher ups of treating the new people like [ __ ] I’m not sure but I’m about a third of the way in who knows
We’re only a Third Way in so we will see so this is the fit and also I bought lilac eyeliner and I feel like it’s I don’t hate it I want to go get a haircut with Frankie that’s okay Hair Frankie’s working we’re just going to get footage of Frankie working and me reading well that’s on camera too all that Panic W Okay so when I had my book Meetup smut salon right uh everybody else got about 50 to 150 pages in uh by the time I had finished it I just ate this book up because it was so fascinating I did need pallet cleansers in between like every
Chapter or so because some of the things that I was reading about was just unreal and medieval like terrible things anyway the group had a lot to say about the book only you know 100 pages in and we all had very similar takeaways and it was just interesting because we were able to
Apply a lot of these things that we saw in real life and other people that we know who are correctional officers or are of a adjacent form of work um or have had experience in prison I thoroughly overall really enjoyed this book B I don’t know if that’s the right
Word I think it was fascinating I think it was incredibly enlightening um and I just liked the way that it was written because it was from like a first person perspective um I really liked that Ted Conover had a lot of questions like throughout the whole
Entire book all like he was just very inquisitive and he was asking the questions that I think should be asked in those situations points out a lot of the interactions that he has with the other correctional off officers as well as the prisoners that both he got along
With and didn’t the thing that bothered me the most about this book was a it was a little dense in some points there’s a lot of like explanations about just the prison itself or just like history but then there are like pieces of history that are incredibly important and I’m
Really glad that he added in there because I had no idea about a lot of it like the Ninetales um whip left me speechless and is so un Godly angry when I was reading this book um but I do think it’s a really important topic and I think that
Inside look was really good another thing the thing that I think bothered me the Absolut most was he touched on transgender prisoners and misgendered them all the time um now I don’t I think this was more out of ignorance I don’t think that he was doing it out of like
Mili so that that irked me while I was reading those pieces however uh I feel like his interactions with the prisoners at least from his point of view cuz we don’t know the prisoners point of view um seemed respectful so I think that part kind of just like
Irritated me but I overall would suggest reading this I think if this is something that you’re curious about I mean honestly I think that this is just something that people should know about yeah it’s it’s I think it’s a really important topic to talk about especially
In the US so definitely pick this up like I said it’s only about 300 Pages it did take me a little longer to get through just because it was dense in some parts and also just parts of it just hard to read but uh fantastic book
In my opinion I think I will definitely keep this on my shelf it’s one of those that I think I’m just going to keep because I just really enjoyed it and like I said definitely read um the cultish book either before or after I think both of those books are fantastic
And will compliment each other really well um so that’s this that’s this book Vlog I hope that you enjoyed and it wasn’t just like wildly long for absolutely no reason I let me know if you liked the structure or if you have any suggestions of what you would like
To see next if I make another book Vlog as in like structure-wise because uh I don’t really know how these work so I hope that you enjoyed and as always thank you so much for watching best of luck be kind to each other and may your Gods treat you as you’ve treated others
Bye The
source
