A note from Pam Bailey: I asked members of our network for books they have read in prison that shaped their lives. This is Zachary’s response:
A book that shaped my life during my incarceration was “Taming The Tiger Within.” But it wasn’t so much the contents of the book that shaped me, but how I acquired it…
In 2021, I found myself in the SHU of FCI El Reno because I was having an issue with my cell mate on the yard. I went to my unit team to ask for a move and they basically told me they didn’t care. After three days of asking, I finally said, “Are you telling me the only way to get a move around here is to crack my cell mate’s head open?” In all honesty, it was a genuine question. Some people just aren’t compatible.It wasn’t working out and it was coming to a boiling point. What does a man have to do? But I was new to the BOP and had yet to realize that these people truly don’t care about us. At all.
So, I found myself in the SHU and realized further just how little these people care. Hell, in the SHU, If you had a problem with your cellie, the lieutenant told you, “You got three options: Fuck. Fight. Or figure it out.” Luckily, I had a good cellie. Anyway, one day I heard some commotion on the range and several people yelling, “Dr. Prince! Dr. Prince!” Usually, this indicates that the jackers (men who masturbate when they see women who work in the BOP) need to get their dicks in their hands so they don’t miss “gettin’ them.” But I also heard my buddy Aaron yelling for her and I knew he wasn’t into that kind of shit. So, I checked out the scene and I saw this short, blonde woman on the range engaging with inmates. As I observed her, I noticed something else. Something out of place from what I had come to know about prison staff.
Typically, when a CO talks to someone at the door in the SHU, they avoid eye contact and check their watch. After every sentence, they try to end the conversation and move on. They only stay if you’re fast enough to get your words out to keep the dialogue alive, Or they just kill the whole thing with, “I’ll look into it” and burn off without even writing your name down. But as I watched Dr. Prince, I saw something different.. I saw a person who cared about what we talked about. A person who engaged in the conversation and actually gave advice on the topic at hand. She even offered guidance on how we could potentially beat our shots. She was upfront and honest and didn’t blow smoke. I instantly liked her.
As she made her way down the range, I immediately noticed that she was very popular. Despite being stopped by men in virtually every cell, she never avoided responding. She never dismissed grievances or questions as frivolous. She gave every single person on the range the same attention and the same respect, regardless of what absurdities they spouted. And believe me, 95% of the BOP population are complete morons.
When Dr. Prince finally got to my door, she stopped and asked me how I was. I just smiled and shook my head as I asked, “Who are you?”
She made a comical bow and answered, “I am just a healer, here to heal. How can I help you?” (Dr. Prince, as it turned out, is a psychologist, as well as the coordinator of the BRAVE unit for young first-timers.)
We spoke for several minutes. I gave her a rundown of my situation and let her read my shot. She agreed I didn’t threaten anyone. I merely asked a question. I had exhausted the grievance channels and did everything I was supposed to do. I’d told the unit team several times about the issue with my cellie: the lieutenant, captain, hell even my boss at Unicor. But they just brushed it off. Dr. Prince talked me through that line of defense, which is almost unheard of with BOP staff. And her coaching helped me get the shot expunged.
I also told Dr. Prince why I was in prison. In the course of this conversation, I must have came across as an angry person, which is not wrong. I had/have been in more altercations than I can count. My history is littered with violence. And while we spoke, the duces went off (an alert to violence on the compound). And as abruptly as she appeared on the range, Dr. Prince was gone. In my experience, once staff leaves, they usually don’t come back. So I shrugged it off and went about my routine.
Maybe 30 minutes later, as I was doing some squats, I heard a knock on my door and saw Dr. Prince standing outside my window, arms full of books. I walked over to the door and she flashed a book at me, dropped it to the floor and kicked it under the door into my cell.. I picked it up and saw it was called “Taming the Tiger Within.”
The book is simple. Every page has a mantra on it — a meditation type thing. It didn’t alter my life. But what did was Dr. Prince. She CAME BACK. Staff never come back. They don’t come back because they don’t care.. But she did. Ninety-nine percent of the cops here don’t give two shits about us. But there is at least one who does. There is one who will go out of her way to come back and do what little she can to try to make a difference for us. And that made all the difference in the world to me.
Dr. Prince cared enough to come back. So I care enough to remember that people like that do exist in this system.
