NewJack: Guarding Sing Sing: Chapter 3

by Ted Conover
In this nonfiction account, a journalist applies for a job as a corrections officer and explores conditions in one of America's most dangerous prisons.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7–Epilogue
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words only definitions & notes
  1. probation
    a trial period during which one's abilities are tested
    Here began the four weeks of on-the-job-training (OJT) that would qualify us to become regular officers (though, technically, we would continue on probation for a full year).
    Within the penal system, probation can also be "a trial period when an offender has time to redeem himself" or "a way of dealing with offenders without imprisoning them." In the example sentence, the new officers are working for the penal system; during their probation, their characters and abilities will be tested by offenders whose crimes are too serious for probation.
  2. furnish
    give something useful or necessary to
    Many of us, depending on our post, would be furnished with radios equipped with special “emergency pins.”
  3. primer
    an introductory textbook
    The film, starring state COs, was a primer on how not to let inmates manipulate you for their own ends and make a fool or a criminal out of you.
  4. subservient
    compliant and obedient to authority
    This wasn’t like the small group of subservient workers we’d known at the Academy or the double-file inmates from the roomier halls of Coxsackie.
  5. detachment
    a small unit of troops of special composition
    Even these hardened inmates, who so outnumbered us, were intimidated by a large detachment of officers.
    Another meaning of the noun is "avoiding emotional attachment." This does not apply to the example sentence, but it can be seen in one of the warnings about the job: "Don’t confide in an inmate about your personal life."
  6. orientation
    a course introducing a new situation or environment
    Old Sparky, the electric chair, had been removed to a museum in Virginia; Death Row, converted into an orientation classroom.
  7. debrief
    elicit a report from someone about a mission, job, or event
    But in the debriefing by Lieutenant Wilkin, the focus was on how chaotic it was, how so many of the rules weren’t respected.
  8. minutia
    a small or minor detail
    There were ninety-nine guidelines, all of which we had to memorize, governing the minutiae of inmate life.
  9. preposterous
    inviting ridicule
    But the idea of not talking to them here was so preposterous to him that he had a hard time grasping the concept.
  10. tantamount
    being essentially equal to something
    We’d been taught that worrying about inmates’ concerns was tantamount to pandering, that it almost demeaned an officer.
    The officers were taught that worrying about inmates is the same as giving them power or satisfaction ("pandering" also has a sexual connotation that's similar to pimping). The use of the adjective "tantamount" has an exaggerated tone that suggests the author does not agree with this view. Rather, he thinks the attitude of "us vs. them" demeans ("reduce in worth or character") both the officers and the inmates.
  11. anecdote
    short account of an incident
    Our heads were filled with rules and anecdotes, but we lacked any real knowledge of how to perform the job that was ours as of today.
  12. certify
    authorize officially
    Our main problem, it seemed to me, was that the state had certified us as lion tamers before ever leaving us alone in a cage with a lion.
  13. appropriate
    suitable for a particular person, place, or situation
    On our tour and during the twenty-five minutes or so I’d been in B-block, I’d heard officers yelling a line that seemed appropriate to a situation like this, so I started: “Gentlemen, step in, please! Step into your cells.”
  14. bamboozle
    conceal one's true motives from
    He’d either bamboozled me or had a little fun, neither of which was the outcome I’d hoped for.
  15. ignorance
    the lack of knowledge or education
    You were never supposed to betray your ignorance to inmates.
  16. patronizing
    characteristic of those who treat others with arrogance
    “When you get a visit, you automatically get a shower,” he said in a patronizing tone.
    The Latin "patronus" means "defender, protector, former master of a freed slave." This led to the positive meanings of "patronize" that connect to being a regular sponsor or customer. But the negative meaning of the participial adjective comes from too much pride in one's power over another. In the example sentence, the patronizing tone is coming from an inmate who is looking down on a new officer who doesn't know all the rules.
  17. manage
    be successful; achieve a goal
    In the next ten minutes, I managed to anger or amuse most of them, or so it seemed, by trying to enforce my hopelessly outdated porter list.
    The chosen definition emphasizes an ironic tone, since the example sentence describes results that show the author failing as a new correction officer. The verb also means "be in charge of" or "watch and direct" or "handle effectively"--none of which the author manages to do with the inmates.
  18. compel
    force somebody to do something
    Fay and I weren’t coming close to making the inmates do what they were supposed to do, and I was uncertain about whether I should use my power to compel them.
  19. intransigent
    impervious to pleas, persuasion, requests, or reason
    If I understood the talk, an officer could “mistakenly” deadlock the cell of an intransigent inmate just long enough to make him miss his morning or afternoon recreation.
  20. despair
    the feeling that nothing will turn out well
    Before my despair could deepen, the OIC started calling the program runs over the PA system—chapel run, school run, commissary run, State Shop run.
  21. humiliation
    state of disgrace or loss of self-respect
    Since my inmates would soon be leaving, there was no longer any point in trying to clear the galleries, which was both a humiliation and a relief.
  22. modicum
    a small or moderate or token amount
    I was relieved to see an officer command a modicum of respect and wanted Konoval to stick around, despite his tsk-ing over housekeeping.
  23. excruciating
    extremely painful
    Still reeling from my experience on the gallery, I was mainly relieved to have some downtime, but the others were on edge and found the lack of activity excruciating.
  24. parlance
    a manner of speaking natural to a language's native speakers
    This was Nuts and Butts, in officer parlance, a very specific procedure that had to be followed to the letter.
  25. reflexive
    without volition or conscious control
    Still, regular officers reflexively blamed OJTs when there was a screwup, and often they were right.
  26. underscore
    give extra weight to
    Before our shift the next day, the training officer underscored the seriousness of what had happened and said that the injured inmate was very likely to sue the Department.
    The verb literally means to "draw a line or lines underneath to call attention to." But the example sentence uses it figuratively, because the training officer is verbally addressing the OJTs to emphasize the importance of knowing whom to lock and unlock.
  27. reckoning
    a personal belief that is not founded on proof or certainty
    When to lock and when to unlock was, by one reckoning, what we were here to learn.
  28. cardinal
    serving as an essential component
    The cardinal sin, the one thing you were never, ever to do, was lose your keys.
    The use of the phrase "cardinal sin" is a humorous exaggeration. In the outside world, losing one's keys is not usually comparable to a deadly sin that can destroy the grace and charity within a person. But in Sing Sing, where many of the locks are opened with the same key, a lost key that falls into the hands of an inmate can result in more opportunities to commit acts of anger, pride, envy, lust, sloth, gluttony or greed.
  29. agony
    intense feelings of suffering; acute mental or physical pain
    In no case was I to follow the responding red-dot officers upstairs—even if my best friend worked up there, even if I heard officers screaming out in agony—because control over the gate was essential to the block’s security.
  30. adequacy
    the quality of being sufficient for the end in view
    He left me to my thoughts, which mainly concerned my own adequacy.
    Compare this noun with the adjective "competent" in this list. In Latin, "ad" means "to" and "aequare" means "make equal." Here, the author questions whether he is equal to the job. The Latin "competere" originally meant "to come together, agree, be qualified" and evolved to include a sense of competition. This can be seen in the example sentence where the author's self-doubt expands to question whether anyone can be equal to the job.
  31. repercussion
    a remote or indirect consequence of some action
    There would be no official repercussions—no sergeant had seen what happened, and Orrico hadn’t turned me in.
  32. chastise
    scold or criticize severely
    Our training officer was angry, and during the regular lineup we were chastised by a lieutenant.
  33. competent
    properly or sufficiently qualified, capable, or efficient
    I wasn’t sure it was even possible to be a truly competent gallery officer.
  34. maintain
    have and exercise
    Last, it seemed to me that Smith succeeded because he viewed the inmates as human beings and was able to maintain a sense of humor in the face of the stress of prison life—traits that are two sides of the same coin.
  35. stature
    high level of respect gained by impressive achievement
    Smith, in a gesture that I would later realize earned him stature among inmates and yet accomplished his goal of discipline, would let them back out for rec if he felt he’d made his point.
    The noun can also refer to physical height, which does not apply to the example sentence. But the author's descriptions suggest that Smith is a big man who can make his points through harsher, less flexible ways, but because he chooses not to, his social stature is equal to his physical stature.
  36. flexible
    making or willing to make concessions
    In a profession that placed a high value on control, that made sense, but I also could see how, in a case like Smith’s, permissiveness was a charge that a stupid and unimaginative CO might level against one who was effectively flexible.
  37. heresy
    beliefs that are different from the official or approved ones
    I raised an eyebrow at what would have been considered heresy in the Academy—we’re going to listen to an inmate’s thoughts on how we should do our job?
  38. egotistical
    having an inflated idea of one's own importance
    Smith said the trick was to be firm without being nasty or egotistical.
  39. determine
    shape or influence; give direction to
    What he seemed to understand was that at the root of the job was the inevitability of a kind of relationship between us and them—and that the officer played a larger role in determining the nature of that relationship.
  40. investiture
    the ceremonial promotion of a person to an office or rank
    Now, however, we were at the ceremonial crossroads between our infantilization and our investiture with life-and-death powers.
Created on Tue Mar 31 15:23:43 EDT 2015 (updated Mon Oct 01 15:13:14 EDT 2018)

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