Once I stepped from the ordinary parking lot into the cold, brick building which contained the “R&D” department, I was officially a Federal inmate.  I believe R&D stands for Reception and Diagnostics, but in effect in is the department which handles the initial intake, release, and transfer of inmates.  In some facilities this can be a very complicated process, including housing an inmate in a segregated facility for up to 30 days as a form of “quarantine”.  Fortunately for me, the process at Allenwood was generally much simpler.

The two R&D officers who were there to process me could have been brothers or cousins, based on looks and attitude.  Each of them was terribly overweight, almost apple-shaped, with grey hair and moustaches.  And they both carried a sarcastic, arrogant sense of humor which might have intimidated some people.  I didn’t find their attitude being a problem for myself, though, since my personal sense of humor was very similar.  But that wasn’t about to give me the idea that I could mouth off to either of them.  On the contrary, my Dad’s advice stayed in the back of my mind at all times: behave yourself.  I was still pretty much numb to the entire experience anyway, so my mind wasn’t quite as sharp as it would normally be.

In this room I learned my first lesson about the CO’s I was going to be dealing with for the next few years: they size you up very quickly, and it takes some time to do anything to contradict that first impression.  In my case, they saw I was nervous, compliant, respectful, but not in a patronizing way.  I simply treated them the way I wanted to be treated, and it seemed to work.

As they had me filling out a few forms, one of them started in on me with an aggressive attitude, which I
suspected was simply a front.  “Why they hell are you here at noon?  We don’t normally like to process new arrivals until two.  You’re screwing our schedule up!”

I could have apologized, but instead I looked him in the eye and calmly told him the truth.  “Well, when I called here for driving directions a few days ago, whoever I spoke to told me I had beet show up early, because if I made them stay late they’d beat the shit out of me.”

The other R&D CO laughed.  “Yup, that sounds like something you’d say!”

He just laughed.  “Yeah I think I remember that conversation.  Okay, let’s get through this, it’s no big deal.”

Surprisingly, he was right.  The process was very simple.  I filled out a few forms, gave them the cash I had on hand (about $150, which was deposited in my inmate account for future use), and had fingerprints and a photo taken (the latter was for my inmate ID card).  Then I stripped, and collected my clothes in a plastic bag.  These were carried out to my Dad so he could take them home with him, along with my watch and my Driver’s License.  They checked for contraband, having me open my mouth, lift my legs one at a time to reveal the soles of my feet, and spread my ass cheeks.  Finally they gave me some terribly worn clothes: a blue t-shirt, a pair of whitish socks, brown pants with a drawstring, worn white briefs, and a pair of slip-on blue sneakers.  They also handed me a bedroll and a worn brown coat.  That was basically it…the two CO’s pointed me in the direction to go, told me to look for someone in charge, and sent me off with a simple statement: “We don’t want to see you down here again until it’s time for you to go home.”  I didn’t have the experience to really understand what they meant, but I correctly surmised that if I got in any kind of serious trouble I’d be sent back to R&D someday.  As I learned later, before being transferred to a higher-security facility or to the “hole” (the SHU – Special Housing Unit or Segregated House Unit) I’d have to be processed by these two gentlemen.  So the vague warning they gave me was meant for my own good…and for theirs, since the fewer people they had to process the less work there was for them to do.

That last item turned out to be a very common motivating factor among the staff; if they could find a way to avoid work, they would.  That wasn’t necessarily a negative for the inmates either; it worked both ways, depending on what kind of work you might be dealing with at the time.  One thing was for certain – if a CO was going to do a lot of work because of you, either you’d really pissed them off, or you were about to.

(Watch for Part Two sometime in the next week or so).