Bring Me the Money

This is a lighter tale, at least I hope...

About 12-13 years ago while I was still working as a corrections deputy for my local sheriff's office, I had what I considered as an amusing situation arise. Our jail is fairly modern having been completed and opened in 1995. It's a direct control facility which basically means there was one officer such as myself in a unit with up to 60 inmates. We rotate duty positions about once a week and I was working a general population unit. Now the week before I had been assigned to one of the "rover" positions, where we were expected to help out where and as needed in the units.

There was a situation developing in the unit I was assigned this latest week that I was aware of the week before. One of the young men in the unit was getting bad news during visiting and was acting out a bit because of it. This fellow was a sad sack, not even 22 yet and on his third bust for dealing marijuana. He had finally figured out that the reason he kept getting busted was because his supplier was ratting him out as a paid informant to keep himself out on the street. It is a common scheme, lower level supplier sets up several dealers to move his product. Then when his number comes up he rats out his own people to stay out of jail and usually gets paid for it. Anyhow, the kid was bummed about that.

What really had him going was the 6 months he had left to do and what his fiancé was doing while he was locked up. Seems she cheated on sad sack (ss) with his best friend since grade school, felt guilty and confessed it to ss. Then a few days later she told him she had gotten drunk and spent the night in his older brother's bed. Then another friend, then ss' cousin.

He was raging in the unit. Trying to keep his voice down but I could clearly hear him saying that when he got out he was going to "kill the bitch". I invited myself to a seat at the table he was sitting at. I told him I could see he was wound up and that I'd rather he calmed down before we had to put him in segregation. I asked what was going on and he dumped the whole story on me. So I asked a few questions.

Do you want to keep her? Yes he wanted her, couldn't comprehend not having her.

Would her friends and family approve of her behavior? Oh hell no.

Are the guys who are supposed to be your family and friends in exclusive relationships themselves? All but the cousin.

My advice to ss...

Send letters or make calls to the significant others of his friends and family and make them aware of what was happening.

The next time she showed up to visit and to clear her guilt tell her "bitch, if you are going to act like a whore at least bring me the money."

Now there was visiting that day. It would start in just under 2 hours. Ss was very industrious, he managed to get all the significant others on the phone before his girl showed up. When she did, you could hear him plain as day yelling "bring me the money!", he felt much better afterwards.

There were repercussions for me though. The visiting officer called my unit to ask what I had told ss to say cause the girl friend ran out of the place bawling. Before the end of visiting there were several angry visitors for ss, all pissy because he outed their stepping out with ss' girl. Even ss' parents showed up upset cause ss had caused some serious issues in his older brother's marriage. There was enough hue and cry that the jail administrator had me in her office explaining "just what the fuck" I thought I was doing.

I just smiled at her and said "I was using interpersonal communication skills to calm an agitated inmate down and help resolve some of the issues causing him agitation. Just like that additional training you required for me. Besides, Robin, don't you know the truth shall set you free?" By the way it was always easy to tell when Robin was lying, it was when her lips were moving.

Ah the happy ending, ss kept his girl. The story got out to her friends and family and they took her to task for being a slut. Several relationships crumbled, including the older brother's marriage. Seems it was ok for him to step out but his "loving wife" not so much. Seems she had gotten busy with several of his friends while he was out of town, every time he was out of town. The cousin brought ss a hundred bucks, told him he thought he should pay the pimp. 8 months later the cousin was featured on the nightly news as having disappeared. Go figure.

The inmates all seemed to think what I did was clever, it stopped the whoring, evened some scores and helped maintain the balance.