Cell Count is a quarterly newspaper published by PASAN, an abolitionist organization that focuses on harm reduction and HIV/AIDS support, education, and advocacy for currently and formerly incarcerated people. Cell Count contains articles, art, poetry, and other works by current and former prisoners as a way of amplifying prisoner voices, highlighting the harms of prisons and jails, and creating pathways for solidarity between those who have been incarcerated and those who have not.
In this article republished from Cell Count Issue #108, “Z” writes about his experience trying to get and keep an electric guitar while the prison officers try everything they can to take it away from him—and what this experience can teach us about having empathy for drug users in jails and prisons.
“Fool Me Once…”
Greetings,
A few years back, in the summer of 2023, I was awarded about $5500 because I was put in administrative segregation. It was a lot of money for an indeterminately sentenced offender who earned about $6 for a day’s work. The old adage about fools and their money is just as real inside as it is out there and so many of us were itching to spend. Many fellas in my circle jumped on the opportunity to buy drugs… it’s a pretty good method to dull the effects of boredom, hopelessness, marginalization, oppression, and demons. I recall shaking my head derisively when my peers spent their awards on shatter, hash, tobacco, or whatever their “jones” demanded. In pursuit of transparency, I wasn’t very derisive with them when they offered to share their spoils with me.
I myself chose a different “jones.” For the 10 years I’d been in (on this bit) I had been trying to get authorization to have, as my own personal property, an electric guitar and some accessories to go with it. For most of my life, both when I was inside and outside the joint, a guitar was in my life: it is way better than drugs to battle many of my demons. Through it I found connection to my heritage, to my community about me, and in some small way… to a future. That last one is huge for those of us Indigenous people who have been declared Dangerous. It seemed like a good idea because around the same time, [Correctional Service Canada (CSC) Commissioner] Anne Kelly put out one of her “Message from the Commissioner” pamphlets declaring the positive impacts of playing a musical instrument, how it was part of Correctional Programming, and that all inmates could have one sent in.
I obtained permission to have an electric guitar and some related accessories sent in. Many people on my Case Management Team (CMT) were pretty excited about it and helped me find a quality guitar that would meet my skill level and music pursuits. I spent about $2000 of my segregation award to have a Paul Reid Smith SE McCarty and some accessories shipped in. I was appreciative of the efforts of my CMT… this bridge of interaction even helped resolve some difficulties in our day-to-day adversity.
I was a little frustrated when my new property arrived because the CSC staff responsible for my personal property refused to give me some of the accessories they’d previously approved… however, I had a brand-spanking new guitar and that was fine by me. I played every day… I’d start at 6:30 and stop at 23:00. I put a few bands together and I took the time to share my 40 years of music experience with many of my peers… kids just entering the pen and some ol’ dogs who’ll never see freedom again. I learned some Québécois music and discovered some cultural ideals of French Canada. I helped my peers learn to read music and I badgered fellas to pick up the microphone, sing the songs they loved and come out of their shells. We weren’t smoking drugs or isolating in our cells or developing a (justified) distrust of CSC… we were developing those skills that CSC itself claims to be productive towards successful reintegration. For a moment… I felt hope… the most dangerous thing in here. Fool me once.
About 30 days after I received my electric guitar Anne Kelly declared all electric guitars to be unauthorized personal property. She declared steel guitar strings are prohibited. My guitar now sits collecting dust in the Personal Effects Department as it has been seized. The Warden says I can have it if I use nylon strings on it… rendering the “electric” completely inoperable. The PRS McCarty cannot support nylon strings… they’d make no sound were it even possible to physically string them in the first place.
Shortly before Ms. Kelly’s message my mom decided she’d had enough of this life and checked out. I have no family, friends, or otherwise to ship my seized property to and it just so happens the CSC’s policy says my guitar gets “forfeited to the Crown.” This means, if you’ve never been inside a joint or in local proximity to one, that my guitar will either end up in a guard’s home or a local pawn shop (owned by guards’ families) or some similar disposition. Take a walk through a prison and see how many Bose stereos and RCA televisions occupy the lounges of CSC staff and how many of those electronics bear the name of inmates on tamper-proof stickers.
$2000 awarded to address the impact of carceral treatment identified as cruel… gone. Forget that CSC policy says that an item, once authorized, remains in the possession of an inmate until that inmate is released. Forget that, according to CSC’s own Data Warehouse statistics, CSC staff have been responsible for more unjustified harm than steel guitar strings by a factor of just under 1000. Forget the proactive social interaction, development of relationships between peers and CSC staff or the plethora of positive impacts purported in Anne Kelly’s own proclamation. What matters to CSC is that their staff members don’t get poked by a guitar string when they search or that an inmate has one less thing (of many) to utilize as a choking device.
Consider for a moment some of the following materials that are approved, items documented in incident reports in strangling events: cable cords*, electric extension cords, headphone cables, bathrobe cinches, and shoestrings*; items documented in incident reports in “poking events”: staples*, sewing needles*, butter knives*, syringes*, picture frames, chisels*, ‘Exacto’ blades*, drill bits*, and pencils. I can also provide listings for bludgeoning events, chemical assaults, escape events… unfortunately, it is a waste of time because common sense or reasonability are not considerations within the scope of Correctional Service Canada’s approach to Threat-Risk-Assessments whereas union placation, as a knee-jerk response, tops CSC’s concerns.
I want you to know why I spend what little money I have on drugs now. I want you to know why I don’t have any trust in CSC or, for that matter, Canada. I hope this example (of many possible examples) demonstrates how the vengeance you seek is accomplished. I didn’t tell you about CSC guards assaulting Carl Hines before his death outside my cell. Or about a CSC staff running my deceased father’s eagle feathers through a paper shredder just before he wiped his ass with them and then threw them in my face. Or being held in a cell for years at a time for 22+ hours per day and so very much more… Assaults, double doors, property destruction (deliberate, that is), falsified reporting, food napping, cultural repression… On and on.
I’ve apologized to those fellas who spent their segregation awards on drugs… at least they’ve gotten what they paid for. I won’t make the same mistake again. You won’t fool me twice.
Z
*Issued or provided by CSC
Learn more about Cell Count and browse back issues at pasan.org/cell-count.
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