Prison Myth No.

2: “You Have to Be a Team

Player!”

December 25, 2009

As I write this article, it is 9:45 am, Christmas Day. I have been a team
player in the give and take of gifts and good wishes. The game is over; team
members are dispersing; it is time for reflection until the next group meeting
in a couple of hours.
Who were the great team players in human history? Certainly not
Gandhi, the author of non-violent protest; not Jesus of Nazareth, who refused
a coronation by His followers; not Galileo, who was tried and convicted of
heresy against his church for daring to suggest that the sun did not revolve
around the earth. Nor was Martin Luther a team player. He was tried,
convicted and condemned to death (never carried out) for valuing truth over
tradition. His name-sake, King, Jr., was assassinated for daring to challenge
long-held traditions of bigotry and hate covered with a veneer of religious
conviction.
There don’t seem to be many, if any, team players who have been
associated with change, success or victory. The exception is basketball,
where kudos are given to the player who passes off rather than takes the
low-percentage shot outside the circle – provided the team wins, of course.
Basketball, however, is a very public game, which distinguishes it from
prison.
Maine State Prison is anything but a public game. The taxpayer has
every interest in applauding team players at MSP – staff and prisoners alike.
Who wants to be reminded of our failures? Nestled in the midst of 1,100
acres of farmland outside the beaten path of US Rte. 1, MSP is a monument
to law and order, housing within its razor wire barriers 1,000 men serving out
their sentences for anti-social behavior – failing to be team players.
Within its walls, however, is a bee hive of activity – moving paper from
one department to another and logging nearly every 15-minute segment of

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the day. It is the quintessential example of a team committed to a process
of tamping down anything that fails to fit comfortably within the boundaries
set by 200 years of human warehousing unless mandated by a court order.
Needless to say, low-percentage shots outside the circle are
systematically blocked at MSP.
Initial interviews of the new warden, Patricia Barnhart, from Michigan,
have highlighted team building as the strength she brings to the job. In the
past, team building from the Commissioner on down has placed a premium
on the three-monkey defense – “see no evil; hear no evil; speak no evil.” We
can only hope that Warden Barnhart, while working on staff morale, will not
herself become a typical Corrections Department team player at a time when
cracks are beginning to appear in the three-monkey defense.
A long history of team players has held MSP culture to a 19th Century
prison model within a 21st Century shell. I am reminded of the past history of
religious convents, benign on the outside but seething with conflict and
denial within. Bring to the attention of a Deputy Warden violations of
security and medical care, and you are likely to receive in return a policy
manual or an unpleasant private meeting with the Warden.
The death of prisoner Sheldon Weinstein was a watershed moment for
team players at the Department. Having died unattended in solitary
confinement 4 days after an assault, there was no way for team players to
circle the wagons. The best they could do would be to gently move aside
Warden Jeff Merrill, who now serves as a traveling consultant to the
Department on such matters as energy and prison industries, and discipline
less than a handful of security people at the bottom of the food chain.
The recent death of prisoner Victor Valdez, while preceded by
discomforting circumstances, was not unattended and therefore falls under
efficient team player dispatch.
As I reflect on these events, even the Attorney General’s Office
struggles with the team player syndrome, knowing that the minute they get
an indictment against the inmates who assaulted Prisoner Weinstein that

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fails to implicate staff as accessory before or after the fact, they open a can
of worms. That, along with what will prove to be a very public lawsuit by
Weinstein’s widow, should blow the team cover sky high. Stay tuned!
So, what is a team player in a prison? Is it someone who ignores what
is wrong in the interest of promoting what they perceive as the greater
good? Do Chaplains ignore violations of human rights because of the greater
good of contributing to the spiritual welfare of prisoners? Does the
Education Department turn a blind eye to physical abuse by security so long
as they are teaching illiterate inmates how to read? Is it about putting
window dressing on training programs mandated by the federal government
without accountability from those being trained?
So long as team players commit to circling the wagons at every crisis
and keeping the media at arm’s length, MSP will retain its history of 19th
Century culture in a 21st Century box, regardless of how many tongue-in-
cheek memos are sent from the Commissioner’s Office encouraging
reporting of violations.
The Department of Corrections has many capable, devoted and
committed employees. They have, however, been muzzled, creating the
appearance of teamwork without the innovating tactics of a winning team.
Team membership trumps a strategy of success. There is, trapped under the
surface, a chafing at the restraint on creativity and reform. It pervades
throughout the system and will prevent the Department from forging success
out of society’s failures in its keeping.
Being a team player does indeed require ignoring nonessentials in
favor of the greater good. Human rights and dignity, however, are not, as we
learned at the Nuremburg Trials, nonessentials. Neither is “greater good”
about keeping a lid of secrecy on operations. Being a team player requires
another ingredient – courage. Courage to offer innovative ideas; courage to
speak out against abuse; courage to strive for a system that will not wilt
under public scrutiny; courage to turn sound bites into viable programs;

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courage to admit when you are wrong – those are just some of the necessary
qualities of being a team player.
We wish the new warden well. There are, however, elements of her
hiring that show signs of pouring new wine into old wineskins, destined to
crack and leak. The question remains, “Will she be willing to risk her job in
pursuit of what is decent and right?”