What Happened In Prison - Part I: "The Punk"

After I was “voted out” of the Western State Hospital Sexual Psychopath Treatment Program, my 20 year prison sentence suspension was revoked. At the very tender age of 19 I was sent to prison.
While I was still in the county jail I learned the hard way that I needed to invent a story for why I was sentenced to prison. Rape was not a very popular crime, especially if it involved a child. The weak minded inmates (typical bullies) of course needed to make themselves feel better than someone, and society already made the rapists and child molesters easy scapegoats. So I made up a story about a “burglary that went bad” and became a first degree assault. Because of my age, the length of my sentence (a rapist typically only served 3 to 5 years on a first offense in those days), and the convincing details of my story, no one ever questioned it, or asked to see paperwork.
I was classified for population at the Washington Corrections Center (WCC) in Shelton. When I arrived I still did not know how much time I would be spending in prison. The judge only set the maximum term (20 years). But the parole board set the minimum term, which would determine your length of stay until you were eligible for parole.
Because this was my first offense as an adult, I expected to get 5 years at the most. That would make me eligible for parole after about one year in prison since I would ger credit for time served in jail and at the state hospital. All I had to do was hold my breath; the nightmare would be over quickly.
Or so I thought.
It turned out that the political environment concerning “sex offenders” was heating up. A small boy had been sexually mutilated by an x-mental-patient. The boy's mother was determined to get “justice” by punishing all child molesters severely, especially “homosexual” child molesters. I guess that meant me.
The parole board also had a letter that the therapist from the treatment program had written to the judge. I had no idea at the time that they could do that, so I made no effort to defend myself or contradict the numerous lies that the therapist had written about me. The therapist was one, Gary “Mike” Shepherd, and he had attempted to use his position of control over my treatment to coerce my mother into having sex with him. He was the reason I quit the program and decided to take my chances in prison. The incident with my mother was fully reported to the treatment program officials. Shepherd denied everything, of course, and accused me (in cohorts with my mother) of being manipulative and rebellious against the treatment program.
When the parole board took Shepherd's letter and the political circumstances into consideration, they came up with a minimum term of fifteen and a half years! That was five times over the expected range (of 3 years) and it meant that I would have to serve at least eight more years before even being eligible for parole!
Needless to say, I was shocked, severely! I lost part of my vision (literally tunnelvision) for some time after receiving the news. How could I possibly survive that long in prison? The worst I had expected was one more year! I was barely keeping my head above water as it was! And now...
A man in the cell next to me in the county jail had told me that because of my looks and my “attitude” (naive and immature to say the least) that I would be raped, and probably even killed, in prison. He claimed to speak from experience, and he predicted that I would “not last a year”. After getting 186 months from the parole board his prophecy haunted me.
I did get raped, of course, many times. And once I was attacked by a whole gang of black men (six at one time) who scared me so bad that I screamed with a loud high pitched shrill voice, exactly like the “punk” I was, “No! Please no! Help! No! Please stop!” the entire time. They didn't actually rape me. They just beat me to the floor, and then, of course, one of them “came to my rescue”. All he wanted in exchange was a small favor; a sexual favor. And then another, and another... each time threatening to “unleash” his friends if he didn't get what he wanted.
I went to the guards and told them I wanted to be moved to “protective custody” because I was being “pressured for sex”. The guards told me that unless I gave them a name they would not move me. I was too scared of the men who were raping me to give up their names. They told me if I ever did that they would kill me, even in protective custody. The “prophecy” from jail seemed to be coming true, so I kept my mouth shut.
I started taking classes to get my highschool diploma. I was safe in the school building, where the inmates who were raping me never set foot. I learned to like school, a lot. I became an almost straight - “A” student. Before leaving Shelton I had finished two years of highschool and got my diploma.
(Incidentally: They don't teach highschool in Washington state prisons any more. The best you can get is a G.E.D., so I was lucky.)
I spent my time in the living unit playing “Dungeons and Dragons” with other “kids” who were being “punked out” (pressured for sex) too. There was a little protection by staying in a group, but not much. Once several men came into my cell while “Junior” was visiting with me. I watched helplessly as they wrestled him down, pulled down his pants and put several of my personal art pencils into his rectum. They were laughing and joking the whole time. After they left, Junior curled up in a corner next to the locker in my cell and wouldn't talk to anyone. I wanted to help him so badly, but I didn't know how. (I find myself holding back tears even now as I remember this) I felt so desperately and painfully powerless.
When they put double-bunks in all the cells at Shelton I ended up moving in with Junior. It was convenient for the men who were pressuring us to have us both in one cell.
I tried everything I could think of to get out of being raped. I even asked my “classification counselor” if I could be transferred to the new sex offender treatment program at the Twin Rivers Corrections Center (TRCC) in Monroe. He told me that I had too much time left on my sentence to be eligible for the program. It was only for people who were close to getting out of prison.
I also studied religion, and hung out with the Christian inmates for awhile, until one of them raped me. I took correspondence Bible study courses, and became very familiar with the “religion” bookshelf in the prison library. I was looking for answers, but wasn't finding any. I finally said a prayer to God that went something like this:
“God, I don't know if you are real or not. But I can't find any evidence at all that you exist. I have prayed and prayed for help, but so far the only help I have ever gotten has come from myself. So I'm going to go my own way for now. I pray that if this is a mistake that you will bring me back. Amen.”
That was the last time I prayed or even acknowledged God for many years. “My own way” was to educate myself, and to start sticking up for myself. Which I did. I can still remember the first real sense of power I got from seeing the look of surprize on inmate Guzman's face when I picked up a mop wringer to use as a weapon when he started picking a fight with me on the tier. Guzman had once beat me up just to steal my Timex watch that was a gift from my grandmother she gave one just like it to my brother too, one of the very few sentimental items I owned. I made him beat me up in order to take the watch but I didn't fight back. This time I was clearly going to fight back and Guzman backed down immediately. I learned a new lesson that day about bullies. They really are cowards.
My victory did not last long though, before those six black men put me “back in my place”. But I wasn't ready to give up so easy.
After two years of being beat-up and raped I figured a way out. I gave the guards the name of a black inmate who I knew would not try to kill me. But neither had he ever assaulted me. So after they took him to the “hole” and me to PC (protective custody), I sent a letter to the prison disciplinary officials (who were going to punish the black inmate for pressuring me based on my statement alone) and I told them that I had lied in order to get put in PC.
It worked. The black inmate got released from the “hole”, and after six months in PC (segregation), I got transferred to McNeil Island Corrections Center (MICC). At McNeil nobody knew me. And, I was older and better able to defend myself against other inmates. The rapes stopped, and a new chapter in my nightmare began.
(To be continued...)