The Boston Phoenix

Chris Wright's time in jail

To get the real story on prison, you have to ask an inmate. Or, better yet, become one.

by Chris Wright

Photographs by Mark Ostow

When the guard ordered me to take my clothes off, I began to suspect I'd made a mistake. When he said, "Bend over," I was sure I had. But I did it: stripped, doubled over, and braced myself. The world looks very different when you've got your head between your knees, peering into the face of a state employee who's peering directly into your backside.
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*Note - Is this what Paul Camuso does for a living??? If so, no wonder he goes Aaron Hernandez at fellow councilors after a long day "on the job."
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But then, it's not your backside anymore, it's theirs. The question is, what are they going to do with it? By the time I found out the answer -- "spread 'em" -- all I wanted was to go home.

Funny, a few weeks earlier all I'd wanted was to go to prison.

There's a hard-nosed attitude that reaches all the way to the top of the sheriff's office. The sheriff himself, James DiPaola, is a no-nonsense ex-narcotics cop. The superintendent at Billerica is a gruff bulldog of a man named Paul Norton, a 21-year veteran of the penal system who peppers his speech with prison's most popular adjective. Even the sheriff's chief counsel, the silver-haired John Granara, often speaks more like a seasoned con than an attorney.

"You're taking a chance," Granara says.

"Anything can go on in a cell. You wanted the full effect, you're getting it, baby."

He and Norton laugh. "Great," I squeak.

And so Granara, Norton, and I hash out a crime and an alias and set a date for my two-night incarceration -- two weeks away.

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/features/00/04/20/JAIL.html

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