Your Babysitter is a Puerco

In the first ULK I read (ULK 49 - Survival and Stamina), I read “Shun TV, Be Humble, and Check Security,” by a California comrade. It was great to know there were others with my same thoughts about the stupid box. There are multiple reasons the “babysitter” is encouraged by authorities, likewise why you should be more than cautious about getting attached to one. Let’s go straight to the pros (not for us captives) for authorities and administrators of DOCs everywhere.

Babysitters are “incentives,” but not in the normal sense. Instead of being incentives (read: prizes) to earn through excellent behavior, it’s used as an incentive to lose through defiance. Pay attention, this is more than just a simple play on words. In the former, you may by your own will (read: volition or choice) decide it in your best interests to excel as a “model” prisoner in order to earn the incentive. This would be a choice exercised through your own judgment. In the second predicament is where 95% of prisoners find themselves.

In the latter, babysitters are used as coercion. Here’s the reality: the authorities establish rules and norms of expected behaviors. Break any rule, or fail to meet an expected norm, and the babysitter won’t be there when you get “home.” Their message is clear: do as we say, behave as we say, or sit in a cell with your thoughts and yourself (if you don’t have a celly). To me it doesn’t seem like much of a threat, but I’m the odd man out. I’ve been in and out of Ad-Seg, or whatever is the en vogue term now, since 2012, and have always preferred to read, study and grow. The majority of us are so caught up in consumerism and what I call “reality avoidance,” that the threat of no canteen (commissary, special packages) or no babysitter (TV) is effective to smother defiance (outside of extreme circumstances) and gain compliance.

Over decades prison officials have figured out how to condition prisoners to cherish things of no importance. A lot of hombres just want to watch Castle, Pawn Stars, Storage Wars, or whatever, eat their food, exercise when they have homies on their case, and be left to themselves. This is the overwhelming majority mentality here in RH-Max (formerly Ad-Seg). Why is this? Simply because nobody’s taken the time to explain the dynamics. In theory we all know what babysitters are used for. In practice, how many internalize this knowledge?

As long as authorities can say “here’s a TV, sit down, shut up and don’t make us do our job” then we’ve failed, because the authorities have rocked us to sleep with something stronger than a lullaby. With TV and being “left alone,” we are content enough to fight amongst ourselves instead of the puercos. As long as a babysitter can sedate us, the puercos are complacent and can run their program as they see fit. I don’t know about you, but I’m not down for catering to the puercos’ agenda.

MIM(Prisons) responds: You don’t have to sit in your cell alone with your thoughts and nothing to do. Pushing this comrade’s observations further, we call on everyone to get involved in the MIM(Prisons) political study group. Or trade some labor for books to study. Make use of your time, like this writer, to read, study and grow. Write to us today to join the next introductory study group.