DannyBoyinExile

One of the worst side effects of all the drugs that people do in prison is the overall sheistiness it brings out in them. If someone has any dishonesty, sneakiness, or unreliability in their character – drug usage will bring it out. I’ve decided that humans are like diamonds, with many facets to their character. We tend to show these different facets to different people at different times, but they ARE there, though we try to overpower the negative ones and display our most flattering ones. Get somebody on drugs, though, and they tend to have less self-control over what they should or shouldn’t do.
The other day, for example, a white guy on my wing borrowed another white guy’s headphones for the day, because he didn’t have any of his own. After talking to this guy every day, the other guy had no problem with it. But no good deed goes unpunished.
The next day, he yells up at the dude to bring them out the next time they open the cell doors. He immediately sensed that something was amiss when the guy told him, “I’ll bring them to you later!” Later? When somebody loans you their property, you send it back when they ask for it, and not when it’s more convenient for you!
Of course, the rightful owner goes up to the guy’s cell and demands his headphones back – like RIGHT NOW. Come to find out, he didn’t even HAVE them, and told him they were in someone else’s cell. That in itself angered the guy, because you simply don’t loan someone’s stuff to someone else – but it gets much worse.
When he went to the other guy’s cell, he was like, “These are MY headphones. I just gave so-and-so $5 for them!”
The idiot needed money to buy something to smoke, so he SOLD a guy’s headphones, who was nice enough to let him borrow them! I don’t know what he was thinking, but clearly he WASN’T thinking, if he thought that he could get away with it just because the other guy was older, and couldn’t fight very well. (He’s lucky it wasn’t MY headphones, or I’d probably be writing this from Ad-Seg right now!)
Needless to say, this enraged the other white guys, as soon as they heard about it. As for the OTHER guy, when he realized what went on, he immediately agreed to return them – but he DID want his $5 back. A few other white guys pitched in the money, and the headphones went back to their rightful owner.
This could have easily resulted in the guy being stabbed, or at least hurt really bad. That’s what happens in here, when you steal from someone, or owe money that you can’t pay. As it is, he got beat up, and is now drug-free. In fact, we MADE him drug-free, by saying that if we ever see or even hear about him smoking again, several guys will jump on him, and “smash him off the unit”.
Peer pressure can be a good thing, if used properly. Instead of hurting the guy, we gave him the opportunity to clean up his image – and hopefully break the addictions that have caused him so much trouble. Some people wanted to run him off NOW, but it’s not hurting anyone to show some leniency, and give him a chance to redeem himself. Even the owner of the headphones (the original owner, I mean!) could see the logic of it. That’s a part of justice, after all, and is just as important as the punishment. So says DannyBoy.