Don't Mix the Colors

Each facility here has a different color uniform for its prisoners: Khaki, green and yellow, just yellow, blue, or orange (orange is for isolation, or "the hole"). When you see an inmate you know exactly from where he came and to where he's going. Makes sense.

One thing I'm still getting used to, however, is the great care that's taken to not mix inmates of different wardrobes. If you're seeing one inmate in an exam room, and a different "color" is about to be escorted through the hallway, you have to close your door and not let your guy out until the other color clears the corridor. Keep in mind this has nothing to do with race or ethnicity.

It's not so bad in the main clinic, but over at the detention center (or jail) where the new inmates are processed, it's a big deal. The jail is split into two populations, and each inmate is placed in one or the other after checking his name for incompatibilities against the names of all the other inmates already housed. They may be members of opposing gangs, they may be partners in crime on the outside, or one may even have been a victim of the other in their former lives. In the jail where there's a lot of movement, different colors can cross paths very easily. I've been told that guys from different yards who come in contact for as little as two minutes have had the crap beaten out of them. I've seen the tension myself when they do get near each other, as they quickly size each other up.

So, I'm in an exam room screening a new guy; asking if he has this disease or that, what meds he's taking, is he thinking about killing himself, etc.--and when I'm done and ready to take him back to the holding cell, I have to play this little game of sneaking him through the hallways while not running into anyone else doing the same with an inmate of a different color. And it's not like you can walk down the hallway and scope it out before you move him, because you can never, ever, leave an inmate in a room by himself even for a second.

So I literally peek around the corner, with the inmate right behind me, scanning the mirrors that give me a view in all directions, and we have to decide if we can make a break for it or not. We move and turn a corner before hitting the main hallway, and then I hear keys clanging and a door opening. Oh shit. Here come a guard with a blue guy! And my guy's yellow! Back! Go back! I put my hand up like a traffic cop and stop my guy. I direct him to stand against the wall in a side hallway, and I stand in front of him. What am I doing??? I firmly resolve that if these guys want to fight I'm out of here. Blue guy passes without incident and I hustle yellow guy back to the holding cell.

At the holding cell I call out for the next guy, grab his paperwork, and after a quick check in all directions, away we go again. That's prison medicine for you.

Can't we all just get along?