Among the more absurd rituals of prison life it the way that staff and administrators react toward inspectors coming to the prison. It serves as an occasion to berate inmates for acting naturally and an opportunity to make utterly cosmetic changes to physical spaces and daily practices that will revert back to their jankiness as soon as the inspectors leave. What’s even more bizarre is that prison staff and the inspectors are all on the same team; they all work for the Bureau of Prisons, have come up through the same system, and really share the same values and goals. They are in constant contact with each other and, presumably, the regional offices have a good sense of what’s going on in individual prisons (though that also assumes that the regional offices are actually doing their jobs, and I might be mistaken on that one).
Nonetheless, when the inspectors visit a particular prison, paint gets applied to walls in the oddest places, and you get two pieces of chicken and a “good” dessert at Wednesday lunch (as opposed to the normal single piece and a crap shoot). Be assured, however, that Wednesday supper is the same slop it always is because the inspectors leave the building before dinner is served. What a tidy little false front we love to put up for people who know better anyway.
The Warden sure feels it's his gig To put lipstick on federal pigs, As if folks won't see through The dirt staffers do And inspectors might give half a fig.
“Be sure to clean your rooms, children. Grandma can’t see what perfect little beasts you are, which makes me look like a bad father.” Hmmm, I think Grandma knows what beasts those grandkids are already. After all, she raised their father.