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How to Impress the Ladies: A Prison Guard's Guide

According to former corrections officer Sandra Haberman, the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility at Ordway was a hotbed of innuendo, threats and crude come-ons directed at female employees. Defendants in her sex-harassment suit have denied any improper comments or behavior, but jurors in the case got an earful of the kind...
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According to former corrections officer Sandra Haberman, the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility at Ordway was a hotbed of innuendo, threats and crude come-ons directed at female employees. Defendants in her sex-harassment suit have denied any improper comments or behavior, but jurors in the case got an earful of the kind of trash talk that Haberman and other female employees claimed was commonplace on the graveyard shift. Here's a sampling of the alleged statements, designed to make any woman feel more at home in the high-stress, manly-man world of corrections professionals:

* "With an ass like that, you'll go far in the Colorado Department of Corrections." (Observation offered by another officer shortly after Haberman's hiring.)

* "I didn't want another goddamn female on my shift, but since I am stuck with you, don't start any shit." (Haberman's greeting from supervisor Edwin Duncan on her first night on the graveyard shift.)

* "When you are ready for a real man, come and try me." (An open invitation from a lieutenant who, Haberman says, ridiculed the manhood of her fiance.)

* "When I make love to a woman, she won't ever want to have another man." (A testimonial from a sergeant who boasted that he still had a pubic hair stuck in his teeth from "eating pussy" the night before.)

* "Smelling where your hot little pussy sits." (Explanation offered by the same sergeant for why he was crouched over the chair Haberman had just vacated.)

* "You stupid little bitch--you should have waited for a man." (Sergeant Pubic Hair's expression of concern after Haberman sealed off a pod following a fight among inmates.)

* "If my dick was as big as the handle on the control drawer, I could get all the women I want." (Lament by a fellow officer who had been rebuffed in his offer to go bowling with Haberman.)

* "Are you ready for us yet?" (Phone call to Haberman from a sergeant and lieutenant who were watching her through a glass partition and urging her to be more "cooperative" in order to make her job easier.)

* "Women are just sperm dumps. Women are just good for ten-minute lays and have no place in the prison system." (A sergeant's view.)

* "This is what you are worth on this shift." (An addendum from the same sergeant, after dropping a penny in the drawer of a desk where Haberman sat.)

* "I don't know why you are so upset; she was just a fag. Did you and her have something going?" (Captain Duncan's response to Haberman's grief upon learning of the death of another female officer from pneumonia.)

* "I just like to watch your ass wiggle as you walk by." (A sergeant's explanation as to why there were dead batteries in Haberman's handset radio, requiring her to return from the tiers to report.)

* "You are just a stupid female who couldn't find her ass with both hands." (A fellow officer's appraisal after Haberman reported him for failing to respond to her call for backup; for two weeks after this incident, Haberman claims, none of the men on her shift would speak to her or acknowledge her presence.)

* "Keep your ass off the tiers and in the office." (A further directive from Captain Duncan.)

* "I don't know what you think this will get you." (Deputy Warden Joe Paolino's response to Haberman after she reported the ongoing harassment to higher authorities.)

--Prendergast

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