ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) by Glenn Langohr Page A

teething and tender and their barks were met with kicks and turned into yelps. The lead detective yelled, “Control your dogs or I’ll shoot them!!”
    My brother and I dove on our dogs and covered them up. The Sheriffs in uniform managed to save the dogs from getting shot and put them in the backyard.
    I sat on the couch in cuffs looking at my brother’s devastated scared face and listened to the narcotic detectives discussing that my brother would go to juvenile hall since he was only sixteen and I’d be going to jail since I just turned eighteen. The narcotic detectives stepped outside to get something and I realized all of the felonies were in my room. I told the Sheriffs everything was mine and could they please let my brother off? They saw the pain in my eyes and mercifully agreed! The narcotic detectives came back in and put a halt on it. I watched them search the two bedrooms and was sick to my stomach. They both looked like they had chips on their shoulders from not being able to fit in at school or something. They both had beady eyes and looked like bullies that enjoyed other people’s pain and the power they had to instill it.
    I read the name plate of the one who had threatened to shoot our dogs. Detective Pincher. He announced, “I’m the lead detective in South Orange Counties narcotic division and we’re not going to cut either one of them any slack! We have intelligence from hundreds of hours of recon that shows both of these two are partners in a significant criminal enterprise. We are charging both of them with health and safety code violations of possession of a controlled substance, possession for sales, cultivation, cultivation for sales and paraphernalia.”
    A couple of the Sheriffs were shaking their head in irritation.
    Detective Pincher pulled those two aside but I could still hear him. “I found a glass bong in the sixteen year olds bedroom. That shows culpability and knowledge of what was going on in his brother’s room and out of the house.”
    I read the other detective’s name plate, Marks, just as he pulled my brother up from the couch awkwardly in handcuffs and walked him out of the house on his way to juvenile hall and my heart broke.
    Detective Pincher, still within hearing distance, said to the two Sheriffs, “We want to pressure the older brother into being an informant. You can see how much it hurt him to see his brother in handcuffs on his way to juvenile hall. I think I can play off that protective love and offer him and his brother leniency with the D.A. if he cooperates with us and sets up three other dealers with controlled buys. With as much weight as these two were pushing we might catch us some whales!”
    One of the two Sheriffs shook his head and asked, “Can you even authorize that with the district attorney?”
    Detective Pincher sized up the older Sheriff like he shouldn’t have to explain all of this. “No… Not really… But I write the report and file the charges. The district attorney wants their conviction rate to be impeccable and right now in Orange County it’s at ninety nine percent so they’ll get convictions. But if I tell them they were cooperative they’ll plead out to a reduced sentence. They’ll probably get six months to a year in the county and have a four year prison sentence suspended and hanging over their head for probation to deal with. If you think we’re hard on them you should see how petty probation is! It’s as if they’ll lose their job if they don’t send a big enough percentage to prison… Hey California keeps building prisons, so we have to fill them!”
    I watched Detective Pincher go back into my room with a scale and a camera he had in his hand. The two Sheriffs that had showed compassion continued to shake their heads.
    The younger one said, “Remember when the only crimes people were sent to prison for was murder, strong arm robbery, rape and child molestation?”
    The older of the two Sheriffs responded, “When I