What really happens inside one of America’s toughest prisons? In GUARD, Philip Parker shares his gripping firsthand account of 44 years behind the walls of the Kentucky State Penitentiary. From riots and escapes to death row and unlikely redemptions, this memoir lays bare the reality of a career spent walking the line between duty and danger.
GUARD
A True Story of Duty, Sacrifice, and Leadership
in Kentucky’s Maximum Security Penitentiary
Book Review by Bill Cunningham
Guard is about a young college graduate who began an incredible journey in 1978 as a prison guard and eventually became warden at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, Kentucky. Philip Parker became one of the longest serving wardens in the prison’s 130 year history.
A mass escape occurred the first day he reported for work, and the prison was in emergency mode. It was foretelling of the life in front of him.
The author describes the prison, built in the 1880’s and still in use as a maximum security prison. It is called the “Castle” because it resembles something out of the Middle Ages with its soaring walls, stone parapets, and heavily guarded watch towers. Parker also describes the early history of the prison including a sign that allegedly hung over the entrance that read “Abandon Hope All Ye That Enter Here.”
As a young man fresh out of college, Parker took the only job he could find in 1978—a guard in Kentucky’s only maximum security prison. He takes the reader through the emotions, fear, and feelings of entering a strange and foreboding world that few people could imagine.
Not only was he the only guard at the time with a college degree but he also had a black belt in karate. His job placed him in dangerous situations, and he soon found himself in federal court facing allegations of brutality and harassment. His writing describes the tumultuous days of the ‘70s and ‘80s with the daily routine of responding to assaults, suicides, stabbings, and occasional murders inside the prison.
Two of Parker’s co-workers were shot while transporting dangerous inmates on a bus. He describes this harrowing highway crime spree with such skill as to leave the reader feeling they were actually along on the fateful trip.
At about the same time, an employee was murdered while working in food service. Parker writes about several other murders caused by racial discord, homosexual harassment, and loan shark activity.
Early in his days as a young guard, the author is thrust into the middle of a dramatic hostage-taking in the segregation section of the maximum security prison. Selected as the negotiator, Parker parried with a young and violent William “Snake” Woolum. At stake in the darkened corner of the cell house was the life and safety of a prison guard whom Woolum was holding with what appeared to be a small pistol to his head. Woolum was one of the most notorious criminals in a house of criminals, having a record of numerous assaults plus the murder of a fellow inmate by stabbing him 53 times. He was not to be trifled with. It was a long, and dangerous conversation as Parker tried to maneuver Woolum into the open for a clear shot by the prison sniper standing poised at the ready. “The warden had given us the green light to kill him,” he later reported. Both Woolum and the guard survived. Mission accomplished.
Prison riots and a parade of escapes were common fare in his life at the prison. “The Great Escape of ‘88” is when 8 of the worst of the worst made a daring escape that resulted in one of the largest manhunts in Kentucky’s history. An elderly couple were murdered by three of the desperate escapees on their way to Mexico.
Parker also recounts his experiences as warden with staff corruption and illicit sexual encounters between inmates and female employees. When one reads his writing, you get the impression that many of the events he describes have even more tantalizing back stories. Guard is, in effect, a story of many stories.
Warden Parker was not spared the somber task of carrying out court ordered executions. He describes in detail the preparations for an execution. The reader learns what really happens behind the curtain for both electrocution and lethal injection. Unlike all the distortion and misconceptions created by Hollywood, we learn of the compassion and deep sensitivity that wardens afford the condemned and their families. His own relationship with these men includes sharing a last meal with one and carrying out a very difficult and emotional last request of another.
The title of the book comes from the culture of Parker’s generation of prison people. They eschew the euphemism “correctional officer,” which is considered both antiseptic and fraudulent. When quelling an uprising in the violent segregation unit, suffering the visceral indignity of having human feces flung in one’s face, or subduing an enraged inmate, or even walking the prison yard knowing it is a place where bad things can happen… “correcting” or “rehabilitating” people are fanciful notions. People like Parker proudly consider themselves guards—guarding convicted felons to keep them from escaping, and to keep them safe and free from harm.
Parker courageously confronts his own demons that haunt him in old age after a lifetime of witnessing the very worst in human behavior. Depression and alcohol had taken over his life as he tried to bury these searing memories beyond recall. He has not only survived but has been revived and renewed with a healthy approach to all that he has seen and heard… in large part through the catharsis of writing this book.
After being glued to Parker’s vivid account of his career with evil, violence, and unsavory people, and the emotional toll it has taken upon the writer—the reader at last concludes with the question: Why would anyone choose such an emotionally draining and stressful career?
Parker squarely confronts that question. Once again, the story of “Snake” Woolum surfaces. In a dramatic journey from their deadly confrontation in the darkened cell block, we learn of a long and arduous transformation in one seemingly incorrigible human being that seems to only happen in movies. But it highlights how sometimes, even in the darkest corners of life, goodness and compassion win. After 44 years behind bars, Snake Woolum was finally released from prison due in large part to the efforts of the same Phil Parker who, as a young negotiator, was initially looking for a way to kill him. Snake’s incredible adjustment to freedom and his productive life includes his employment at a Ronald McDonald House where he is making a difference. He’s Snake has beat all the odds with the help of a good woman and companionship of a mixed breed dog. Snake and Parker have become friends, a startling example of how such a career in the arena of human tragedy can have those moments that make the angels sing.
And lastly, in his own words, the former warden answers that question with an eloquent simplicity that rings on an inspiring note of nobility:
Because someone has to do it. And it matters.
We walk away from this book very thankful that someone does it. And with a greater appreciation for those who do.
Bill Cunningham, Retired Kentucky Supreme Court Justice, and the author of numerous books including the definitive “Castle: Story of a Kentucky Prison.”
My next book is a novel ending at the gallows of Kentucky State Penitentiary. Perhaps this will morph into a series. I love writing fiction. I never new how liberating that would be after 5 years of painstaking work to get the facts right in GUARD.