Prison Sucks

I was hoping someone appreciated that one. As I was typing it, I could hear the "pity him" sequence playing in my head. That couldn't be truer. I dont get em all right, but I've sniffed out my fair share of liars and oft disbelieved honest men where the facts as presented stated otherwise. Again, this guy might have burned down a church for all I know Honestly, I was in that Jail, for Driving without a license, Everything there is messed up.

It's an extremely corrupt law system in that area. I watched them take a guy who had been in there for Drinking and then got on probation, they gave him a false drug test, so he'd show positive, and put him away from another year. Oh, and did I tell you why I got pulled over? The highway patrol didn't like that my door color didn't match my car, and I was a young guy, driving a Mini-van Full of people, including my two kids, and my sister. That means that you looked poor as in "unable to afford the right color door" , and therefore more likely 'operating out of the system', but also without the means to defend yourself lawyers, etc.

Even if a wealthier person is stopped and has a problem with their driver's license, they are generally able to afford a lawyer that keeps them from getting railroaded. At age 17, I left the house. Because like most 17 year olds I knew everything. You couldn't tell me shit. I won a National Merit Scholarship in and basically could write my own ticket as far as college life went. I wasn't the prom king but I fucked the prom queen. My parents weren't loaded, but we were fairly well equipped to handle life.

I'd say upper middle class spoiled white baby would have described me best. Mom was on marriage 3 and so was dad. I hated dad because of his third wife, hated mom because she made me live with dad. You name it, I whined like a baby about it. Looking back most folks always ask me the same thing It gets a laugh, but I always say "I'd go back and kick my own ass.

I really would like to stuff my foot in 17 year old bitch ass me because I was that kid. I had a smart mouth. Zero respect for authority.

Lazy, liar, thief, general douche. All of that was me. Did I need to steal? I did it because the kids I was hanging with did it and their parents hated them too. We were basically saying "I'll show you! How many times does your valedictorian make small town news front page for being a criminal? I was a stud athlete, and always got perfect grades. There is no reason other than myself for the things I did. I blamed everyone but myself until probably at least my late twenties. I want to shake younger me and tell him what a bright future he had.

I want to tell him that a little hard work now makes life a ton easier later. Thankfully I cant travel in time, because that little bastard would tell today me to go fuck himself and I'd have to knife him. This is how long my friends and I wreaked havoc on an unsuspecting town. Vandalism, theft, rampant retardism at every turn. We were sooooooooooo useless. Nothing productive came from me or my friends that year. I fought every day with whoever I could pick a fight with.

I like to think even to this day that I was never a bully by picking on weaker or smaller guys, but I would walk up into a group of 5 or 6 guys with a few friends and start shit just to be that guy. I'm getting mad at myself again just thinking about it. We had a relatively large group to be doing shit of this nature when it came to the stealing.

Not that I'm writing a handbook, but seriously who commits crimes with a dozen other people? Shit we were stupid. After the months long idiot fiesta, it came time to pay the piper. Thankfully the police got to us before the escalation continued. The crimes kept getting bigger and more outlandish mostly because there wasn't a one of us who would turn down a dare. No one I hung with would back down from anything in front of the rest.

It was all about pushing that goddamned envelope. Well after the warrants were served and the court proceedings began, reality slowly began its inexorable crawl into my brain. I am the littlest fucking fish in the biggest ocean. I sat there looking at my mom and my sister in the courtroom as the judge hit me with 2 years. I felt about the size of the least significant thing the world has ever known.

What did I put them through? What the shit was my problem? This is real and I'm seriously going to prison.

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Holy shit I'm screwed. Fast forward a few weeks in county later and I'm on the old grey goose. Don't know if that was its name here, but it was a big grey bus with cages over the windows. If I wasn't so pigheaded I would have shit myself. The one thing they could never take or break was just that Never let em see you sweat or in this case shit yourself. Oh how I wanted to though. I had been prepped by a few good ole boys in county prior to heading this way. For the laymen, this means I was getting the scoop of what I should and shouldn't do once I arrive at my new home.

Best advice I got Go up to the biggest dude and punch him in his face. Ok, that's not going to happen, but I did manage to kick the guy on the stairs who was planning on taking my smokes. It was witnessed by no one and I feared it was a in vain and b going to get me rode down on by footprintface and his boys. Oddly enough it worked and I was the hero of the infirmary for 2 days.

That's how long we were in the hospital bed location before getting sent off to your cell. They drew more blood than I think I had and I had to do the kerosene shower for lice and bugs I wrote my mother and told her I was most likely dead as shit and kept apologizing for how bad of a fuckup I was. Worst 2 days of my life. Moving to the cell block was an adventure. Yes, those dudes catcall you and spit on you and throw shit at you while you make the walk. Yes, the next week I was one of the guys doing the shit talking and throwing of toilet paper. Never maliciously, but enough to seem like I blended.

One thing to be abundantly aware of is how you are being perceived by your fellow inmates. At no time do you let your guard down. You are now, whether or not you like it, a hardened criminal. You sure as shit better act like one. I took to making envelopes for fellow inmates. Again this probably needs explanation.

You get envelopes in there with postage already stamped. They didn't trust us with stamps. Most guys have no idea what good art is and I picked up on this. I can draw, not horribly, but I think its awful when I see it afterwards hahah!! One of the little luxuries is that guys want to send mail home on a hand drawn artsy fartsy envelope. I had a nice little thing going and actually got a bit better at it. Hopefully I will have some time to write a bit about jail economics, but I cant stress enough, money can make your life inside much easier.

Probably doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out, but its not quite that simple. Having an excessive amount of goodies doesn't mean you are safe. In fact it makes you a target. There are a few ways to deal with that. You get robbed and just have your peeps send more cash or you protect your goodies.

I chose option 2. I didn't however, do it by conventional methods. I did it quite subversively. Luckily I went to the big house with the idiots I committed the crimes with. While that in and of itself doesn't guarantee you safety, it sure as shit helps when others know you got people. From there it was pretty easy to be free with the goodies to people who could do things for me. Money freely given is looked upon as a weakness.

When you wrap it in someones personal problems, they see you as a friend or at the least someone who isn't out to make their stay worse. What I mean by wrapping it in their personal problems, I can give a few examples. Guy 2 cells down is bitching to his celly about how his people came late and his cash wont be on the books til the following cycle. The prison money cycle is like 2 weeks. Girlfriend comes today to visit and puts 50 bucks on the books, it wont be there for 2 weeks.

Your lack of planning is my opportunity. This is where we break off into how I was making some extra cash. I ran a bit of a store. A store in prison is when you have shit other people want and you charge them to get it. Most conversions are 2 for 1. I lend you a pack of smokes today and you give me 2 back when you go to store next time. Sounds like a goddamn check cashing place doesn't it?

Too many things you cant control. What I can control is the pricing. I stop over to mister 2 cells down no money on books, and tell him that because he seems like a cool enough guy that I will give him 5 packs of smokes to help him make it til next time. He is at first all outraged that I would infer he needs a 2 for 1 and would even think of those ridiculous rates. I calmly tell him this isn't some bullshit store like everyone else runs and that I'm willing to do him a solid because this place sucks enough cock as it is we don't need to make it worse. I say he can get me 7 packs back next time.

If you are late its 1 pack a week interest. This is substantially below trade rates, at least in it was. What you need to be careful of is variables. So many guys are shipping in and out, it is after all only classification and everyone is leaving shortly unless they are going to Max at Mansfield, in which case they are staying right below you.

How does one combat this? Runners know who is shipping and when. I don't hold back on the tipping when it comes to runners. These guys will get you hooked up, or strung-up, your choice. You need to be very mindful of which way information is flowing. You give the runners good amounts of goodies and shut your mouth and you can be just fine. You can run your mouth and get a runner pissed and your cell is getting a shakedown 5 minutes later. I keep low profile and ask people that I'm "helping" to keep this shit on the low and I stay moderately supplied.

I lost money on this store. Let's be very clear about this. You run your store for money, I ran mine for safety. Job 1 is stay the fuck away from those guys. Everyone knows who is the badass on the range. You don't need a degree to know the guy in the cell with blankets over the bars that the CO's don't fuck with is someone you should also not fuck with. That's elementary shit right there. One day I'm in the mess hall and one of the CO's asks me if I want a job. I was like wtf?? Is this a trick? Couldn't be bad right?

It was disgusting but the biggest payoff for me at that place. I am outside the window where the guys turn in the trays after eating. We find out that we both love current rap music. We end up doing the most bizarre duets of contemporary rap songs at the tray window like we are paid for it. Some guys walk by and hum a bar or two with us, some sing along, some tell us to shut the fuck up.

Incarceration is not an equal opportunity punishment

We don't care, we are having fun. At a maximum security prison Fast forward a few weeks later. There is a mixup with my laundry bag. I have really small clothes now. Guess how many fucks my CO gave when I told him? So I am wearing way too small pants and shirt one day and some guy swats me on the ass going up the stairwell from chow back to our cell. Guy is decent sized, I would have given him a serious run though either way.

Words are exchanged and I inform him that this is not that type of party and if he feels froggy he can most certainly jump. No need, my new chow hall buddy snatches him by his neck and straight up owns his shit on the stairwell. Rest of stay at Mansfield is uneventful. Luckily I wasnt from a poor unfortunate family and my siblings werent quite the bag of shit I was. My sister happened to have went to college with a girl whose dad is at a regional level for correctional institutes in Ohio.

He is directly involved in inmate reclassification. Sister says to me one day "Where do you want to go after here? Not like we can do anything about it. Can you keep us together? Negative ghost rider, the pattern is full. Ok well then send me to Lancaster where the not so bad year olds go. Fun fact about Lancaster Correctional Facility down south Ohio: Bob Hope was an inmate there a loooong time ago.

My first work assignment was cutting grass outside the fence area. Through my sisters handiwork or just luck I had a pretty soft ride the rest of the way. Even had a lockable single stall shitter for maximum fappage. Its all we do sunup to sundown when you can find somewhere mostly unused. We spoke of it in the gym as if it were part of our workout. Should have had a schedule in hindsight, there was no time when that bathroom was empty. Left there 6 months later to arrive at the honor farm in Grafton.

Spent a few months washing dishes, and listening to music on my walkman. After hours it was back to my second obsession since arriving in prison. My luckiest break came in the form of gambling. I have been tested over genius levels on the Stanford-Binet and Weschler scales, and I possess an eidetic memory.

No I'm not e-peening. The reason for the statement is this Spades, euchre, and poker. I dont throw dice or any of the other funny ass games I learned. I played the shit I can control. There are 24 cards in a euchre deck. The kitty and 5 books are present on the table after every hand. I can remember which cards were played in which books and can shuffle 24 cards without looking at them into a precise order if I so choose. The trick isnt to win at euchre every hand. Its to not get caught cheating and get paid on one big one when you really need it.

As you can imagine cheaters in prison are not acceptable, ever. That will get your ass beat in a hurry. But a team that has just taken items worth of your money wont hesitate to let you double or nothing. Nor will they think its rigged when they have been killing you then you win and now they REALLY want their money back.

Acting has its advantages too. I made shitpiles of money from gambling in there. Then after a year there it was time to go home. One of the most disturbing things I've ever heard was my girlfriends mother saying it scared her how easily I adapted to prison life and that she hopes I didnt enjoy it too much. It caused me to look back on it and realize I didn't miss a beat, and was well liked even in prison. She told me that is was a good gift but that I could find way better uses. I'd like to think Ive done just that in the past 20 years. Do I regret the entire experience?

Oh my God, NO! I wanted to serve my country in the armed forces but was taken off the delayed entry program when they found out what a cunt I was. This is my ONLY regret. I wanted to spend those years in the USMC being something other than a douche but I had fucked my life up so bad, that was off the table.

After getting out I hung with some of the old gang, but I did nothing like what I used to. I was working and trying to right the ship I had almost sank. Til I went back a year later for something I was not even remotely involved in. Got another year, but didnt go in like a baby whining about how unfair life was. I sacked up and took the second trip. The second offense was a story in and of itself, but thats for another post.

Eidetic memory is not really a thing that people actually have; it's never been conclusively demonstrated. There are certainly individuals with exception memory, but "eidetic memory" is not an accurate or useful term unless you're a savant on par with people like Kim Peek. As another redditor who spent time in jail, I'd say this is very accurate. I however spent most of my time in the infirmary You're not scared of being raped, you're scared of waking up missing your eyes.

Prison infirmaries are always overcapacity. Mainly suicide watch kids, elderly and truly insane inmates, so usually they set up these shitty "2 inches from the floor" plastic beds around the walls outside of the cells, and the "extra inmates" sleep on those without much supervision or constraint. The "extras" usually being the physically injured and medically unwell for the most part.

I had suffered a pretty serious concussion and faded in and out of consciousness for the first night and day, but the first time I was actually coherent, it was because one of the extremely insane inmates had somehow been allowed to sleep on one of these plastic beds outside of the cells and had decided in the middle of the night that "my eyes were too pretty".

Luckily another inmate was awake and alerted the guard, who tackled the guy about half a foot away from my bed. Was he legit crazy or trying to get transferred? I saw a ton of homeless guys trying to get transferred claiming to be insane. To be honest, they also did it to avoid fights, but prison is a haven for chronic liars. My time was in Maricopa county. Where they kill child molesters and guys like me Trafficking do little more than swap stories with other pot pushers.

But it is fucking scary, and I did get in to a few fights until my lawyer got me transferred to the tents until my trial. I am employed at a State Facility. I won't tell you what I do or where, but this is accurate. Prison sucks, and our legal system has people on repeat marijuana cases bunked next to child molesters.

Luckily I work in a state that is making big changes as far as rehab and reform goes. I hope they follow through with the plans they have. I'm currently pursuing a degree in Criminal Justice. There are a lot of career options in the field, and many seem appealing, but good god the last place I would want to work in is a correctional facility. I've heard too many horror stories. Your career will die there, I promise. I actually did an AMA on being one last year.

If interested, here's the link. Honor farms are where you go if you are a short timer, reasonably behaved, or no flight risk. You can learn a trade or go to college. I went to college. They are the minimum security or less facilities. The few here in Ohio I am familiar with were called honor farms simply because each had a farm where you worked and barracks style living inside. No bars, just a locked door on the front and your word you weren't running during the day when you were outside. They catch you if you run anyway.

Most of the time that is Maybe a bit of a hassle here and there Do the people you work with know about your incarceration? Has it prevented you from getting work in the past? I was a bright lad, full future ahead of me, with one glaring problem at the time. After being locked up for a bit you start at ground zero. Maybe even a little bit below grade, in a bit of a hole.

Its not easy and it sure as hell keeps you from things the average Joe doesn't worry about. Some of my closer co-workers know about my past. Some 2, I think know the complete details. No one questions 5 black guys, 3 white guys and 2 hispanics playing b-ball together on mixed teams. Now if there were 10 black fellas on the court and me and 9 white guys rolled up asking to play It's about how you present yourself more than how you look. A timid small white guy who is known to stick a fork in your neck is not someone anyone of any color will fuck with. The omg one was again at Mansfield, which for the record many of you have seen the inside of via the tele or big screen.

At Mansfield the hole was under about 10 inches of swamp water when I was in it. Didn't leave my cot for 7 days except to shit and get my food. Everyone works while locked up or you get more quality alone time for not cooperating. We worked for 28 bucks a month. Thankfully my family kept my books right and I was strapped every commissary run. I lol at this everytime. I'd freak out over the roaches more than the silverfish. Silverfish at least die when you step on 'em.

Roaches just get up and tell you to fuck off. The currency in the facilities I was at were called items. An item was at the time described as anything valued from 85 cents to 1 dollar. Little Debbie snack cakes, pack of cigarettes, bag of chips, can of tuna etc. A pack of smokes or a box of snacks were both recognized as basically a dollar of payment. Gambling is HUGE inside. We bet on everything from cards to sports to what was for chow. Wow, cans of tuna? Wouldn't that make an excellent material for a blade? Or wasn't there an issue with weapons?

The rip-top bags are more likely nowadays. Tuna is fucking great, a chance to get some decent protein other than the normally scheduled chow. So were the gay dudes walking around sort of in drag, like in Blood in Blood Out? Or is not quite that extreme? Amazingly intelligent youngster with deep, deep psychological issues not relating to his sexual orientation.

The fact he was gay in a prison was like an added bonus and we laughed so hard at some of the irony There are more people in jail for maryjane than should be possible in our country in this day and age. Growers, sellers, users, you name it. Are there any particular "survival" tips - for cell mates, political atmosphere, etc. Best info I got prior to hitting the joint: Day 1 punch the biggest guy in the face and then take your whuppin like a man. This wasn't the reality of the situation, but it wasn't far off.

Guy tried to take some of my smokes, and I knocked him down a flight of stairs with a boot to the grill. Who tries to snatch your belongings from a 2 stair disadvantage? The guy at the bottom of the flight, that's who. I didn't, however, go to "fuck you in the ass" prison. I was under 27 years old, so there were really only 3 different prisons I could have gone to Yardsville, Bordentown, or Annandale.

I lucked out and went to Annandale, which is the nicest of the 3. I worked 7 days a week on a dairy farm. I woke up at 4: I made 6 dollars a day, which is a massive amount of money compared to most. The job made the time go really fast. The way the camp was set up was a large "day room" with rooms, or dorms, connected off of it. Each dorm was relatively small, but managed to house 12 of us. There was 1 toilet and two showers in each of the dorms. Aside from having to sleep 2 feet from another man, it wasn't too bad.

When I initially got down to the camps, I got in a fight my first day. It was over absolutely nothing really, just some guy started talking shit to me because I was white. I got my ass kicked, pretty badly, but from everything I had learned from being in county jail I knew that if I didn't fight it would have been a hundred times worse. I also got in fights the first and second time I got my commisary thats like the store..

I sorta won one I guess The other one, once again, pretty much got my ass kicked. In regards to media portrayals compared to what I was in, sorta. It was more of a "cushy fed white collar prison. There wasn't any rape, but there were homosexuals that I knew were blowing people for packs of rollies rolled cigs.

Rollies are currency in there. I did goto a halfway house towards the end of my sentence, which was sort of like a work release program. I saved up a little bit of money there. Made two close friends that I still to this day keep in touch with. They still live in NJ, I moved out to Ohio. Once every few months I hear about someone we were in the halfway house with that OD'd, or got arrested and is going back down state again. I went to prison for things I did as a result of my drug addiction, mainly heroin and cocaine.

I never got high in prison even tho it was readily available, and I have not to this day touched anything. January 4th of next year I will have 6 years clean. Don't forget the guy who was locked up in Thailand for six years. That one was especially brutal and tragic. Looks like the guys account was deleted and all the answers are now gone. Too bad, it was a really interesting read. The guy that made the Thailand prison ama, and several others, claimed they were all fake here. Unfortunately, everything in this thread and connected to his account was deleted by the mods moments after he posted it.

There were three other very popular amas that he claims to have faked, but I can't remember which ones at the moment. I don't fit the criteria, but I did spend an interesting night in a small town Indiana jail cell when I was Due to a recent surgery that required me to use a cane, I had no cell mate. I think they were worried about liability issues. Anyways, one of the guys in the cell next to me was detoxing on meth. He was up all night screaming, banging on his cell door and generally sounding like he was possessed with a really badass demon.

I was actually impressed with his stamina. The next day, while being released, I asked one of the officers how many hours he'd been going through withdrawal. Why anyone would tweak is beyond me. I liked me some drugs, don't get me wrong, but METH had a big old skull and crossbones on it that I though anyone could see.

My buddy tried it when he finished boot camp almost a decade ago. He told me it was the best experience he's ever had with a drug. On that same note he says he will never do it again because it was so friggin amazing. He knows that it could easily get him addicted and would never come back from it. I was sentenced to 3 years with 2 suspended at the North Dakota State Penitentiary. I sold a quarter pound of ganja to an undercover after an informant introduced me to him. Mind you now, think of a quarter pounder cheeseburger patty. It's not THAT much.

I was in my third year of college at UND for pre-health sciences. I went to prison and it threw a wrench in the machine that is my life. Now let me tell you the best way I can: Some guys are gay for the stay as they say. For the most part, RAPE is very rare. Unless your in a federal prison. Then duct tape your buttcheeks. I compare prison to being in detention. Now, briefly imagine the number of schools in your state. Imagine that number of problem people. And they are all in a cage together. I thought I'd go to prison meeting good guys who made bad choices like me.

They are chronic liars and they are VERY selfish. They are bad because they care nothing for anyone but themselves, and yet they all feel sorry for themselves. I hope none of you fine folks have to find out what the experience is like. Now that I think about it, that's probably who it is in there, except those kids are a few years older now. And that is everything wrong with the war on drugs.

A QP isn't shit, No way you should have ever served time for something like that. Prohibition has got to end. My mate was in Japanese prison for a month and said that he was on his own 23 hours of the day, but during waking hours guards constantly walked up and down checking that they were sat upright in their chair. Does county jail count? I did 76 days in jail, which is totally diffferent from prison. Prison is The Bad Stuff like murder, rape, etc.

In county jail, it's people who didn't pay tickets, wife beaters, pot dealers, bad check writers, false police report givers, etc. If you are prescribed pain meds or stuff that will make you high, you won't get them but you'll get your anti-biotics or depression meds. It's funny you mention honey buns, there's been a lot written about honey buns in prison:. I was just mentioning this to my husband.

He mentioned how his brother is a CO, and he has told stories about how much of a big deal honey buns and cinnamon buns are to prisoners. This, this right here.

• Ninety-Nine Fabrications Volume 2.71828.
• 7 Horrifying Things You Didn't (Want to) Know About Prison;
• MODERATORS.
• Prison Sucks - Typical Morning Among Fellow Inmates;

I was only in jail for 30 days for driving on a suspended license. There are all kinds of people in there. Personally during booking I was put in a holding cell with a meth addict who was high as hell. He started to call me satan and kept staring at me saying wierd shit. Finally he charged me and we went at it. I had to keep this meth addict at bay for 4 minutes before someone even noticed what was going on. If I was an older gentlemen and not physically fit this guy would have easily killed me.

That was his mission. He got me by the throat and tried strangling me. I punched him over 20x before I got him off and pinned him down and then keeping him down was a challenge in itself. Seriously though, I don't have insurance and when I tore my MCL I was seriously considering going back for a while to get it taken care of. Luckily workers comp took care of it instead. That's such a fucked up statement.

People would resort to doing jail time because we have no fucking healthcare. That is pretty bad, and it's awfully true. My dad is too lazy to get a job, and so he basically commits a crime every 6mo-1yr in order to go back to jail, just so that for a while, he does nothing but still he has 3 square meals a day, a bed to sleep in, clothes to put on, and as much social interaction as he desires which isn't much, given prison restrictions. Welcome to the grand old US of A, where we refuse to implement a socialized healthcare system that would relieve the burden of expensive treatments and insurance costs, but only for the general populace.

Instead we give it to the incarcerated population because they earned it. The medical is terrible in jail. It took three days for them to get me down to the clinic for an ibuprofen. I had to pay for my stay in county jail.

I think it may differ by state, county, or income level. I was in a pretty wealthy county at the time. Yea, it honestly wasn't that bad. Basically a huge room with rows of bunk beds on each side and long cafeteria tables in the middle with tv's and board games. The funniest part was that the correction officers would bring in bootleg burnt dvds. Still, that's a place I never want to visit again. That's why they only treat emergency issues and if it proves to not be an emergency you get some kind of punishment or fine. People die from poor health care in prison all the time, they just die slowly and there is no realy proof other than an incarcerated criminals statements.

They are not obligated to give you good health care, just basic emergency health care like you can get by walking into most any hospital. You do, of course, get food and shelter, but I'd rather live in a homeless shelter than prison and just walk into a hospital if I feel like I'm dying. Now just give me public showers and laundry mats and free wifi and I hardly even need a job.

MCJ downtown portland a guy died from a staph infection. My buddy was in county lockup for 6 months. So you mean a few times someone waited until you were out of view and then punched you? Or did you punch someone? This merits further explanation I read this and decided to pay a Traffic Violation ticket i have been putting off for a few years, haha. Thanks for scaring me straight! Did you have a job prior to going to county jail, and if so did they hold your position or can you?

If you were canned, how difficult was it to get a job afterwords? I have a clean record and it sucks hard to get a job. Can't imagine having jail under my belt and looking for employment. Plenty of DUI and other 3 strike misdemeanor offenders there. My mother is a corrections nurse at a prison for the criminally insane in Newtown CT. Some of the stories she comes home with I tried to commit suicide after a pretty horrible divorce. They decided to put me in jail for attempting to do so in front of my ex. It was pretty messed up all-around, they called it felony harassment with a firearm.

The actual crime was 20 days, but the 'gun enhancement' was 18 months. I spent about 4 months in county jail, where people actually looked forward to prison to some extent because the food was better. We slept on 'mattresses' that were similar to wrestling mats over concrete, and ate food that had wonderful nicknames like brake pads and cat food I believe the cat food really was cat food I was on suicide watch for good reason the whole time with no sheets, no socks, etc.

The medical area was for the crazies, the suicidal, and the ones coming off drugs We had people in wheelchairs that treated the place as home, crazies that liked to rub soap on the bibles before eating the pages, and a huge variety of crimes from people serving their misdemeanor time less than 1 year sentences , to those on their way to prison, to those coming down off junk that were likely destined for the mental health facility. I remember one guy they called Dine and Dash. He was in there for three counts of stealing food from Denny's. He had an anxiety disorder that he got meds for while in prison He was "off" in a lot of ways, so I expect he was pretty easy to spot by his behavior.

They gave him 1 year for each offense, served consecutively So, you never know who you are really in there with. As for paying for it, it's odd. You have fines from the offense legal financial obligations that you owe when you are released. You also have a "cost of incarceration" fee that your family basically pays if they send you any money for commissary items.

So, it's the families that get penalized. The indigents those that didn't have money from the outside would commonly trade stamps or soap or toothpaste which they incurred debt for that was owed on release - on a payment plan with interest for stuff the non-indigents could buy There were fights, there were assaults, there were suicides There are gangs, rampant racism, and people with a wide variety of mental illnesses intermingled with everyone else.

The guards were sometimes abusive in some cases in extreme ways , and others that weren't Some would take liberties when searching you, others wouldn't. People would steal the horrible food from the chow hall smuggled in their underwear back to the cells to 'cook' it with other stuff. Drugs could get smuggled in from visitors or sold from the guards - more often than the visitors , and they went for high prices - in trade for stuff. The Native Americans were the safest bets for having money The groups of loosely-affiliated people would be called "cars" and you had to watch out for some of them.

7 Horrifying Things You Didn't (Want to) Know About Prison | www.newyorkethnicfood.com

I've been told I should write a book about my experiences both leading up to and once in prison Some parts weren't bad, others were horrible Showering with a group of naked guys was like going back to gym class People would certainly drop the soap on occasion It was always sad to see people trying to trade hygiene items for extra food, particularly when they obviously needed more attention to their hygiene.

I was relatively safe considering However, I can testify to another inmate complaint which was that the high soy content can make you constipated. However, for those inmates who steadfastly refused to eat this food, even my very tight-fisted deep south state offered a few alternatives.

A lot of guys got the alto for that meal, which was served at least once per week on the 4-week rotating menu. My state was also forced by court order to offer alternative menu options for inmates with special religious or dietary needs. For example they got sandwich bags full of grape tomatoes the only camps where I saw tomato bits in the salad were Hayes, where they were fresh from the garden, and the SSRC East Unit. Second, your inmate ID card was tagged to make it impossible for you to buy any food at the canteen except the designated kosher items. No Cheetos or Ramen Noodles for you, inmate!

So why did so many inmates sign up? The answer should come as no surprise since we are talking about prison inmates: Some of the new items were:. Therefore the impact of these new items would probably not be felt as strongly once they were spread out across four weeks instead of just one, even if some of the items were intended to be offered several times each month.

Living off the canteen. Yes, the prison canteen sold all the usual kinds of junk food you might find at your neighborhood convenience store: Like any convenience store, the canteen also sold microwavable fast food items such as bacon cheeseburgers, chicken sandwiches, and burritos. Inmates bought so many of them that they were used as common currency around the prison compound. And how the heck do you get the hot water you need to do that in a prison dorm?! And why would every prison in my state willingly retrofit every water fountain in every dorm to provide scalding hot water?

To cook soups with, of course! And heaven forbid that the water heating unit should crap out or there will be hell to pay! There have definitely been prison riots over less serious issues than that! Anyway, as you may or may not know, each Ramen Noodle package consists of a rectangular block of dried noodles twice as long as it is wide.

There is also a little seasoning packet inside each soup package. Every prison dorm reverberates with the sound of soup packages being thrown on the floor all day long, including right now as I am writing this essay at the SSRC East Unit! Fortunately the plastic packaging is pretty sturdy.