There was nothing much to keep our minimum security prisoners from escaping. There was a fence with razor wire at the top around the grounds, but this was really a leftover from when it had been a women’s maximum security prison. That’s because most of the minimum prisoners had so little time left to do that it would be utterly stupid for them to take off.
But as we used to say, they weren’t in prison for being smart. Occasionally one would take off. We didn’t even call it an escape though. It’s called a “walk-away,” with minimal response from the authorities. They’re then just listed as wanted by the law. If they never get arrested again, well good for them! and they saved the state those last few months of room and board! If they do get arrested again, … uh-oh! Now they’re also going to do time for the escape.
Sounds like a good place to test theories of weight gain vs. diet since it is more controlled right?
In this prison, there was a convict store that sold hygeine products, tobacco products and food. Prisoners could use hotplates in their cells. Due to their limited funds, ramen noodles was a favorite, but they had a wide selection of non-perishables to choose from.
While we’re on the subject of food, I thought I’d mention food loaf, since nobody outside of prison would think of this. What do you do with a guy who has been stripped naked, put in a cell with no natural light with only a bare mattress and a toilet and still won’t behave? Put him on a food loaf diet, of course. This is just about the last recourse. There are strict humanitarian rules about the bare essentials and every prisoner has to have three meals a day. So what you do is take a full meal - meat, veggies, even dessert and drink - mash it into a paste and bake it into a loaf. “Food loaf.” That name always cracked me up. It doesn’t taste great, but it’ll keep you alive.
Here’s another tidbit that you probably wouldn’t think about.
At times convicts have to be taken to court for one reason or another. Sometimes their legal counsel will object to the convict being in chains because it makes them look guilty. (Say their being tried for another crime. Their supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, right?) But some of these guys are pretty unstable. It wouldn’t do to have one jump up and bite off a judge’s ear. So in lieu of chains, the prisoner would wear an electrifying belt under his clothes. (Honest to God, I’m not making this up.) I don’t remember the name of this device, but it is a wide belt with two electrodes a few inches apart in the small of his back. The first time the officer presses the button, the belt would beep, as a warning. The second time, the guy gets zapped. He falls down, back arched, face screwed-up, usually pissing his pants. Lasts about ten seconds. Neat huh? Never saw it actually used except on some really dumb volunteers in training.
Its not so much that I liked it, but that it was well suited to my personality.
I have a personality such that I can easily be cheerful during unpleasant situations, but when everything’s comfortable for too long I get a somewhat depressed. Paradoxical, but there it is. I probably shouldn’t have a purely desk job. I originally wanted to be a Coast Guard or Navy officer but couldn’t because of poor color vision.
What was the absolute scumiest thing you ever saw in prison? Did you ever feel for anyone in prison (as in a victim of a particularly brutal assualt).
Do the inmates treat you badly?
How often do inmates get into fights?
How bad is racism in jail? If you join a racist gang, will they protect you?
What was the worst thing a prison guard did? The dumbest?
If the shoe was on the other foot-could you handle jail?
Thanks for answering so many questions!
I generally did not know much about their crimes and tried to maintain that ignorance as much as possible. Fortunately, modern penal methods are generally so humane that I never lost any sleep over whether some of them were innocent. Besides you get pretty cynical after a while and it would take a lot to convince one of a convict’s innocence. An oft-told joke to new guards was, “Do you know how can tell when an inmate is lying? His lips are moving.”
Each inmate has a file containing a history of rule infractions. This is examined during hearings with the parole board and taken into account. How and when they schedule parole hearings is a mystery to me, though.
Inmates low on cash often found themselves hungry late at night with no “store goods” to eat. Some inmates in one cell generously shared a sandwich with another particularly dumb one in another cell. (They do this sort of thing with makeshift “fishing” lines.) The dummy was contentedly munching away when I came by, but I immediately smelled it for what it was – a peanut butter and SHIT sandwich.
Once in the chow hall one of my fellow guards noticed something sticking out of the lid of the big coffee urn. Turned out to be a sock full of shit.
This one’s not quite as bad. A female guard (equal opportunity employer) working the kitchen asked for assistance via her walkie-talkie. Her supervisor came and she asked to be allowed to go home. Breaking down crying while she told her story, she said she had left a tampon in the women’s room trashcan and later came upon two inmates who had fished it out and were smelling it. She was pretty upset about that.
I took a guy who was doing a stretch in the “hole” (23 hours a day in a cell with nothing to do, 1 hour break outside) to the prison clinic for some medical complaint. After his examination, he was surprised when I started to take him back to the hole. “You mean I gotta go back?” and then ot teary-eyed and choked up, then starting begging me not to take him back. He was having a hard time with it and I felt pretty bad about it at the time. But in hindsight, I saw fellow recruits in boot camp breaking down worse than he did.
Inmates were generally respectful. But once they got sent to the hole, there wasn’t much else for them to lose and they could downright nasty. You had to have thick skin to work the hole. I tended to think of them animals in a zoo there. A tiger is dangerous but you treat it humanely. And you certainly don’t get offended because it growls at you.
My impression is that there was a fist-fight somewhere on average of about once every two days. Weapons maybe about once a month.
Self-imposed racial segregation was the norm, in the chow hall and in the yard for instance. The frequent fights might have been racially motivated; I usually didn’t know why they started. My job was to stop them. But I think it is likely that the threat of numbers did prevent a lot more fights.
I don’t know about the worst, but there a lot of dumb things that guards did. The first one that comes to mind is accidentally dropping a loaded firearm from a tower into the “yard” full of prisoners, lowering a bucket on a rope and asking a inmate to put the gun in the bucket for her. She was later promoted to lieutenant as I recall.
My direct experience with prison and my experiences at sea in the Navy cooped up for long periods lead me to think, yeah, I could handle it all right. As long as no one found out I was a former correction officer, that is. See my comment about my personality two posts up.
On worst things guards did, there were numerous small ways that they could be cruel. We were in control of every little details of theri lives after all. A few words on a report could them sent to the hole. Some could be pretty humiliating during strip searches, especially with the few transvestite prisoners. The top tiers of a cellhouse could be well over 110 F in the summer and an inmate could be overlooked for the brief relief afforded by showers. That sort of thing.
One instance that stands out was some prisoners made some snowmen in the yard. Guards later pulled the heads off and poured ketchup on the heads and necks. I find it cruel because making snowmen was a rare “normal” activity for these convicts, a momentary escape for them, and these guys had to ruin it.
I heard (could be mistaken) that all prisons have to have a law library, and that prisioners must have access to it…so one of the smarter cons usually becomes a “jailhouse lawyer”. This guy will make money by filing lawsuits for other cons, and I understand that some of these guys file HUNDREDS of lawsuits, which wind up cost the government a fortune.
Anyway, suppose soem scumbag like Richard reed (the islamic terrist shoebomber) gets hold of a lawbook and starts filing lawsuits…what do you do to “deter” somebody like this?
I’ve thought about writing a book. I’m toying with the idea of the philosophical Problem of Evil as a theme. Not surprisingly there would a good many late night discussions between guards on this topic, in ordinary layman terms. (More than a few guards were former teachers and some had Master degrees.)
What you have heard about law libraries and jailhouse lawyers is true, although of course any money exchanged has to be under the table. And, yes, it often results in trivial cases. The main problem is that although they basically have the same access to the courts as you or I do, they are malicious and have a lot of time on their hands.
But I consider it one of those prices we pay for living in a free society. There are more than enough legitimate cases filed to justify the available access. I know that I want to definitely have access to law books if I got sent to prison, especially if I was wrongly convicted.
How easy is it for someone to just mind his own business? Say, someone who doesn’t maintain any gang affiliation or identify with any particular ethnic or social group? Is it possible to be a “free agent” and not be subjected to violence or harassment?
Mexico City, eh, Mariachi? I’d be curious to learn how prisons of Mexico and the USA differ.
Your ability to remain aloof would depend on how you carry yourself, but I think the average guy could get away with it if he was determined. We’re social animals by nature, though, so most normal people would not be able to keep it up for very long. It would be a good strategy at first while you got your bearings, but eventually you would want some friends to keep you from going nuts.
There are some amoral bastards in there, but there also a lot of people that when you get to know them, you think, “There but for the grace of God go I.” I remember one guy in his late twenties (same age as me at the time) who had been addicted to going to strip clubs. He had blown all his money on strippers, and eventually ended up knocking over a liquor store. But otherwise, he was just a regular guy. (He later got sent to the “hole” for having sex with a female guard. She was ugly, but, hey, what would you do?)
Another guy that would have made a fine next door neighbor,… except that one day he walked into a restaurant where his ex-wife was eating and shot her a few times. Who knows what might drive a man to do that? We have to have law and order, so he is in prison. But I could easily be friends with him if I was in there with him.
I’m going to bump this thread this one time since I was very much enjoying this. If no takers, then good-luck to all readers and stay out of trouble with the law.
I asked about getting to know the ropes…could you give me an idea of what the ropes were? Like a timeline of the average day?
8 am wake up
9 eat
10 work
11…etc.
Also, what were the religious services like? Did you have seperate services, or just one big one with a guy up front saying “Dear {insert name of deity here}, please forgive…”
