From several requests from another thread here it is
Ask The Former Prisoner
I will make no attempt to answer every question.
Prison systems are complex. There are also city and county jails, pretrial facilities, detention centers, juvenile facilities, holding tanks, half-way houses, house arrest, etc. Oh, and I can not forget the Federal System a whole different animal. Military prisons may even be a different thing I am not entirely sure. Some of these are very different and some are exactly the same except for names or jurisdictions. All vary.
I am sure if I can not or do not answer a question someone here will be along to help. There are many things I do not know and may ask a few questions myself.
I would like to clear one simple matter that often confuses people before we start.
Prison is a place you goto after getting sentenced to a crime. You may spend up to a year in jail before you get sentenced and carted of to prison. Usually your sentence has to be more than a year. Most everything else is jail. Everyone is called prisoners by default usually.
I’ve been looking into becoming a corrections officer. The money is over double what I currently make and the benefits are amazing. However, I’m a fairly pacifistic guy who generally tries to stay out of people’s way. How much shit did you and fellow inmates give the prison staff, and am I going to get eaten alive? (figuratively of courseO
In your opinion will a long term inmate (many offences at different times, beginning as a juvenile and now in his 40’s, and moving from county, state and now federal detentions) ever get it together and spend the rest of his life outside, or is institutionalization a more realistic view.
Is the food as disgusting as I have been told?
Why and/or how is it that an inmate, well known to the county and with visible and distinct tattoos including his own name, be released “accidentally” as a different inmate three separate times, and why, knowing that upon recapture time will be added, would an inmate not correct the guards know he was not supposed to leave?
What are some of the challenges you’ve faced upon rejoining society? I imagine jobs can be an issue (people being hesitant to hire an ex-con) but: does that ever get easier? as in, people view it as something so long ago as to no longer be relevant.
What was your state of mind when you first started your sentence, and how did it change with time? How did you adjust to confinement, and what were the surprising changes?
Once again this depends greatly on the facility you are gonna be at. Assault on a correction officer resulting in injury is uncommon for the most part. I have been locked up in about ten facilities or so and there may be 1000s of facilities in the US alone. I can not answer fully about your potential place of employment. As for them talking shit to you, YOU BET. If you have a weakness they will find it and grind on you till you harden up. You will likely be “safe” though.
I have had several crimes and several terms. For the most part nearly all of my time was for UUMV or Unauthorized Use of a motor vehicle. I was just 18 or so. I received probations and kept breaking it for failing drug tests. They kept giving me harsher sentences just for failing tests. I was definitely caught in the system. As for the other crimes, mostly petty stuff. If you don’t have a lawyer or bail money you may spend several months in jail just waiting for a court date. I have done over three years total in my life. Most was a little over a year at one time, not including the halfway house I had to goto afterwords. I spent 9 months at a experimental place in Texas called a Felony Substance Abuse Punishment Facility. I rarely talk about it because you all would think I was lying if I told you about the place. It was crazy. I may or may not mention more about it in further posts.
Food varied from place to place. I have been in jails were the food was McDonald’s. I ate Macdonald’s for every meal for 16 days once. Just think middle school lunch or worse.
Sometimes yes in some facilities. In city jail, no.
No. There is really no way to live a normal life after being incarcerated as a juvenile. Think of fit this way. imagine you are 40 and you don’t even know how a washer and drier works, how to get car insurance, how to pump gas, how to cook. You don’t even understand the normal social graces. Forget balancing a checkbook or anything more complex like that. I would say it is imposable and the few that do it are the equivilant to the people that are told they will never walk again Some people go right back to jail for this reason. The outside is scarey and harder to them. Prison is home. Why would they want to leave? That is where their friends are. They are safe and secure. There is a saying.
You couldn’t blow that person out of jail with dynamite
Yes, maby, no.
For almost all crimes yes. Was I treated fairly? Only once. The one time i had a paid lawyer. It was amazing.
Going to jail for months and months on end for failing a drug test I don’t think counts as guilty for a crime ad I do not think it is criminal behavior.
One time no. But I plead no contest and took the charge anyway. I spent two months in jail for having a fire extinguisher in my car though a friend stole. It was not me. and I was unaware of its stolen status. I was pulled over for some reason and it was found in the car. I plead no contest after spending 2 months in jail waiting for a court date just to plea. Because i would have had to wait another couple months for a jury trial I took the no contest.
I would have gotten off every crime I ever did if I had lawyers. I know it. Guilt or not.
I will speak only do rmyself
I have had numerous challenges. One is the lost time. The reason I was incarcerated was due to a drug an alcohol problem . I suppose if I never got caught I would be facing some of the same issues. No college education., high school drop out, loss of work experience time. To tell you the truth though as long as you don’t tat you face up to much and look all crazy no one really checks. I lie if I need to. No one checks criminal histories and no one checks for college for most jobs. I just say I have a degree and and no criminal history. It works for any job I am remotely qualified for. I had to teach myself all the skills I have now.
I currently own a restaurant and another Fine art printing business. I built my entire digital studio. I built the computers write my own ICC profiles and have a color calibrated work flow for fine art giclee prints. I also fix and repair computers and Ipods for family and friends an a small bit of profit. I have two healthy wonderful children. My daughter is 8 and has been taking violin for 4 years. She goes to a great charter school. My son is getting close to 2 and well is great. My wife is a successful fine art painter and teaches tap and hip-hop. I have good credit and almost everyone I know has never even seen me take a drink. I am well respected an dwell known in my town.
Sounds like I made. Hell no! It is a struggle to this day. I think about drugs alcohol and jail every day of my life and I am ten years sober in one week. The analogy I use is that there is a giant rubber band I have to struggle against to keep form going back to that life. It took me me 5 years to get my drivers license back and 7 to get someone to loan me money. 3 for family to speak to me again. When things are really bad in my life I sometimes think jail would be better. All responsibilities would be cast away. Still to this day I am uncertain if certain actions are inappropriate or flat out wrong. I am better though. I never got eh standard English writing conventions down so bear with my posting here.
It has not gotten easier for me in any way really. I feel like I work 10 times as hard as the average person just to be average.
I am better for it though. I am glad I have seen and experienced what I have.
I never have talked about this before but what the hell.
I was never raped but I have had some really fucked up situations the first several times in jail. I was young and scared and did not know how to stick up for myself. I was made to do some really humiliating things. In front of people. I was marked and considered a punk. There is no worse label for a person than that really. I don’t really know what to say or how to describe being labeled that in jails. Just know that nearly 20 years later now as I type my heart is racing a bit and I feel nervous and short in breath and a bit nauseous.
I learned how to fight soon enough and to this day now feel confidant in a fist fight with anyone of any size. I am no longer scared of getting in a fight for my rights. Fighting is always better than getting punked out. losing a fight means nothing to me the fact that I stick up for myself does. I haven’t fought in years but I have come close and that confidence I learned in jail shows when it come down to it. I learned to become a man in jail.
No, I raped no one. Rape is rarer in prison that one may think. There are enough wiling parties to go around.
Depends on the facilities and if they suspect you of trying or you have tried before.
If they don’t have any major reason to believe you will try you can use a razor blade, save medication hand yourself whatever.
If you are on some sort of suicide watch you will have a harder time.
Great question.
Some gay guys use cool ade for make up.
You can rip up your clothes sheets to make headbands, caps, whatever. Tattoos.
I was scared shitless. Everyone knew too and I was well taken advantage of.
I adjusted by learning to fight at the drop of a hat. Without fear of losing or getting in trouble. I learned to be a man In prison. That is surprising.
Another crazy surprising thing is that i sometimes secretly long for jail again.
fifty-six I appreciate your willingness to share. I felt a bit ashamed when you spoke about it taking a while for family to accept an ex-con. I have two younger brothers, the youngest is the one I was referring to in my earlier post. He has been in and out since he was very young, he might have been a teen, but I am remembering him as younger. He has spent stretches of time out of prison, some longer than others, has been given fabulous job opportunities, and at one point he was married and had a son. The drugs and alcohol, and the means he employs to get them, always put him back inside. He is in Federal Detention again, needs surgery on his neck and has been diagnosed with throat cancer. He is supposed to be sent to a max security medical facility in South Carolina. I don’t believe that I will see him alive again.
My other brother did one stretch of time (in Washington) in the 80’s beginning at McNeil Island, moving to Walla Walla and then to Monroe, finishing his time at the Monroe Honor Farm. He remains an active alcoholic/junkie, but has sworn that he will kill himself before ever doing time again. He has some medical issues for which he receives medications which he in turn sells/trades for his booze/drugs of choice. He has a much more passive nature than our youngest brother, and prison was hell for him. The gang situation was horrible, and the tattoo he acquired while a member of the Aryan Brothers (join or get a beating every day) is rather horrifying. He maintains that he will take being called anything but a punk. You have shed a bit of light on that for me, and I will not lie, I am crying as I write this.
I don’t want to hijack your thread any further, I do want to congratulate you for surviving, for staying out and keeping clean and sober, for having family and friends and gainful employment. Again, thank you for being open, it can’t possibly be an easy thing to do.
It sounds like you didn’t get much support from your family. Did they abandon you after you were arrested? Do you still have a relationship with your parents and siblings? Were you given a stiff sentence due to Texas’s fairly draconian drug laws? Were you initially arrested for selling drugs and not merely using them? I am not judging in any way, I am just curious. I know little about drug laws in Texas but have heard anecdotally of cases where people have been locked up for many years for marijuana possession. I do note that some of your time was spent due to failing drug tests.
You’ve piqued my curiosity about the Felony Substance Abuse Punishment Facility. I’d like to hear some stories no matter how unbelievable. I think you sound credible.