I once took a friend to visit her fiancé in prison, he was doing time for beating her up and suchlike…once was quite enough for me, I couldn’t get out of there quick enough.
My son spent 30 days in jail a couple years back, for possesion of paraphenalia, rather than submit to probation. There was no homosexual activity, and he lost weight he couldn’t afford to lose, and the “I’ll never do anything that would make me go back there again” aftereffects did not last as long as one would hope. The “can’t get a job because you’ve done time” effect lasted quite a while, though.
For professional purposes, a lot like my religious high school, walls painted ‘institution green’ and pa systems everywhere, miserable inmates. Quite the panopticon.
Met a woman there too (not an inmate), a long and involved story followed.
Not always. But if he’s actually spending a long time in prison, he must have figured out how to survive. Most people quickly figure out things to avoid doing if they wish not to offend their peers. And considering the peers, most people don’t want to offend them. Prisons are actually surprisingly polite environments.
Me, yes. Jail. When I was a teenager. I was a runaway. Got thrown in the hoosegow in Iowa. They fed me a Big Mac until my mom could come get me.
My first husband, yes. CCDC. Several times. Theft (T-Tops).
Second husband, yes. Cook County. Driving Stuff.
Current husband, yes. Cook and Lake County. Driving stuff.
Yep. A night in county for DUI in 1990.
Longest night of my life.
Never again.
Only to visit/bail out my kids :eek:
Is it just me, or do the members of The Dope have some really, really bad kids?
Something’s not computing here. How could you have spent any time in jail at all in the 60’s and still been underage in 1994?
I was was with a cousin, picking up a brother in law at the Nuevo Laredo bus station in 1990. We were detained by a Mexican Federal Police agent who was interviewing everyone getting off the bus. We were sent into an office/cubicle at the bus station for questioning for no particular reason other than what’s a college-age American picking up a thirtysomething Mexican at the bus station for. They looked my car over, checked our documents, and let us go, but then…
… about a mile from the terminal an unmarked car comes speeding up behind us, with two uniformed and two nonuniformed agents, driver with gun unholstered. We stopped and were divided up between my car and the quasi-squad car, with Officer Friendly driving mine, sitting on his gun. We were brought back to the precinct for questioning. After about an hour of separate interviews we were accused of looting archaeological treasures (!), based on the confabulation of our professions (I was a foreign student of things Mexican, BIL was a restorer of colonial art, cousin was a photgrapher). And I had a clay figurine in the trunk of my car, the kind you’d find at any craft market here.
We weren’t exactly jailed but deprived of our liberties, and threatened of immediate physical harm if we didn’t confess. Not threatened by a police officer, since that would be illegal, but by a free-agent beater upper hired by the station commander, which I guess is A-OK.
I was put in an empty office/makeshift cooler. My brother in law was actually in a basement cell, and was more nervous due to youthful indiscretions that warranted youthful time on the farm. My cousin, who didn’t speak Spanish, was left on a couch in the general office area with instructions not to fucking move.
During that time one of the officers came in and asked “How do you say ‘Do you want a hamburger’ in English?” because they had an American in custody and he was going to be there for a while. My BIL later told me that he overheard that the guy was found at the airport with marijuana, and my cousin saw that he had been beaten.
Over about four hours I was asked to write down my cousin’s mother’s maiden name, my BIL’s children’s birthdays, and my complete home address in the U.S. The arresting officer was Good Cop (you’ll get leniency if you tell us who your local contact is), the commander was Bad Cop (I’m gonna fuck you up, you’re not walking outa here). Good Cop asked where I supposedly bought the figurine, I told him at the Ciudadela craft market in Mexico City, which is a huge, well-known market. He said that place doesn’t exist, why am I making it more difficult for myself? That’d be like a Chicago cop asking where you got that Chagall poster, and then becoming agitated when you mentioned that nonexistent place you call the “Art Institute”. I told him where the market was, nearby government buildings, how to get there by metro, etc. He sort of chuckled but insisted I was making it up.
Apparently they needed the space to beat more people up in, since they brought in a local police officer who was certified in art history and who, according to BIL, laughed openly at the commander and said that the figurine was obviously a present-day clay turd.
Everything that was taken out of the car was returned to me–Good Cop said “don’t bother checking, it’s all there”–and we were walked to my car that was in the precinct garage. Good Cop shook our hand and sent us off with a See Ya.
Once, unofficially, when I was 17. I was a Law Enforcement Explorer at the time, and doing some paperwork in the back of the station when several cops I knew thought I needed to expand my horizons. So they walked in, grabbed me by the arms, and “booked” me for being a smart-ass. Fingerprints, photo, the whole thing. Then they tossed me in a holding cell for 2 hours. It stopped being funny about 15 minutes into the whole thing.
It’s part of an old, inside joke. Something about the Mariana’s trench or something.
and he was arrested for unlawful posssession of a 1920’s death ray. 
I don’t. I live in Texas, where we have a really, really bad legal system.
I’ve visited various institutes - schools for bad kids, secure accommodation for the mentally ill, probation offices, etc - on a professional basis. Once a female colleague accidentally got locked in. :eek:
Another time, we had a lad on work experience with us. We knew that he’d been in a bit of trouble, so as I was the most physically imposing person there, I got assigned him, and I took him out with me on my travels. We were passing one town and I mentioned that there was a special school there to which he really didn’t want to get sent. I later found out that he’d been expelled from there! :smack: :smack: Still, he seemed to have a good time, and I hope he saw the light.
I got pulled over for an illegal license plate. I did not know what the cop was talking about. Turns out my wife bounced the check for the plates and did not bother to take care of it or to tell me she did it. They cuffed me and tossed me in jail.She sent a neighbor down with bail suspecting I would be pissed. Judge looked at paper work showing she had made the check right and gave me 40 hrs of community service. I spent 5 summer weekends painting seats at school stadiums ,cleaning parks and streets.That was not our closest moments.
What a scam. They had about 100 people a week doing the service. It was free labor for them and they charged me a service charge monthly til it was over.
Ouch…
Actually, he’s a pretty good guy – he just made a mistake and is in the process of paying for it. Hasn’t had his court date yet, but will probably lose his license for a year and have to pay a fine and court fees, in addition to paying his lawyer.
Plus, he’s in the military and has already been up before his commanding officer. He got 45 days restriction to barracks, 45 days on half-pay (suspended), and reduction in rank to E-2 (he was an E-3, getting ready to take his exam for E-4 in a few weeks). Plus a few hundred to get his car out of impound, and the embarassment of looking like a fuck-up to his superiors, and having to attend (and pay for) an alcohol-safety course. And the night in jail, of course.
I think he’s learned his lesson, though. At least I hope so. I’ve heard that it takes some people as many as 3 trips to jail before they learn their lesson… 
I just got this and assume you are talking about me! As for your son, I was only kidding and am sure he learned his lesson. Make a point of telling him not to let his mistake in the military make him act like a ‘piece of shit’, pardon the expression. It always seemed that when someone in the military got in trouble, they stopped caring and continued to act like they did not care anymore.
I know you were kidding – I was just teasing you a little in return.
His dad (who did 26 years in the Navy) told him this exact thing. His Chief also took him aside and gave him the same advice. Nick took it to heart and has gone in the opposite direction – he’s working his ass off, volunteering for extra duty, and generally bucking for Super-Corpsman. He’s hoping to show a lot of contrition and a willingness to make amends, so he can apply for reinstatement to E-3 before the next E-4 exam date. That way he’ll only have lost one test cycle. He knows that isn’t a sure thing – although he’s in the Navy, he’s on a Marine Corps base and the Marines take DUI and underage drinking (Nick is 20) very seriously. But he wants to do everything he can do on his end to make it a possibility. We’ll see.
I spent the night in the county jail several years ago…my drivers license was suspended (speeding, and it wasn’t that I was going terribly fast, I just had too many minor speeding tickets that year, I think it was four, then your license is suspended for three months). I lived in the middle of nowhere, and I had to get to work somehow, carpooling wasn’t an option with the job I had at that time (after this, I changed jobs and was able to get a ride to work).
It was pretty lame, though…first offense, whereas my sister’s fiance was caught driving on a suspended license three times, his suspension was for DWI, and they just had her come pick him up, and he just had to go to his court dates and pay fines. I totally don’t get it, same county and everything.
Anyway, I got pulled over on my way to work, wasn’t doing anything illegal besides the actual driving, obeying all posted speed limits, wearing my seatbelt, etc., and the car was registered to my mother, but the cop recognized me and knew my license was suspended (very small town).
It all seemed kind of stupid and pointless. I was never handcuffed, the cop let me go into the place I worked by myself to let my boss know I wouldn’t be working that night, then he let me ride in the front seat of his car instead of in the back, and handed me tissues while I cried, we got to the jail and I had my fingerprints and mug shot taken, I called my parents, then they sent me outside by myself for a cigarette before they put me in my cell. Then my dad showed up to bring me a Coke and a book, and to make fun of me, naturally. There were two cells in the jail, and the cops were kind enough to put all the drunks they brought in later that night in the other one.
The next day I had to see the magistrate who set my court date, and I was free to go.
Then, when I went to court, the judge turned out to be my high school mock trial coach. He gave me a stern lecture and a small fine, and that was it.
Then there was the time I got frisked and my car and purse searched, then I had to wait around for a half hour while they brought over a drug sniffing dog, all for the crime of having a headlight out. Then he didn’t even give me a ticket for the headlight OR the contraband fireworks he found (firecrackers that were in a seat pocket in the back seat that were there for a couple years that I’d forgotten about). That was bizarre. Also completely pointless, since he asked my permission to search, he had no cause, so the very fact that I said, “…okaaaay, I guess” should have been a tipoff that he wasn’t going to find a damn thing. Except two-year-old firecrackers. Then I got home and told my dad about it, to which he replied, “damn, it’s a good thing I took my pot out of the glove box.” (My dad went through a bit of a weird pot phase after my mom left him.)
Being frisked by the side of the busiest road in the larger town where I was working during rush hour when many of my coworkers were likely to be driving by was pretty much embarrassing as hell, though…I probably should have said no when he asked to search my car, but I was kind of scared.