I think most politicians could spend the time concocting appeals for money, as that’s their greatest skill.
Declare unwavering faith they will be exhonerated if only enough aging lonely widows put him into their wills.
Differant prisoners do differant things, some spend most of their time looking for drugs, and trying to avoid meeting those they owe payment for same.
Other spend huge amounts of time reading the rulebooks and trying to fit a grievance in between the cracks.
Some spend time working on hopeless appeals, this can involve an inordinate amount of paperwork.
Most of them try to avoid work, but once they are locked up in their cells for a few weeks, they tend to have a rather differant opinion.
Prison is very stressful, its not necassarily real threat, its the paranoia, the implied threats, prisoner worry about things that are trivial to most of us - is that lump cancer? nope its nearly always something else, - is that pain a heart problem ? - nope its where you slept all twisted up.
It depends upon the prison, it depends upon if the prisoner has regular visits from family, that makes a big differance, as do letters.
There isn’t any hard and fast rule in general, but lots of card and dominoes are played, loads of talk, loads of bullshit, loads of the sorts of jokes practical and gossipy that you would not find at all amusing outside of prison can become hilarious when inside.
Teeny tiny details magnify themselves.
Lord, why dost thou tempt me this way?
Or construct them. I just now ran across the following fact in Stanley Newman’s book Cruciverbalism:
“I can’t put a number on it, but a healthy portion of crossword puzzles published in America are created by constructors who are ‘guests of the state,’ as the saying goes.”
Oh, was that a sentence?
…I thought that was Illinois’ retirement plan…
Can you always bring your own books? Is it possible to request solitary confinement?
Is it always possible to get paper, for writing?
As always with these threads, I should point out that what I’m saying is specifically applicable to New York state and might not hold true elsewhere. If you’re planning on committing any major felonies, you should shop around and compare prison systems to find one that suits your particular needs.
Somewhat. Most prisons have property limits and there’s an upper limit on how much you can accumulate of anything including books. There’s also a limit on how much we’re going to send with you if you transfer to another prison - anything over four bags of property and you pay to have it shipped out of your pocket.
It’s possible to request it. That doesn’t mean you’ll get it. All requests for protective custody are reviewed by a committee that determines if you have a legitimate reason to fear your safety or if you’re just generally nervous. If we don’t think you’ve got a real concern, we’ll send you back out into general population.
Pretty much. In theory, we only supply stationery to prisoners who have no money to buy their own. In practice, we generally don’t bother checking with inmate accounts. If you ask for a pad of paper we just give it to you. Unless you ask for a new pad of paper three or four times a week in which case we’re probably going to tell you to start buying your own.
I’ve often wondered, what happens to all your material possessions in the outside world? I assumed that unless you had family to stump up the costs, anything you’re paying off (house, car etc) would be automatically repossessed.
Also, isn’t it great when new real life experience is revealed on the boards? WWII pilots to ex-inmates, we really seems to have everything covered here.
Yeah. I’m waiting for Daley, Stroger and all of their friends to “retire”. I’d rather have Tony Soprano and Michael Corleone running things. At least it would be efficient.
At the jail in the county where I used to be a deputy sheriff, the prisoners tried to get assigned to the sheriff’s “orange patrol” (named for the color of their overalls). The orange patrol left the jail property each day to work on other country property. Sometimes this was backbreakingly hard labor, other times it was something relatively easy like painting or picking up litter. The big incentive to be on the orange patrol was that they were allowed to smoke or use chewing tobacco while out working. The jail itself was tobacco-free. Failure to work hard enough while on orange patrol meant removal from it. Doing anything that might give the orange patrol a bad rep, like whistling or catcalling at passing women, meant removal from the orange patrol and quite likely getting the shit kicked out of you by the other inmates back at the jail. The inmates didn’t want anything to put the continued existence of the orange patrol at risk. Not all the inmates were locals doing short time, btw. A substantial number were prisoners from overcrowded prisons being “boarded” by the county for payment by the state.
The other advantage of being on something like an orange patrol is the simple opportunity to see something new. I think most people who live normal lives fail to appreciate how difficult it would be to spend year after year inside the same building and never get outside of it. I’ve noticed that you can drive a busload of prisoners across the state and even if it’s a ten hour drive, nobody will sleep. They’ll all just stare out the windows looking at the normal scenery that the rest of us see every day and they’ve been missing.
I wonder if I should start an Ask The Former Prisoner thread. And in which forum? Posting in this thread caused me to think a lot about that year. I’m surprised how much I remember, having avoided thinking about it for so long.
Thanks for the good luck wish erie774. I’m glad I got out without anything awful happening to me. But I deserved what I got. Scared myself straight
Another thing about jails and prisons. Be happy a lot of those guys are locked up because you wouldn’t want to meet them on the streets.
I think an Ask The Former Prisoner thread would be fascinating, as this thread has been. Really interesting stories, all.
I would find all of my hairs that had split ends and peel them apart.
MPSIMS is the appropriate forum for “Ask the …” threads.
when i worked in a bookstore we were often asked if we sent books to institutions. our store did not, but others do.
if you do end up on the “inside” do be sure you have someone on the outside to send books to you. for the institutions in my area (philly) they had to be from a business to the facility, not person to person.
How much fear is there in getting attacked? Are shivs/gangs/rapes really a concern, or could I just spend my time quietly going about my day?
Are you saying my family couldn’t send my own books directly to me, but instead would have to re-purchase them at a bookstore? What if the books are out of print? :eek:
Could you “sell” your book to a used bookseller, “buy” it back from him, and have him send it to the prison?
This is something I always think about when people say inmates have it easy because they don’t have work or pay bills. I’d much rather work and get the see new things whenever I felt like it. At journalism camp in high school, inmates from the Texas prison system came to speak to us and said they worked hard for the privilege of being on the speaking team because they were able to see different thing and eat free-world food.