Because we love our prison stories

[Eva]

I just read all of this thread - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmes ... _id=136858 - someone talking about two years in a Michigan prison. It is unexpectedly well written.

[Serious Paul]

He's a great liar, but that's about it.

[DV8]

I enjoyed the read. What do you think he's lying about, and why do you think he's lying?

[Serious Paul]

A lot.

In order:

• The smell. This depends greatly on which prison you're locked up in, which is generally what almost all of this depends upon. This guy has pretty clearly never actually been inside of a real prison.
• White People. Again this depends on which prison you're in. The further North you go, the less true this becomes. The closer to Detroit you get, the more true this is. However, he is correct in that more black men are incarcerated than white men.
• Rape is a big deal. It is very common place in lower level settings, and is becoming increasingly common in higher security levels as more and more prisoners are crowded into smaller spaces.
• There hasn't been 33 murders in the Michigan Department of Corrections int he last 20 years, let alone in a single prison. Not all of them are white.
• Getting Fat. Clearly he's never eaten a meal inside a prison. A lot of prisoners would rather go hungry than eat what's served inside a prison chow hall-as it's invariably horrible. And that's on a good day. Convicts who can order food from the prison store system do so. Everyone else eats what's given, which is getting smaller by the day as they try to control costs. Calorie counts are being slashed to the point where staff actually fear a riot based on hunger.
• Exercise equipment is hard to come by, but what we have is in CONSTANT use. if nothing else because people are bored. The track is almost always in use even in the harshest winters.
• Solitary is actually known as "The Hole" to convicts, and "Seg" to staff. It's actually a preferred method of confinement because you won't be raped-or well, I guess at least your chances are reduced of actually being raped and assaulted in a single man cell.
• Drugs are a problem but the drug choice varies, and I have my personal doubts about anyone using their thumbnail to open a vein when there a lot easier ways to consume drugs-prescription, and illicit.
• He clearly doesn't understand the prison economy in any actual way.
• Some people cut the connection to the outside, but the successful ones don't. Visit's, mail. etc...are things worth dying for inside. Convicts often complain that people forget them, but few actively work to cut that cord.
• Cliques, gangs, whatever are still a massive problem. It's bullshit to think staff target anyone who hangs in a group larger than three because everyone hangs in a group larger than three. Policy officially frowns upon large groups, but eve the definition of that varies from joint to joint. Again it's pretty clear whoever wrote this never spent any actual time inside a prison.
• The last guy, and only guy, to get shot in the head by staff in Michigan was well after this guy made this post.
• There are no tasers allowed to be used inside the Michigan Department of Corrections. Period.
• Taser's don't make holes in people. They don't have enough juice. Period.
• No one gets an allowance inside. Some people get paid for various jobs, or to attend school but it's not enough to buy good drugs, or store goods.

I could keep going all day long, but it's clear this guy never stepped foot inside a real prison ever. He's clearly a liar of epic proportions.

[Serious Paul]

He is correct in saying that literacy rates for most prisoners is atrocious. Another reason why i doubt he was really incarcerated? He writes way too well.

[Serious Paul]

By the way the penalty for armed robbery (In Michigan) is a little higher than eighteen months.

[Serious Paul]

Lunch is rarely sandwiches.

[Serious Paul]

Food is not cooked off site and brought in anywhere in the MDOC. Ever. Not even once in 200 plus years.

[Serious Paul]

Cell outlet power is on from 0600 until midnight in most institutions, and at lower levels 24 hours a day. In lower levels there are multiple outlets per cube.

[Serious Paul]

I could be wrong, but you only get one parole officer. I don't work parole, but I doubt they move you. People are lazy. More likely they just lie and say they saw you.

[Serious Paul]

Every meal is monitored by staff, but breakfast sees the least attendance. Most convicts don't want to get up that early.

[Serious Paul]

Race is no indication of an offenders capacity for violence. White convicts are no more likely than black convicts to be violent.

Electric razors are as much of a pain in the ass, because they are used as tattoo guns. Tattoo guns means needles, and no matter what it's sharp.

This guy is an idiot.

[Serious Paul]

Headphones can be purchased off of the store lists, and preferred to blasting your bullshit music at top volume, which in turn makes other people blare their music or yell. This guy is truly an idiot.

[Serious Paul]

Oops. Got drunk. got rude. Got banned. Doh.



I am somewhat embarrassed, but luckily I'll live.

[DV8]

The most convincing argument you made was the one about tasers. Doesn't MDOC issue any non-lethal take-down weapons to the staff at all? Like those bean-bag shooty thingers?

[UncleJoseph]

I could be wrong, but you only get one parole officer.

You are correct...one parole officer per parolee. This is true at the state and federal levels.

[Serious Paul]

The most convincing argument you made was the one about tasers. Doesn't MDOC issue any non-lethal take-down weapons to the staff at all? Like those bean-bag shooty thingers?

No. Staff do not carry weaponry of any sort. The idea is that prisoners out number staff at best 5 to 1, and by much more in some facilities. So if you had something they could simply take it, and then they have it.

A staff member at a different facility was recently fired because it looked the staff member may have used a set of handcuffs as a pair of knuckledusters. In the end the staff member got their job back, but they had to fight for a few months and went through hell.

Now in some special circumstances staff are issued chemical agents-but tasers have never been approved by the Department for use, even though some staff have asked for them. (I am not one of those staff members, just an FYI. I'm not sure they'd be of any real use .) But these situations are ALWAYS documented, and very often if not always recorded on video.

The CDC is on the fore front of using this kind of stuff but they have a way bigger budget, a lot more violence, and a crap ton more willingness to end up in court. (The MDOC fears the courts like a neat freak fears a leper.)

[Bonefish]

I do wonder about the smell issue though: every institution I've been in has had this terrible smell. Not like an overpowering smell like a porta-jon that ain't been emptied out, but this underlying scent of disinfectant, and underneath that a scent of stale sweat and piss/mildew. But this goes for the Jails, Prisons, College dorms(some of them are set up exactly like prison dorms...I freak out when I go inside those places) and schools I've been to. Not saying you're wrong, but I wonder if maybe you've grown accustomed to that aroma, and just don't notice it as much?

The other thing is: you gotta be a lazy fuck to get fatter in prison, I'd think. Every time I've been locked up in jail, after a day or two everyone starts doing push-ups. It's just a way to pass the time. Got something on your mind, but you don't wanna talk about it? Do some push-ups. Angry? Push-ups? Wanna jerk-off? Push-ups or shower. I've always been in better shape when I get out of jail than I was going in.

[Serious Paul]

Not saying you're wrong, but I wonder if maybe you've grown accustomed to that aroma, and just don't notice it as much?

It's certainly possible. But I believe generally speaking older institutions and "high usage" facilities tend to smell worse. But some places aren't that bad. In my own facility one housing unit will smell like shit and desperation for about ten thousand more years, but the housing unit fifty from it generally smells like disinfectant generally.

This isn't to say a prison will ever smell like a fresh baked apple pie, or happiness. But yeah the Michigan Reformatory smells like old prison. Where as other, newer places don't have that smell...yet.

[UncleJoseph]

Many different institutions have different odors. I would dare say that county jails are bound to be different than prisons. I have been inside dozens of county jails on prisoner transports...some of them have no offensive odor whatsoever. Some of them smell like unshowered homeless person no matter which section you're in.

[Bonefish]

Maybe it's just a North Carolina thing? All the Jails, Schools and College dorms I've been in all have a very similar odor to them. Or maybe it's just selective memory?

What is the CDC, btw? California Department of Corrections?

[Serious Paul]

Yes.

[DV8]

Are there any private, none-state run prisons in Michigan? I've heard a lot about the rise of this type of institution, all the money that's involved and the subsequent conflict of interest a situation like that houses, but those stories mostly came out of the south-western part of the U.S.

[Serious Paul]

I think there's one private run prison, and one federal prison. Neither have a good rep-but I've never worked either, or directly met anyone who's worked the federal joint.

The Wackenhut refugees universally agree it was a dangerous place, where the bottom line mattered far more than actual safety and security. I know many of them.

[Jeff Hauze]

At least on the drug usage, the guy's story reads exactly like a dozen other stories I've read written by folks who don't have the first clue about addiction or most drugs. I really like how easily he stopped heroin abuse. The local methadone clinics would love to know his method.

[Bonefish]

How does it work? I can't say i've ever been addicted to anything but cigarettes. I have never understood why people get addicted to cocaine, meth, or heroin. I mean, I get that they're good, but I just don't understand why people would use them to the degree that constitutes abuse.

[UncleJoseph]

How does it work? I can't say i've ever been addicted to anything but cigarettes. I have never understood why people get addicted to cocaine, meth, or heroin. I mean, I get that they're good, but I just don't understand why people would use them to the degree that constitutes abuse.

For the same reason you can get addicted to cigarettes or alcohol. Heroin is one of the most physiologically addictive substances on the planet. Many times, people who try it once are instantly addicted to it...and the constantly try to get that high they felt the first time they did it. Also, some people are more prone to addiction than others...those folks are more likely to try those types of drugs in the first place.

What I don't get, is why someone would choose to do them even once, when he or she already knows that the fallout from such a decision has such a high risk factor.

[Jeff Hauze]

What I don't get, is why someone would choose to do them even once, when he or she already knows that the fallout from such a decision has such a high risk factor.

To get chicks, of course.

[Serious Paul]

If you're going to be dumb, you gotta be tough.

[3278]

Oops. Got drunk. got rude. Got banned. Doh.

Yeah, that's okay. A lot of flags have been raised since then, on that forum and elsewhere it's been posted, and details are starting to come out. It's utter fabrication, and more and more people know it.

[Serious Paul]