In The Klink. Have you "Done Time" in the Slammer? Can you share the details?

[Russell Kanning]

Turns out that Cheshire County jail was quite warm in the bubble (I was there Nov 14-17).  Even sleeping naked didn't stop me from sweating all over.  I was told it'd be colder upstairs in population, but when I went upstairs for a shower, I didn't notice a significant shift in temperature.

that one bubble cell is the hotbox ... others are very cold ... it is much colder at night in the normal population upstairs

[ColdSoul]

Most likely all calls will be recorded as they will have a phone company that records all them and keeps them on file as long as they need if they wish to "save" that call or one year in normal cases where a call isn't flagged. Also they most likely will have a program in the phone to attempt to detect 3-way calls so you will likely get cut off if you attempt a actual 3-way call with someone on the "outs" calling someone without a land-line. They normally don't check the calls though in my experience unless their is a complaint, or a investigator comes in saying they need to see if such and such person called anyone.

This is of course if they had the same system or similar system that my ex-job use to have.

It is generally wrong to lock someone up with their hands behind their back due to the increased chance of asphyxiation due to the pressure put on the lungs while having your hands behind your back. If someone is locked up this way it is normally required they check on them periodically in order to ensure they don't stop breathing.

[Coconut]

A Day In The Life
04 Dec 09

Are you predicting the future?

[Dave Ridley]

i did a few vids about it 
go to the youtube channel and search "jailed in defense"

[TackleTheWorld]

A Day In The Life
04 Dec 09

Are you predicting the future?

Oh No!   I hope not!

[Russell Kanning]

your dayinthelife looks very similar to my experiences ... maybe because the rooms are small and the  food is strange
I spend a lot more time walking around the room. I would walk forward and backwards ... that way I don't get dizzy and can look out the door or window. I would also do steps turn around to the left, steps turn around to the right to not spin.

[Lloyd Danforth]

In the Army jail that I spent most of my time we were in regular barracks. We had TVs and radios.  We played a lot of Chess and card games. We had Knock Gin championships that went on for days. I did most of my early libertarian reading there.
We were frisked before leaving for work or appointment and apon our return.  We were frisked after every meal. I've been frisked more than 1000 times!

[firecracker joe]

  being frisked twice a day when working in the kitchen brings back the memory of a friend i made who one day when being frisked by a female co  my buddy shook his butt  seductively and she wrote him up which suprised me cause he was young and cute and she was big old and ugly  a 300 pounder  if i were her i would have taken him in the shower however i'm not. It was still one of my funniest memories of jail.
In prison on friday nights me and 6 others would pony up a pack of marlboros each and my celly would invite a skinner to our 6 man room and give him a beating for all the little kids who could'nt  it was'nt very nice but theirs not much to do in prison on friday night.
I remember one night on a pod of 72 people one guy got a sheet of lsd  its quite a site to see about 60 convicts trippin the co's were horrified and just let the party go till the drugs wore off which i give them credit for cause it would have been mayhem if they had rolled in instead the doors were locked til the party was over.
ah prison memories hope i never get to see that again  its a different world with different rules.

[Russell Kanning]

it defines everything I don't like in this world

[cxxguy]

I've been in for a couple short stretches.  Nothing I'm proud of, just stupid kid stuff.  Driving on suspended license, mostly.

They took my license when I was in my 20's, and in Michigan, if you are convicted of driving on suspended, they'll whack you with another year of suspension.  I got pulled over once a year like clockwork.  It annoyed me terribly.  Finally, I moved to Florida with another suspension pending.  Kept writing to the Judge, saying "I'm in Florida, but will appear for trial ... please postpone, I don't have the money to get to Michigan".  Finally, while still pushing back the trial, my suspension ended.  I immediately applied for a Florida license, and then returned to Michigan to stand trial.  As expected, they whacked my license -- my Michigan license -- for another year.  As I had hoped, this did not effect my Florida license, and finally I had broken the cycle.  It is one of my favorite "real world hacks".  Since then, I have avoided jails.  Having a good job and savings is a big help in this regard.

A funny, and true, jail story: I'm walking down the street in Ann Arbor, MI.  It's about 7:00 in the morning.  A cop car rolls up behind me, and I hear "Mr. Paul!".  (I much prefer towns where the cops *don't* know my name).  They claim to have a warrant for my arrest for trespassing at the local High School, from which I have recently been expelled.  I believe them.  They arrest me, and since it is early morning, and court will soon start, they transport me to the holding cells behind the court room, instead of the county jail.  This is good for me, since they neglected to do more than pat me down, and I had about a half ounce of weed in my crotch.  There is no toilet in the cell.  This is also good for me.  I bang on the door:  "Gotta go to the bathroom".  They take me there, and, with tears in my eyes, I shove my half ounce of fine, kind bud up into the space behind the sink.  Hopefully, thus concealed, it will not be found until it is too late to connect it to me.  I am held at the county jail until about 2:00AM, at which point I am sprung by a friend.

The next morning:  I am still awake, having slept most of the previous day.  I am walking down the street in Ann Arbor, MI.  It's about 7:00 in the morning.    A cop car rolls up behind me, and I hear "Mr. Paul!".  (I much prefer towns where the cops *don't* know my name).  They claim to have a warrant for my arrest for trespassing at the local High School, from which I have recently been expelled.  I say "I bonded out on that charge yesterday".  They say "it's not in the computer".  I have failed to retain my bail receipt.  We return to the holding cell behind the Court House.  I ask what Judge I will be going before, and they say Alexander.  This is the same judge before whom I appeared the previous day.  I suspect that he will remember me, and will not be returning me to the County Jail.  I tell the cop I have to go to the bathroom.  We return there, and, with tears in my eyes, I spring my fine, kind bud from it's little porcelain prison behind the sink.  We proceed to court.  Judge Alexander asks "Didn't I see you on this charge yesterday, Mr. Paul?"  I agree with him that he did.  He asks why I am in his courtroom, rather than the county jail.  I explain that I bonded out.  He confirms this with the County Sheriff (I never knew they had phones behind the bench before, the only time I've seen one used).  He says "Well, Mr. Paul, I think we've put you through enough for a Trespassing beef, I'm going to dismiss the charge".

I collect the $100 my buddy put up for my bond, and bonehead, bond and bud ride off into the sunset, to consider the fact that as t goes to infinity, all things which can happen will happen, but most of them won't happen to you.

Just so I don't get a bunch of "wanna smoke a fatty" questions, I should mention that I quit getting high in 1987.  This, too, makes it easier to avoid jails.

[KBCraig]

Great story. 

[nemoslaw]

 
     It's a people zoo! worked part time at a county jail dispensing meds, It's the smell that got me, it's a combination of barnyard, stale ammonia, and sweat, not to mention dirty mops with old bleach.
     A large majority of people that were in there had mental illness. I could tell this by what medications they were taking....hmm makes ya wonder if they were in the right place, however NH mental health system has much to be desired.
     
              The FEDS think that their holding cells are the ritz carlton and they are proud of it, however they did make accommodations for my dog, of course it was not worth the thousand dollar fine, nor the ransacking of my truck by a bear when a dumb ass ranger left the impound gate open.
       
        Skin disease runs rampant in these places, if you stay for any amount of time your skin will have been affected or you may just get HEPB; it is not healthy to crowd lots of people in one place for long periods of time that is how disease is spread.

      Arizona has what is known as a tent city where you can reduce your time by working on the chain gang headed by the worst Sherriff known to any illegal, sherriff Joe Arpio...reading his antics will make your skin crawl...

[Daien]

A Day In The Life
04 Dec 08

I really enjoyed reading this, Lauren, I could hear your voice coming through the words. You're so expressive.

[peaceful_porc]

I think it's a crime that innocent people are detained in the conditions I have heard about and "seen on TV."  so I think a record of the conditions individual's are subjected to is important for everyone to see and understand.  A day in the life, meals, times, clothing procedures, activities, etc. of where they were "housed"., no detail is too small to capture the reality of this picture.

I've been held twice for civil disobedience, never here, and once for pulling a knife on my husband who had beaten me to a pulp. The civil disobedience ones were mere inconveniences, but when you're locked up, bruised and battered - the picture of injustice - it's a whole different ball game.

The self-defense was in Oklahoma City, considered by the Fed's to be one of the worst jails in the nation. I can attest to that.

You are given one pair of socks, one bra, one pair of huge, dingy panties, your oranges, and huge orange shower shoes. If you're lucky, they will be the same size. No female is lucky enough to get shoes that fit. They simply don't exist. So you hold on with your toes and do the best you can. This supply of clothes is to last you one week. That's right. One pair of panties a week.

The sounds and smells inside a jail are like no other. Thick, cinderblock walls and steel doors everywhere. The atmosphere is immediately stifling. You are cut off completely. There are no windows. The guards may or may not interact with you. In smaller jails, the guards are more personable, and some are even caring. In Oklahoma City, this is not the case. You are now sub-human. You do not exist. You do not matter. That will be the hardest thing to get used to.

In Oklahoma City, the cinderblock walls are painted a dark, ugly gray, and the large, steel doors of the cells are a solid mass of peach. No bars here, folks. Each door has a thick, double plated window measuring about 5x7 inches looking out onto the pod. Is it raining outside? Is the sun shining? You don't know. And you will miss that.

You are escorted to your cell, where you will spend at least 22 hours a day with two other people and a toilet. The cells are two man cells, but due to overcrowding, almost every cell has three people in it: Two on the bunks, one on the floor by the toilet. There is barely room for the mat on the floor, and now there will not be room for any of you to move around, and you will have to step on or over the floor person to go to the bathroom. I wish I was a better judge of space, and then I could tell you a hard and fast size of the room, but it is about the size of your average bathroom. It is long enough for the two bunks that come out of the wall, and a toilet, and one more mat on the floor. Nothing more.

The rooms smell bad, and yes, they are always cold. The lights never turn out all the way. Boredom is unreal. You are in a situation where you have way too much time to think, but no contact from the outside world. In my case, my parents (yes, both) had just died, and being an only child, and my husband having been the reason I was there, I had no one to call. All calls have to be collect, and they cannot be to cell phones. Oh, and I hope you have all those numbers memorized, otherwise, your screwed.

Breakfast comes at 4:30 am. You will probably be half asleep, but you learn to get up and eat it anyway. In OK County you are never given anything to drink, but some jails give drinks, and even have ice you can access. OK county rotates 3 breakfasts: Malt O Meal, Rice, and oatmeal. None are sweetened, and all are disgusting. You also get two pieces of brown bread.
I am a vegetarian, and so for lunch and dinner I got 4 slices of bread with a clump of peanut butter. 2 meals a day, 7 days a week. For real. But it took almost 2 weeks to get the veggie tray, and in the meantime I ate whatever I could off the trays. Sometimes green beans, or fake mashed potatoes. The food is horrible, and not enough. In OKC the feds don't allow their people to stay there anymore because of the abuses, and one of the things they cited was "insect infestation, mouse and rat droppings, and bird parts." I don't know what the "bird parts" mean, but it doesn't sound good. In OKC, as in the two other places I've been for civil disobedience, you are given your tray and you eat it in your room. I once saw a roach jump off a tray in OKC. I ate the food anyway. You eat with white plastic sporks. You begin to miss real silverware.

What about your toenails? How do you cut them? You don't, and it sucks. You better start biting your fingernails, because that's the best you're going to be able to do. The towel they give you for showers is small and thin, but it's better than nothing. You take your showers in the huge orange shoes that you can't walk in, because staf infections are rampant, and medical care is a joke, so you take what precautions you can.

Toilet paper. If you are a girl, you will not - I repeat, WILL NOT have enough toilet paper to last a week. I don't care what you do or how you do it. And remember, there's only one pair of panties. How you make do is up to you. Tear the sheets, tear the skinny towel, use pieces of magazine pages if you can get them, or just go without. Having a period is unthinkable, but that doesn't stop it from coming. If you have heavy periods, then you will most likely be begging for pads from other girls, and will be very short on toilet paper. I once had to sleep on the toilet for nearly 48 hours, because I had neither pads nor toilet paper, and no guard gave a damn. By this time you are more like the animal the guards see you as. I was never rude, or animalistic, but I didn't feel human anymore. I was a shell, just trying to survive. Suicide would have been a great option a few times, but there's no way to make that happen. You have no choice but to sit and wait. Wait for the next meal, wait for a guard to come get you for court, wait for something. Anything.

In OKC we were supposed to be allowed out of our rooms to shower and walk around the pod for 2 hours a day, but this was very sporadic. We were often locked up all day for days at a time, in small, cramped rooms, with no showers.

Shake down and change out was once a week, where we were given new clothes and the cops would toss our cells to make sure we didn't have any good hooch working.

That's most of it. All I can stand to write, anyway. It was the worst time of my life.

[Russell Kanning]

it was too bad for even the feds?