Your day starts at 5:00 A.M. with a wake up call from the bubble officer to "wake up for chow". The bubble officer doesn't care whether you eat or not, so often he will just whisper the announcement one time. The PA system doesn't work very well, so if you are not already up and listening closely, you will miss it and not eat. Sometimes, the CO will mumble to try to get inmates to misunderstand and leave their cells early, and so earn a ticket for "unauthorized movement". When your wing or deck is called, you trudge outside under the watchful eye of two COs. What are they watching for? The slightest violation of any rule or policy, such as putting your hat on before you are actually outside, a shirt not properly tucked in, and ID improperly displayed, or any talking in line. Or if he just doesn't like you or his job that day. (The early shift is usually staffed by COs who have had problems- it is used as a disciplinary measure by the administration). If they spot such an infraction, they will turn you around and send you back to your cell without waiting. They are not supposed to do this- if you break a rule they are supposed to write a disciplinary report, a "ticket", but this is a hassle for them, so they do it anyway. You have little recourse but to make an issue of it by filing a "grievance", but this is an exercise in futility, and can cause you additional problems down the road, as we shall see later on.
Once you do make it to chow hall, you will pick up your tray and have about five minutes to eat before you are told to get out, finished or not. Breakfast is usually a hot gruel like grits, farina or oatmeal accompanied by two slices of stale bread and jelly. (It's not really stale, it's just made without yeast, so that inmates can't make "hooch" out of it. Tastes stale though.) Once a week, you may get scrambled eggs or a soy patty, and due to a lawsuit a few years back, you get 16 oz.s of milk. You are not allowed to trade or give away food you don't want, but this policy is generally overlooked, unless a CO is in a mood or a particular jerk, so the air is filled with calls for deals - "got milk for juice", "got a pancake for hot cereal". Cos are barking commands and orders for no purpose other than to feel like they're in control. For example, if a line is packed full, "nuts to butts", because of a hold up at the distribution window, it is impossible to move any faster, right?, but they'll still yell at you to get moving anyway. After a while, you learn to just ignore them.
After you return to your cell, you climb up on your bunk and try to get back to sleep for a couple of hours. At 7:00, the count light goes on, and the 7-3 shift will go door to door to make sure no one has escaped overnight (impossible). Some COs will bang on the doors, or yell into the room to wake you and see that you aren't dead. The real reason for this is to deprive you of sleep, another method used to keep you miserable and not at your best. Also at 7:00, all cells are supposed to be "in compliance". This means that all your stuff except for items on a list is stowed in your "box", a footlocker kept under your bed. Almost everything is prohibited from being out. Occasionally, they may do a "compliance check"- gangs of COs will descend like locusts, going cell to cell, slamming doors, and ripping into any stuff that isn't on the list, throwing it into hallways, tossing your bedding and generally trashing your cell. They seem to really enjoy doing this. Here again, they may write you a ticket, but it's easier for them to just take your stuff, sometimes for themselves. Items such as electric razors and magazines are popular with COs.
At 8:00, the regular day begins. If you have classes, this is when they start, and you will be marched to the school building following various protocols, depending on the CO walking you. A word about "movement". Anytime a group of inmates is being taken somewhere, they must walk in a double line, "paired up", with your opposite number as you walk, and no more or less than two arms lenght from the guy in front of you and the guy in back. If you aren't, it gives the CO an excuse to send you back to your cell- no school for you. COs don't approve of education programs for inmates, and will use any excuse to throw a monkey wrench in the works. Or, again they may take your ID. This is a very big deal, because without it you can't go to gym, yard, school, or even chow. This again is something they are not supposed to do- they are supposed to issue tickets for infractions, and then there is a hearing in front of the "adjustment committee, which will determine your guilt or innocence and administer punishment. That's too much paperwork, plus the administration may see what petty bullshit is being called out, so by taking your ID they are bypassing all this, and incidentally keeping the ticket count down so the official record shows that the institution is well run and has few disciplinary problems. Like in the world, your guilt or innocence is determined by the arresting officer.
If you don't have classes, you may have day room time. This varies by institution- at Dixon, and most minimum-medium joints, you can be out most of the day. You just have to return to your cell for count, before meals and at night. In some minimums, you can even sign out of your house and go where you choose-gym, yard, the library (if the facility has one). At most you have to stay in your building in a designated area where you can play cards, watch TV, or bullshit with your friends. At Big Muddy there is a 21 hour lockdown policy, so you stay in your cell until your assigned dayroom time comes up. On odd number days you can come out from 8:00 to 9:15 in the morning and 6:15 to 7:30 at night, and on even days from 12:00 to 2:15 and 7:45 to 9:15. Your scheduled gyms or yards times are worked into this time frame. At Dixon, you got one hour gym and one hour yard every day, at Big Muddy you got about two forty-five minute gyms and one forty-five minute yard a week- if you're lucky. They are required by statute to provide at least three hours outdoor time per week, and in their report to the John Howard Association BM claimed that inmates got six yards or gym per week. This is a bold faced lie. Yards, especially are cancelled all the time because COs don't feel doing it, or there are "staffing" issues. COs get fifteen paid snow days and fifteen paid sick days a year (!) and will take them for any reason or no reason. Again, many COs feel that inmates should get no gym or yard and should be in their cells all day (it reduces their workload) so they take any opportunity to cancel these activities. Items are often in poor repair and so removed from use all the time and not replaced. (This is happening with school, too...more later.)
At about 9:30 or so, the lunch lines start walking. Same as breakfast, you'll have five minutes to eat before being herded out of there. Lunch is usually a soy patty (Illinois is a soy producing state-everything is soy!), or a lunch meat slice processed at Vandalia prison. Sometimes you get beaks or claws in the meat- the carton the meat comes in actually says "not fit for human consumption" right on it! At Dixon we often got fruit, hardly ever at Big Muddy, and only highly processed canned vegetables. LOTS of starch and carbs- spaghetti, mashed potatoes, rice, more stale bread- it's no wonder why most inmates get fat, sick, and out of shape. Beverage is water. Desert, however is usually pretty good- brownies, cakes...it's almost like they're trying to make us sick.
Popular pastimes are gambling and "trafficking and trading" (a ticket, if caught) and currency is food purchased at commissary- Ramen noodles are worth about a quarter, and "write-outs" (stamped envelopes) about fifty cents.
You can only make calls (collect) from a pre-approved phone list, and then only after money is deposited in an account by the person you want to talk to. Rates used to be ridiculously high, until a lawsuit brought them down to a reasonable level- the phone company was found to be making kickbacks to prison administrators to ensure that they would get the lucrative phone account- now it costs about $3.65 for a half hour. Calls are recorded and sometimes monitored. This is usually done if you are on a list, say for suspected outside activity, or domestic issues, or sometimes they will dig up your recording if they need it as evidence. There are only four phones for each 120 inmates (three are usually working) so there are huge lines to make calls, and little day room time to make it in. Sometimes guys will charge to hold a phone or hold it for friends. A guy told me first day, "If you get in a fight while you're here, it will be over the phone".
Inmates must also shower during the limited dayroom time. At Dixon, there were individual stalls, and lots of time to use them, but at Big Muddy there are two two-man showers. Most of the time people will wait and let others shower alone. After gym, though, with only a few minutes left till lockdown, 8-10 guys will cram in there at once, rotating under the shower heads. Needless to say, I avoided this sausage-fest, and waited till the next dayroom period. Some prisons have community shower. Prison showering is not like it's portrayed on TV, though. I have never heard of an incident of assault or rape, and nearly all inmates are considerate and respectful.
Sexual activity does occur, but only on a consensual basis. Just like in the world, there are gay men in here, and if they can, they will sometimes hook up. Likewise, some are not gay, but if in prison for a long time with no hope of seeing a woman anytime soon. This is called "bidding"- having sex with a man because nothing else is available. The opprobrium against homosexual activity can be strong and pervasive, though, so these will generally keep their activities to themselves. Penalties for sexual misconduct are severe, too, and one can be shipped to a tougher prison if found out- even telling a female CO she looks nice today can get you shipped post haste..
There are also a population of transgender individuals- "geechees" who were in the process of undergoing the change when they were arrested, starting the hormone treatments, etc. Though most avoid them, they are not picked on or attacked, and are often very assertive and flamboyant. Usually an inmate who is constantly and virulently anti-gay is suspect himself. One time a geeche got pissed off and "outed" everyone she had been with, and of course it was the most prominent gay-bashers on the block.. There is a strict prison policy and program in place to protect and treat those who may have been subject to an assault, including a hot line number and special counselors. I am aware of only one violent sexual attack, and even this was at first consensual,and after the first time forced attacks ensued.
You may receive visitors from an approved guest list. These are eagerly looked forward to, as there are vending machines in the visitors room that have comparably good food which you can pig out on. Visitors can purchase cards which are renewable and can "dine" with you, and usually stay most of the day, unless visitor traffic is high. You are allowed a quick hug at the beginning and end of the visit, otherwise no touching. There is a separate area stocked with toys and decorated in bright colors for your kids to play in. This is an incongruous and depressing sight. You are thoroughly searched before and after your visit, and any contraband found will mean no mere visits for you. Amazingly, LOTS of things are smuggled in through the visitors room (though most contraband is smuggled in by guards). Although visits are usually positive and good for you, be prepared for a big letdown once it's over and you return to your cell. Visits often serve to remind you of the life you had, particularly seeing your kids and loved ones, and it can be a very depressing experience. I sometimes didn't recover for days after a visit.
If you don't have a class and have early dayroom, you have a very long afternoon to kill in your cell. Activities include watching TV (if you have one), reading, sleeping (most inmates sleep 12 hours a day) eating, going to the bathroom or talking to your celly (This gets old really quick. Most cellys don't talk to each other after the first introductory period). If you are really motivated there are certain exercises you can do, and with some imagination, there are some pretty incredible dishes that can be made. I have seen some awesome cakes, burritos and even pizzas concocted. The only electronics allowed are your TV, a "Hot Pot" (mostly for coffee, beans or rice), a Walkman(though these are now banned at Big Muddy), a small fan (no air conditioning, and it is really hot in the summer) and an electric razor. It is common to sneak food items back from chow to add to your culinary endeavors. Several times a day they will call med line and those with prescriptions will line up to get their "skittles". They WAY over-prescribe meds, especially psychotropics, and they want to keep you docile and zoned out. Some inmates want this, but this is a huge mistake. They may use the record of your reliance on meds against you when determining your fitness to re-enter society, or in civil commitment actions. (More on civil commitment later).
You may have been issued a "call pass" which sends you to various functions and activities such as the barber, the library, dentist, health care, property, internal affairs (where they try to get you to snitch on your fellows) or counseling (a joke, more later).
There is a shift change at 3:00, and they will do a count. At this time they will issue call passes for the next day, and distribute any mail you may have gotten. Mail is usually held up several days so they can inspect it , and sometimes read it if you have made a watch list, or randomly. Getting mail is usually a high point of your day, but like phone calls and visits, it can contain bad news from home which you are helpless to do anything about, and so can send you into a depression. And there is always the "Dear John" letter, or sometimes worse, the letter you were expecting but that will never come. Contact with the outside is definitely a mixed blessing. Any legal mail has to be opened in your presence, so they will call you down to the bubble separately for that, and you have to sign for it. If you mail a letter yourself, it has to be unsealed so they can inspect it. If you write "legal mail" on it, you can seal it, and they can't open it, so this is a great workaround(has to go to an attorney, though). Sending a letter costs .56, a "write out you purchase from commissary-if it's overweight they will weigh it and charge you first class no matter how heavy it is, so don't try to send any packages home, have it picked up. I once tried to send home my books and they wanted to charge $140 for it. You pay for shipping and stuff via a "money voucher" that you get from the bubble.
For any reason or no reason your building may be put on "lockdown". Perhaps not enough staff showed up for work that day. Perhaps the ones that did just want a nice easy night, maybe there is an investigation of an incident two wings over. If there was a staff assault at at another facility, even if it's five hundred miles from you, the entire Illinois prison system is locked down. This is to prevent a co-ordinated state-wide riot. This means you will be locked in your cell 24 hours a day, sometimes for as long as two weeks. Food will be brought to you (ice cold), your drink will be a powdered "milk substitute", no showers (!), no movement, no nothing but staring at the walls with your celly the whole time. You will want to kill him, no matter how decent he is. Almost always, this will have nothing to do with you, or even your building. This is an extension of the pervasive policy that "everyone is guilty" that is found throughout the entire legal system. For example, one guy was caught sneaking a pepper (a pepper!) back to his cell from horticulture class. The entire class was not only cancelled, but eliminated. I was lucky enough for a while to play guitar in a band program (we were pretty good!). One guy got caught giving another a coffeeball (about one cup of coffee), and since the COs hated the band program, they used it as an excuse to shut the whole thing down. I was depressed for weeks. If one guy in a wing does something, the whole wing will be locked down. We were locked down during the Zimmerman trial as well as the Ferguson riots and the New York choking incident, even though those things happened in other states! We were locked down during Bulls playoff games, and you will be locked down for most major holidays (Merry Christmas!) By the time a lockdown is lifted you are angry, depressed, and ill from poor food, poor hygiene, and laying in a bunk twenty-four hours a day.
Once a week, you are supposed to go to commissary to purchase hygiene items and food to supplement the subsistence diet you are given. Again, the COs and administration don't like you shopping for snacks, nor do they like that the money from inmate shopping goes to pay for amenities like cable and recreational equipment. They used to like it, when they weren't under scrutiny for stealing from the commissary trust fund. Several facilities were found to be pilfering, as well as padding the prices. They were required to roll back prices 7%. Now that there is no longer money to be had, they've gotten a case of "blue flu': they work slowly, only open one or two cashier windows, and take breaks every few inmates, so that now you'll be lucky to shop twice a month. The commissary staff is a different union then the COs and they are constantly battling the administration, so they'll go extra slow, or not restock shelves, so that when you do shop, there is nothing to buy. At Dixon, several times we arrived to shop and literally nothing was available. The "special programs" dorm once refused to shop at all and staged a protest, with the result that the program was de-certified (this is a dorm of the best behaved inmates). This wouldn't be so bad except that prisons have stopped issuing soap, detergent, shampoo, and other basic necessities, and now you are required to buy them yourself out of your state pay (just under $10 a month). This leaves little or nothing to buy food with.It can get pretty rank in there if you haven't shopped for a while.
Food items available consist of gas station food- chips, cookies, pop, candy bars, coffee, as well as packs of extremely overpriced prepared food such as chile or BBQ beef, or food that can be prepared by adding heated (not boiling!) water in your hot pot, like beans, processed rice, or the ever popular Ramen noodles. Since this is all carb dense high calorie junk food, and there are no other pleasures available other than eating, big bellies are rampant. Cosmetics are of very poor quality. Very expensive clothing is available, some of which you'll have to have in the winter, like thermal underwear, a sweatshirt, gloves, or a stocking hat. Most of these are manufactured and sold to prisons by various prison industries, most notably a company called Bob Barker: that's right, the quiz show host and TV pitchman. (Prison issue slip-on shoes are called "Bob Barkers".) Other celebrities heavily invested in prison industries are Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, and Julias Irving. If you don't have someone on the outside putting money in your trust fund account you will starve or freeze.
With a permit and $215, you can buy a cheap 13" TV that would cost $49 at Wal-Mart, a 8" plastic fan, or a Walkman for $50. Special music cassettes (no metal screws) can be ordered from a catalogue, some go for as high as $40. They are just starting to implement an I-Pod program, though this wasn't in place anywhere when I left. The idea is you can download songs from a kiosk for a dollar each from an approved list.
If you've had a bad week gambling, you can reach your limit pretty quick, and have very little left for yourself. If you run out, several well financed inmates run a two for one store- they'll sell you one item and you pay them back double at store time. This is very profitable for them, and at Dixon several guys had huge operations going (it's less workable in a lockdown joint). It's very easy to run up a huge debt (I've seen guys run up $400 bills), and a common practice is to "walk yourself"- voluntarily go to seg to avoid your creditors. Of course, you'll probably run into them at yard or gym, and then it could get ugly.
Seg is an isolated cell, 24-hour lockdown, no gym, no yard, and you can be sent there for any reason or no reason. According to the rules, you can't be sent to seg without a hearing and a guilty finding, but like everything else, the rules rarely apply. A common trick is to lock you up for three weeks while you are "under investigation", but they rarely investigate, just send you to seg and then release you-no paperwork, and the prison looks like it's under control. Lots of inmates are found innocent after a hearing: small comfort after three weeks in a 6' x 9' cell.
Seg will quickly make you crazy- it is near total sensory deprivation- that's what they do to prisoners during war time. All your property is confiscated- you are allowed nothing in there with you, and it usually take two months to get it back-if you're lucky. Personal property has a way of mysteriously being "lost or misplaced" by the property department, and there is nothing you can do. Pilfering from inmates is systematic and legitimized- "Don't like it? Don't come to prison." (This maxim is used to excuse any unethical or abusive behavior by the guards or administration.)
Common offenses are trafficking and trading,(this includes sharing a book with someone- the only ticket I ever got was for loaning books to inmates, and the warden even approved of what I was doing. Unfortunately, a CO did not.) unauthorized movement (being someplace you're not supposed to be, or not being someplace you are supposed to be- this includes oversleeping, missing an appointment, etc) "insubordination" (mouthing off to staff, or even not mouthing off to staff- if you smirk at them, or have a bad attitude, it counts). Often insubordination results from unprovoked verbal abuse from a staff member-being called a faggot, say, very common, and if you respond in any way it's seg for you, and their partners will gladly lie to back them up. I wore a white hair tie for my pony tail and a CO called me out of a lunch line and announced "We do not wear soiled panties in our hair!" I said "Whatare you talking about?", and he repeated: "We do not wear soiled panties in our hair!", and the other COs said they would swear that's what I was doing. It is hard for me to keep quiet sometimes, especially when there is such an easy set up, so I responded "That's just not fair. You guys should be able to wear anything you want in your hair." I missed chow that day." Possession of contraband"- anything that's not supposed to be in your cell, usually harmless, like salt and pepper or a food item from chow, soap to clean your cell with (not allowed!), or a fuck book. Serious contraband like a shank, drugs or anything that can conceivably be used as a weapon will get you transferred out, so seg isn't used for that.
Once you are out of seg, guilty or not, you are put on "C" grade for thirty (or more) days, with limited privileges and shopping limits until you work yourself back up to "A" grade ("B" grade is an intermediate status. In some joints, you may just be given "C" grade as a punishment, but not at Big Muddy-here it's seg for anything.)
The character of people who are incarcerated will take a much more detailed and nuanced approach and I intend to do that in a later chapter, but in brief, most inmates are decent, polite, considerate, and not that much different than people you'd find on the outside. They will help each other out, volunteer to mentor other inmates, or to help those with disabilities (a huge segment of the population) and are not violent in any way. The true psychopaths are usually found on the other side of the badge- the COs (they get their own chapter too!) Many have personal and mental health issues and take out their problems on inmates because they are helpless to respond. There is a very fine line between COs and inmates- most are one DUI away from being in here themselves. Because of the expansion of things that are classified as jailable crimes, the prisons are full of people who have committed some minor, non-violent offense, so there really is nothing to fear in the way of violence. One inmate summed it up for me when I realized I was going to prison- "Don't gamble, don't borrow money, don't engage in homosexual activity, and don't get into others business and you'll have no problem".
The single most important thing in determining what kind of time you'll do is the kind of celly you have. This is the guy you'll be spending 20 plus hours a day with in a tiny room. You'll eat together, sleep together, go to the bathroom three feet from his head and have to be there while each of you go through your personal torments and ordeal. If he's a good one, you'll be fine, if he's not, it'll be hell. There are many kinds- the screamer, who has to keep a running conversation going through the door with his friends at the other end of the wing about nothing at full volume, the clean freak, who is obsessively and fanatically cleaning all the time, so that he has something to hold over you in an argument, the player, who always has some kind of action going on so that there is always a dozen people at your door or in your cell, the bully, a 300 pounder who considers it his cell, and that you'll get along fine if you just do what he says, all the time, the snitch, who will make stuff up about you to curry favor with the guards or other inmates, the thief, who will take your stuff and then deny it to your face, even tho there's only two of you in the cell, the brooder, who will lay in his bunk all day whining about how he got screwed, (we all got screwed!) misses his girl, and just has to get out of here, the bug, who talks to himself, wakes up screaming, or paints the walls with feces, pig-pen, who never showers or brushes his teeth, the bloviator, who has an opinion about everything, the jailhouse lawyer, who can fix everyone's case except his own,- to name just a few. Just as important is figuring out which one you are, and modifying your behavior. Your celly is almost as close to you as your wife - closer! - and if you don't make some accommodations, your time can go excruciatingly slow. Most cellys, after a while stay out of each others way and don't talk much to each other- this is best in the long run. You may ask your counselor for a cell change, or even to be put with a friend- sometimes this even happens, but they move people for no apparent reason, so you could get stuck with someone worse.
A decent counselor can get some simple things done for you- process some paper, explain how some procedures work, etc. There are few good counselors, however. In fact, many are not counselors at all - some are COs, paralegals, or librarians slumming or filling in because there are no real counselors available. These know little about the job or the processes involved. We had two who could not even get access to our records. Most will just spin you the company line, or will even actively delay processing requests- this is actually their purpose: to appear to be available for guidance, while postponing any actual action. You can apply for a transfer to another institution, if you wish (only if the other institution has a class that is not offered where you are- you can't transfer just to be closer to your loved ones, or because you don't like it here), but these are almost always denied and you can't apply again for six months. Sometimes after four or five tries and evidence of good behavior they may move you.
There is a grievance procedure but this is probably the biggest joke of them all. A favorite trick is to delay a few weeks and then "lose or misplace" the paperwork. Since you only have 60 days to file, they only have to do this a few times before you're past you deadline and the grievance is invalid. Since you don't have access to a copier, you don't have access to your stuff, so you have to start over from scratch. This happens all the time with grievances against COs or the administration. You are essentially trusting the filing of your paperwork to the very people you are filing a complaint against: "Here is my grievance, officer, can you file this for me?" "Sure, no problem" he says as he throws it in the trash. You can send your grievance directly to Springfield, but it will be denied because it did not go through the proper channels, the proper channels being the COs, counselor, and prison administration.
If a grievance does make it into the proper hands, it can get some action- it can also get you marked for "special treatment" by not only the CO you filed against, but all his fellow COs. If that happens, you file another one claiming reprisal and if it continues, file again- it's a serious commitment, so be sure the issue is important enough that it's worth the potential grief you may be in for. COs have a definite "us vs. them" mentality, and to them all inmates are scum who don't deserve any rights. If you persist and persist (if you are in for a long sentence) eventually, finally, they will leave you alone.
The very worst thing about prison, at least for me, is the fact that you cannot be productive, you cannot do what you do, or be what you are. I overcame this by writing (this article!), taking part in classes (more on education later), working out, and participating in every activity I could get into. I played on a softball team (two time all-star!), played tennis and volleyball at Dixon, and read probably a thousand books. If you don't, you will deteriorate both mentally and physically, and be useless to yourself and everybody else when you get out, and this is why prison is a failed policy- it makes good people bad, and bad people worse, and creates a permanent dependant underclass that is a drain on society, both while in prison and when released. The other worst thing is it takes you away from your family and loved ones- kids grow up without a father, parents take ill and even die and you can't be there, and these things pray on you. Prison is an incubator for mental illness, and it takes a strong person to go through it and emerge intact.
There is so much more, the legal process,, the criminalizing of America, society's part and responsibility- and I will try get to every aspect of it in further posts and the eventual book
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