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85% off and three extra months free! This is the story of Daniel and Donna, a pair
of lovers who decided after too many nights spent broke at home to turn to a life of crime. Except this love-struck duo weren’t exactly
criminal masterminds, and two days after they turned to the dark side of life they found
themselves in handcuffs. They’d decided to rob the local pet store
and were subsequently caught in the act of trying to fence a rather noisy hyacinth macaw
and a quiet, if not scary, ball python. For their transgression the two were told
they’d have to spend some time behind bars, a frightening prospect for both people since
they’d never been to prison before. How did incarceration go for them? All shall be revealed. Daniel arrived on a bus that he had boarded
at the county jail. As soon as he entered the prison he was taken
to the holding tank after he had verified his name. He sat in this tank for quite some time and
he wasn’t really sure what was happening. Daniel, to say the least, was at this point
regretting the fact he had stolen those exotic pets, and when he looked at a sign that read,
“Receiving and Discharge”, all he could think about was the discharge part. That should be one year from now, he thought,
and he was right to imagine it certainly wouldn’t be the best year of his life so far. His name was called and he was told he was
going to be processed, which first consisted of having his fingerprints taken and some
pictures taken. That included some pictures of his scars and
tattoos and any other unique features. One part he didn’t much like at all was
when he was told to strip off his clothes. The officers then took a look at him, asked
him to open his mouth and stick out his tongue. They did this while shining a flashlight in
there. They asked him to perform a slightly humiliating
twist, bend over, and cough routine. He was given some prison issue clothes that
didn’t even fit and also given a prison ID. After this, Daniel was told he was going to
a temporary unit where he’d be staying until a suitable housing unit could be chosen. There he was given a book to read which explained
all the prison’s rules, and we are talking about formal rules, not the prisoner code. During his time in this holding cell he got
to see a doctor, and that doctor asked Daniel some questions about his health and if he
was currently taking any prescription medicines. After the processing part was over Daniel
was called to an Admission and Orientation meeting where he learned a bit more about
the prison and what was expected of him. The officers explained to him and some other
inmates how to buy things at the commissary, what programs were on offer and what disciplinary
action might be taken if they should decide to break a few rules while doing their time. Donna’s experience wasn’t all that different,
but because her hair was long during the search part she had to kind of untangle it and run
her hands through it. She also had to open her mouth wide and the
officers made sure there was nothing in here. These officers, by the way, were females. Donna was told to squat and cough while naked,
something she didn’t much like, but the search wasn’t all that invasive since Donna
was not under suspicion of carrying contraband. So far the experience for both inmates isn’t
that different, but it’s only a matter of time before Daniel and Donna start to live
in very different worlds. When Daniel was a free man he liked nothing
more than to watch documentaries about prison life, and so he was well aware that prison
could be a really difficult place to live. Thanks to YouTube’s many prison’s shows
he at least knew how to act. On his first day in general population he
knew not to walk around acting like a tough guy, something he certainly wasn’t, but
he also knew not to walk all slouched and look like a frightened rabbit among a skulk
of hungry foxes. “Don’t talk too much and don’t ask too
many questions,” Daniel remembered, even though he was told to show his “paperwork”
one day so other people knew what he was in for. Thank God that exotic pet stealing didn’t
warrant a “Kill on Sight” badge. During his first week in the general population,
Daniel heard that one of those guys he’d been through processing with had been beaten
by a bunch of other inmates. He found out through his celly that a “Smash
on Sight” or SOS, order had been put on that man. That was scary enough, but things would soon
get much worse. Almost every day it seemed like violence was
going to flare up, but Daniel had at least made a few friends. There was some amount of racial segregation
at his prison, but it wasn’t quite as strict as he’d seen in some of those TV documentaries. At first when he went to the chow hall he
made sure not to sit with anyone not of his own race, but after a while he realized in
this particular prison the strict race rules didn’t exactly apply. Donna’s experience in minimum security general
population was a bit different and she didn’t witness any smashing on sight or even that
much violence. Sure, there was the odd altercation, but most
of the women got on well for the most part. What Donna realized quite quickly is that
she kind of became part of a family there. Since Donna was very young she was taken under
the wing of a much older prisoner and so in some ways she became that prisoner’s daughter. She had sisters, too, and there was a father-type
figure in the family. What Donna quickly found out is that like
Daniel she had to show respect to the other prisoners, especially those who’d done a
lot of time already. Occasionally there’d be back-stabbing and
gossip, and conflicts would arise, but Donna didn’t witness women shoving homemade knives
into each other’s stomachs. Far from it, for the most part Donna and the
other inmates got along and tried to help each do their time as best they could. As time went by for Daniel, he saw more and
more violence. Sometimes it felt like living inside a pressure
cooker and that cooker on certain days would just explode. One time he was right next to a guy who got
smashed by about six inmates. At the time Daniel had no idea what had happened
but he later found out that the victim had been accused of not taking enough showers
and smelling bad. Personal hygiene in men’s prison was really
important, and while smelling bad wasn’t as bad as snitching, it could certainly get
you beat up. Daniel saw that fight with his own eyes, but
when questioned by the guards he didn’t say a thing. He was well aware that snitches get stitches
and so in prison you had to act like a blind person. On one occasion Daniel did find trouble when
he was working in the kitchen. Another inmate had accused him of serving
up disproportionate amounts of beans, which in Daniel’s eyes wasn’t true at all. He had his bean serving skills down to a fine
art, but the other guy didn’t seem to think so. This was now a problem for Daniel, since he’d
now been disrespected in front of other inmates. If he didn’t do anything about that, he’d
be seen as weak and may become prey for other inmates, but fighting the guy would likely
lead to disciplinary action. Daniel wasn’t even much of a fighter, but
he was told by his celly that in prison men have to stand up for themselves. Luckily for Daniel, because he’d kept his
head down, kept clean and made some friends, he was told by one of the main guys in the
unit that he could “squash the beef”. That meant Daniel going under the stairs and
fighting with the aggrieved bean guy. Daniel just swung his fists wildy and the
fight was over in a matter of seconds. After that, he ended up spending the next
couple of weeks inside a segregation unit, but in time he actually became friends with
the man he’d been fighting. Yep, that didn’t seem to make sense, but
nothing in prison made sense to Daniel. Rules and reasoning on the outside were very
different from rules and reasoning in prison. Conflict resolution was somewhat different
for Donna. One day she’d been minding her own business
when a female inmate bad-mouthed her for allegedly taking all the boiled water. That wasn’t true, so Donna tried her best
to resolve the conflict with reason. It actually worked, and the other inmate accepted
she had been wrong. Donna didn’t have to fight to ensure she
didn’t become prey. That’s not to say Donna didn’t ever see
a punch getting thrown, only that it seldomly happened. What Donna didn’t like was the fact a lot
of the women got in the officer’s faces a lot. There might not have been that many fights,
but there was a lot of arguing. She even saw snitching now and again, and
Donna thought that was something that never happened in prison. On one occasion she witnessed an officer telling
an inmate to tuck her shirt in. Instead of doing what she was told the inmate
looked around and pointed to other women whose shirts weren’t tucked in. This seemed to Donna like behavior she had
seen in elementary school. Why don’t people just do as they’re told,
she wondered. What was really sad for Donna is the fact
that the inmates seemed to internalize stress. She was aware that men might externalize their
stress, which led to a lot of fights in men’s prisons, but some women just kept it all in
and then one day the worse would happen and someone would self-harm. It wasn’t all that uncommon, given that
it seemed about 75 percent of the women had some kind of mental health problem. A few months into her sentence and Donna was
in a kind of relationship with another woman. This person she greatly admired and while
the relationship was emotional and not physical, she felt a kind of closeness to the woman. In fact, if you asked Donna if she had any
real friends in prison she would tell you that there were a few people she had come
to trust and respect. For Daniel it was a different matter. He would tell you that while there were some
people he got along with, there was so much fear and violence in the population that he
just concentrated on doing time quietly and staying out of trouble. Making close friends with someone seemed quite
unlikely just because no one really trusted anybody. If you wanted to compare male and female prison
to video games then you could say that male prison at times was closer to playing Fortnite,
while female prison was closer to playing The Sims. Some guys seemed intent on gaining a higher
place in the hierarchy by any means possible, while a lot of women seemed to replicate family
life. This wasn’t that surprising, given the fact
that quite a lot of men in Daniel’s prison had committed violent crimes and were involved
in gang activity. Very few women in Donna’s prison were in
for violent crimes and a lot of those women, compared to men, had actually been living
in a family unit before they went to prison. Donna was released first, but not that long
before Daniel got out. On the day of his release, Donna was waiting
for him in the car park when he finally walked out of those prison doors. The two embraced and kissed and agreed that
stealing exotic animals had been a major mistake. They’d written to each other there while
they were incarcerated, but they still had a lot of stories to tell. “Was it as bad as you imagined,” Donna
asked Daniel as the two were driving home. “Yes…and no,” Daniel replied. “Yeh, same here,” Donna said. “So, what next,” asked Donna. “Well,” said Daniel. “We have our freedom now. We can do anything we want. Let’s start a new life, and stay far away
from snakes and caged birds.” We want to give a big thank you to the sponsor
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in prison? Well, we think life could be a lot harder
and we are going to prove that right now with this great challenge video, “I Went Homeless
For 72 Hours (REAL CHALLENGE).”
