Prisoners Reveal What Not Many Know About Life In Prison (r/AskReddit)

former prisoners of Reddit what is something that no one seems to know about prison life I didn't do an internship in college for the National Center for trauma-informed care going to prisons around the country to eliminate seclusion and restraint in a lot of prisons they tie people down or put them in solitary confinement as a way to control the prisoners this is a huge issue because many prisoners have had previous traumatic experiences in their lives and doing this to them is basically retraumatization what we did is to teach the prison guards and administrators to eliminate seclusion and restraint by identifying the triggers for each prisoner and avoiding them some examples include eliminating level systems where you have to behave well to get rewards that would help you behave well a typical example if you're that you can go outside believe it or not it's easier to help people be good if you let them go outside to decompress the people who don't behave well are the ones who need to go outside the most treating the prisoners more humanely one example is a women's prison we went to where they'd have takedowns every morning a takedown is when they tackle someone because they are too dangerous to control getting into fights when we asked to see the place of the takedowns we found out the women were being tackled during shower time in the mornings we went to see the showers and saw that they all had to shower completely naked in front of both male and female guards when we asked why we were told someone had committed suicide 15 years ago with the shower curtain plus rod and all the shower curtains were removed after our training the staff came up with the idea to implement velcro curtains the women would get their privacy and no one could commit suicide the instance of takedowns completely disappeared another example was in a forensic Hospital mostly people who are deemed not guilty by reason of insanity where there was a man who had dementia and kept getting out of his chair he would fall and there wasn't enough staff to keep an eye on him so they tied him to the chair after our training a staff member came up with the idea to buy him a baby doll the man believed it was a real baby and didn't want to drop the baby when he wanted to get up so he would call a staff member over to take the baby from him and the staff member could then assist him when he would get up I remember one children's juvenile facility where they eventually got rid of seclusion and restraint the children had the idea to turn the benches they were tied onto into healing benches that were placed around the facility it was so beautiful many of these places turned their seclusion / restraint rooms into sensory rooms so that people could be compressed with music or other things when they felt stressed a major component of all this is that many inmates who have been traumatized have PTSD they don't go 0 to 50 miles per hour they are idling at 40 miles per hour already it's all about identifying the triggers to prevent them from becoming upset 50% of prison staff also have had their own trauma so it's important for staff to communicate about their triggers to help each other out lastly we would set up programs for lifers people in prison for life to mentor the other inmates who would be leaving the prison sometimes they would produce gardens together to see life being creating and take care of it giving people a sense of purpose even when they are in prison for life can actually help things quite a bit I don't know about these days but back when I was in prison it was dull we watched TV chat eat sleep play cards too much time on our hands even the gods would join us for card games or to watch TV with us I spent a short amount of time in a young offenders institution UK when I was 20 nobody told me everyone showers with their boxer shorts on day one I walk into the showers naked and was faced with 10 very confused young men wondering why the new guy had his pecker out serve 30 months in Florida at age 18 food was terrible boredom is mind-numbing the feeling that the world is leaving you behind is quite painful perhaps the worst of it though is a stigma associated with being a convicted felon I have been turned down twice for jobs in the last month I'm capable of excelling at specifically because felony convictions form a Space Coast area machinist now living in oil country Louisiana problem is I'm totally honest with them and the convictions are 25 years old if you look at the gods as your Butler it makes life more enjoyable in there call them Jeeves I mean they get your mail bring you your meals also the tabletop RPG games can be very very good you miss things that you don't think about on a day-to-day basis things that you take for granted 27 months in military and US federal prisons and the two things I looked forward to the most was turning a light switch on and off and walking barefoot on carpet I was a prison guard and I was always surprised by the level of power and wealth in prison outside an important powerful man has lots of money expensive drugs and women while there are drugs in prison they're rare ah so a powerful wealthy inmate has an abundance of Little Debbie cakes Twinkies and porno mags some things folks don't seem to know about prison the difference between an inmate and a guard is usually that the former has already been caught you can cook an amazing number of things in a 1970 era Hamilton Beach butter up electric popcorn copper everyone staff an inmate in a prison has control issues they have to control others or they are unable to control themselves but everyone has control issues women who work inside a prison facility can be split into two groupings those happily married and those that have serious issues dealing with men there is not much in the lap between the groupings it is surprisingly easy to grow marriage men are on a prison dairy farm and even easier to get it through the gate of a medium slash minimum security prison like on the streets everyone has or has near immediate access to a weapon usually a knife and almost no one uses one without strong provocation note strong is a relative word there are other things that could go on the list but there is one that people really don't seem to know that is important enough to warrant a stand alone statement the overwhelming majority of people in prison are coming out and we'll need some acceptance and help if they are not to return to prison source sentenced to 32 years served six years in maximum security followed by three years in medium / minimum security followed by five years supervised parole I have been crime free and out of prison for thirty two years since release I learned that men are dirty as [ __ ] and that even the most unacceptable things on the outside are pursued and even flaunted on the inside just for an example and trust me there are thousands of variants of this example imagine the five hardest meaning looking white guys you can think of with tattoos all over their heads necks and bodies some of whom you know for a fact have killed a couple guys while being locked up there they walk around with power respect they run the peckerwoods and are very intimidating then imagine a sixth man a normal white guy this said normal white guy is giving oral and anal sex to all the five baddest white dudes and like they flaunt it in fact I know for sure that even the five dudes returned the favor with their own mouths and booty holes to the same dude no shame whatsoever and also imagine drugs like you've surely read in this thread so far a lot of the shitty part of being locked up is the boredom because of this many dope fiends returned to their trade and many more try drugs and become fiends during their stint out of boredom and the thrill it gives them so check it out I remember awhile ago this dude I knew came back from a work detail chain gang type shirts I live in Arizona this dude found is still banged up supposedly unused syringe out in the desert while picking up trash and [ __ ] and managed to put it in his prison wall attacker our soul and smuggle it back in if you're familiar with prison life then you are aware of a huge economy that goes in and they're revolving around money and food / candies / toil at risk for trade they are treated as cash money so this dude cracks up a huge smile and tells me I'm gonna charge $1.00 per use to anyone in here that wants to use this I should you not he had on a slow day five people hit him up on a typical day 10 to 15 people and quite a few days so many dirty [ __ ] were hitting him up for that needle that he had to keep the backlog list so the people fairly got the rig when they should because they asked before this guy etc I seen three dudes one white one black one Mexican supposed rivals Fran their fat asses into a toilet stool purposely built to only house one man for this exact reason and [ __ ] shoot up yeah I'm talking one guy shoves that in his arm shoots up and without cleaning it or anything the other guy grabs it like it's nothing shoots up right away etc this went on for a long time hundreds of dudes using the same needle not ever sterilized and simply just no one gave a [ __ ] I also seen a dude in the same kind of bathroom stalls I noticed him one day after his legs were sticking out of the doors he was a big guy 6 ft 3 at least overweight et Cie for hours finally a God walks by and they put everyone on lockdown right away I guess he had managed to hang himself with some string material he fabricated and made very strong poured you just lay there dead as [ __ ] for hours and no one did a thing SID a thing and I doubt anyone cared it's a [ __ ] up world out there raise your kids right female ex-prisoner hear how freakin sad and isolating it is one of my cell mates was told her husband died a few weeks before I paroled she was in for a probation violation she didn't really have anyone but her husband and when they asked her if she wanted to make any phone calls she broke down there was no one left I remember us all sitting with her trying to be there for her it was so sudden and so tragic I found out I was pregnant while in prison and later gave birth there as well all family was over 12 hours away I had family that was allowed to be present during labour but there just wasn't an option because of the distance I spent two days with my daughter and then received a picture once I went back to prison no posting on Facebook no phone calls nothing pretty much very lonely it's been five years since the day I was arrested and then later incarcerated I have a beautiful family my daughter has been with me since I got out and I'm currently an engineering student life is so fulfilling there are not many days I reflect upon this time but I figured I would throw my two cents in 99% of inmates are incredibly friendly to each other there is a little bit of us prisoners vs them custodial staff other staff were mostly ok mentality your first night in someone will make sure you are fed and make sure you have everything you need until you can get your first canteen the free soap you are given sucks and dries your skin the most basic thing anyone can give you is a bar of real soap and a razor but it's the most appreciated the thing is the prison discourages this behavior you are not supposed to possess anything you didn't pay for they will tell you all gifts come with strings attached which of course is rarely true the only string as you pay it forward when you're settled in I once got in trouble for lending someone my radio even though I had two of them they create all these rules and lies to try and get the inmates to feel isolated against each other but it only reinforces the bind between them because the on thing you all have in common is the man is trying to put you down it's a lot like high school if you were forced into the high school by armed men in uniforms told you couldn't leave until X time has passed and they shut the door behind you think of all the awful people you knew in high school [ __ ] jocks douches [ __ ] thugs etc they're all there but grown up and locked in with you the same cliques the same maturity levels but everyone's an adult and locked in a building with you the noise everything is concrete and steel so everything echoes and every black duties of the next big rapper or R&B hit maka and they practice at the top of their lungs with 10 hype men dominoes being slammed on metal tables almost constantly is enough to send even the sameness person insane the noise is brutal the smell of farts ramen noodles instant coffee and cocoa butter all shouldn't touch any handrail because it probably has cement on it and I think staff was born in prison because everyone has it way more just can't think of it also half the guards that worked there probably belonged in there

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Views: 108,570

Rating: 4.8459344 out of 5

Keywords: prisoners, prisoners of reddit, prisoners reveal, not many know, unkown prison facts, life in prison, reddit, askreddit, askreddit funny, top posts, top posts of r/, r/, r/askreddit, reddit top posts, reddit cringe, comedy, reddit compilation, top posts of all time, askreddit question, askreddit top posts, ask reddit, askreddit reading, subreddit, reddit stories, best of r/askreddit, funny reddit, best reddit posts, best of reddit, Updoot Reddit, TZ Reddit

Id: U5lrj6NkD50

Length: 13min 36sec (816 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 24 2019