You’ve been in prison for a few years now
and know very well that things can go off at any moment. And that’s exactly what happened this morning
when you were out in the yard. There was some kind of commotion and all of
a sudden you heard the command to get down on the ground. You look up at the tower and a guard has his
gun aimed somewhere to the left of you. Word gets to you fast that someone has been
shivved, and while that might be a big deal on the outside, it doesn't exactly come as
a shock to you. What bothers you more than someone being grievously
hurt is the fact you’re going to be put on lockdown. You hate being on lockdown, and now this is
how it will go down. First of all, we should tell you that when
a shot-caller orders a hit like this it’s a pretty big deal, not in terms of it being
violent and possibly fatal, but because a lockdown is very bad for business. A lockdown disrupts the flow of drugs and
other business in prison, so if you’re partly the reason for that, you might upset a few
people and of course put a dent in your own money-making schemes. Violence is often the reason for a lockdown. Not long before we wrote this show there was
a lockdown at the maximum security prison called SCI Greene in Franklin Township, Pennsylvania. An officer there was stabbed multiple times
by an inmate and when another officer went to help him he was hit over the head with
a padlock that was inside a sock. Ouch. Both officers were sent to hospital and recovered
from their injuries. A few days before that in Mississippi an inmate
was killed in a fight and a whole bunch of officers were injured in the ensuing violence. That was the second inmate that was killed
in the state that week, and to prevent any more violence quite a few prisons in the state
were put on lockdown. The worst thing that can happen in prisons
is if fights spread. In some cases this might lead to fully-blown
riots, and in the past prisoners have even taken over parts of the prison. Fights aren’t the only reason for lockdowns. Sometimes after searches guards will find
weapons, drugs, or other contraband like mobile phones. This happens all the time and it might lead
to a lockdown. Weirder things can happen, too, such as a
bunch of inmates getting really sick at the same time. Prisons might believe some kind of virus is
the reason, but often it’s down to a batch of dodgy drugs that the inmates have taken. In 2018, in Pennsylvania, almost 100 inmates
and staff suddenly reported feeling very ill. Synthetic drugs were to blame. It wasn’t that staff and all those inmates
had all taken the drugs, but some had actually accidentally inhaled some of the smoke. Prisons aren’t exactly known for their great
ventilation systems and clean, fresh air. Some other major reasons why prisons might
be put on lockdown is merely because guards receive intelligence that something is going
to go off. Maybe they’ve heard that one gang is going
to attack another gang, or that a particular prisoner is arriving and he has a reputation
and might get attacked. The last reason for lockdowns is simply that
the prison is understaffed that day. This could lead to fights or easier movement
of contraband or even escape. If someone does escape you can be sure that
there will be a lockdown after that. If a riot breaks out then you can be damn
sure that the lockdown will be more than 24 hours, but how long can lockdowns be? In 2016, at Clinton Correctional in New York
state, fights broke out and that turned into a riot, a guard’s worst nightmare. It was a bad time for the prison because not
long before that riot, two convicted killers managed to escape from the prison. When that riot broke out, the prison was on
lockdown for an entire week. Ok, so how do lockdowns work. Well, in most prisons the doors can automatically
lock, but that’s no good if men are out in the yard or eating. If that’s the case, they’ll be sent to
their cells and then the doors will be locked. Sometimes prisoners might just be confined
to certain areas of a prison, but not in a major cell lockdown. The entire prison might be put on lockdown,
but it’s more common for only a certain wing or block to be put on lockdown. Prisons can be massive places, and some areas
might be where the really dangerous folks are housed and other areas where you’ll
find prisoners not deemed dangerous. If something big has gone off like a riot,
every prisoner might be locked down, and they’ll stay locked down until the situation has been
sorted out. This might mean a matter of hours or it might
be an entire week or months. In these cases, non-correctional staff such
as teachers will be removed from the prison for their own safety. If you think that’s over the top, just read
about the Attica Prison uprising in New York in 1971. Around 2,200 inmates took over the place and
took 42 staff hostage. They demanded better treatment and their human
rights protected, so that’s why it was called an uprising rather than a riot. Ten staff, including civilian staff, died
during this uprising, as well as 33 inmates. In 2019, prison staff in the UK were forced
to leave one particular part of the prison after inmates started attacking them. Their weapon of choice were pool balls. So, this kind of thing is a big reason why
prisons go into lockdown. Usually the guards will notice the tension
and lock prisoners down before things really go wild. Then there are situations when you don’t
even know why you are being locked down. This can lead to a fair bit of anxiety for
the prisoner. Firstly, they don’t know how long it will
last. Maybe they will wonder if visits will be cancelled. Maybe someone near and dear has travelled
a long way to visit them. What’s worse of course is they are not at
fault for this lockdown. Some prisoners might have an important phone
call to make, while others might be wondering if they’ll get that letter they so desperately
need from their lawyer. Others might need a hit of tobacco or might
have another kind of addiction, so they will be very tense during the lockdown. Not long ago prisoners at the Columbia Correctional
Institution in Wisconsin were locked down for weeks on end. You can imagine the tension, because the prisoners
had their privileges taken away from them. It took four weeks for them to get some of
those privileges back, which included getting hot meals, having visits, being able to use
the phone. Some of the minimum custody inmates were allowed
to serve food and do laundry though. You might wonder why the prison would be so
strict. Was it a riot? An escape? Nope, it was because three officers were attacked
in a period of nine days. The prison had had enough, and all the inmates
had to stay in their cells with zero privileges. Food was served to them through the door,
and it was cold food served in a paper bag. This is not always the case with a lockdown. Sometimes the inmates will be taken out of
their cells and allowed to eat in the chow hall, but this is often done in small groups. It’s quite time-consuming when guards unlock,
say, five doors at a time and let those prisoners eat. This group-eating might be similar to how
prisoners shower. In some cases a group might be able to go
to the shower room just once every three days. Mississippi prisons seem to be the place where
a lot of lockdowns happen, and the reason is inmate on inmate violence that lately has
led to deaths. Some prisons in that state early in 2020 were
on lockdown for many weeks after violence. That violence, said some people, was partly
down to the “inhumane” conditions that the prisoners were kept in. Activists as well as inmates talked about
appalling conditions, and staff are stressed because there are not enough of them. The problem with the lockdowns is stress levels
just get worse, so it’s a kind of vicious cycle. Inmates even used illegal mobile phones to
take videos of dead rats in cells, mold on walls, and totally disgusting looking food
that contained no protein. Some inmates even started suing the prison
for breaching their human rights. Suffice it to say, lockdown in that Mississippi
prison must be quite unpleasant. Weeks and weeks on lockdown in Mississippi
is quite an extreme case. If a fight breaks out and someone is not badly
injured, a lockdown might be quite short. What will generally happen after the lockdown
is cells will be searched and the officers will be looking for a weapon. They will no doubt find all sorts of contraband,
which is one reason why some inmates really hate it when someone has been attacked. They might lose their hooch or their tattoo
pen or their beloved stamps. What might also happen during a lockdown is
interviews with prisoners. What did they see? Who was involved? Since snitches get stiches usually the staff
will get nothing out of the prisoners. Even the person that got attacked and actually
received some stitches won’t snitch. What happened on the yard stayed on the yard. If they do find the culprit he will be removed
from the population and might face solitary confinement, extra days added on to his sentence
or be formally charged with the crime. Once he’s out of the way the staff will
hold a meeting and discuss if it’s safe to resume normal prison activity. If prisoners are locked down you might wonder
how workers go about their day? Well, there are some people who won’t be
locked down and these are what are called critical workers. These guys might be the people who clean the
place or make the meals. But if the lockdown is for an extreme case,
even those guys won’t do their job. We found a case in which no one, and we mean
no one was allowed out of their cell in one prison for seven whole months. How’s it feel to be locked up so long? Well, one prisoner said he felt like a caged
animal and every day was just so monotonous. He hated the fact that he knew every day was
going to be the same. This is how another prisoner described lockdown:
“As the cell door is slammed behind me, I hypothesize and try to figure out the probability
of the time on lockdown. Then it comes; that echo from the insidiously
ominous ‘click.’ The ‘click’ that sparks a moment of panic
and feeling of entrapment. The ‘click’ that tells you that you are
now locked in your cell and there is nothing you can do about it. I feel I am being buried alive. My cell feels like a tomb.” He said that during lockdowns he would always
get anxious and depressed. He never knew how long they would last and
most of the time he had no idea why they had happened. They could be hours or days or weeks or months,
and he really hated that cold food in a bag. There’s also the fact that you might be
trapped in that cell with another man. Since lockdowns cause anxiety, prisoners might
get on each other’s nerves, or even start to stink, and they might end up fighting. This is not unusual. One prisoner described how angry some people
get during lockdown. He wrote:
“Anger will grip you and turn on you and most prisoners with long sentences have felt
this compelling emotion. It shakes you to the utmost degree and causes
you to fight for your mental sanity.” Then when you get your cell shaken down by
guards and lose some of your precious things, and after you’ve faced the humiliation of
yet another strip search, that anger can double. Not all prisoners get used to being told to
bend over, spread their cheeks, and cough. It’s especially annoying for people who
keep their head down and never cause trouble. They feel they are being unfairly punished. One inmate said he’d been in a lot of lockdowns
and they could last a day or months. He said because they happened so often he
would always have what he called a “war chest”. This was his special lockdown box that he
filled with necessities. In his war chest he said he would always keep
5 deodorants, 5 toothpastes, and 5 lotions. He would also stack it with coffee and more
than two hundred soups. He said to not annoy your celly you have to
keep the place very clean, and really be good about your personal hygiene. To stop himself from smelling bad he would
take regular “bird baths” during lockdown, which is an all-over wash using the sink,
a mug and soap. And get this, in 1983 inmates at the Federal
penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, were locked down. Some had no idea why and wondered if it would
be a day, a week, maybe a little more. The prison went into permanent lockdown after
two guards were killed, and became a kind of super-maximum security prison. Prisoners could, however, spend an hour a
day in personal workout area outside. During a lockdown what most men say is they
just wait for the familiar sound of that click, but this can get to a person when it never
seems to come. If you want to know how it might feel, one
former prisoner gave this advice: “Go in your bathroom. Take out your shower and replace it with a
bunk bed. Have someone else come in there with you. Maybe you know them, maybe not. Close the door and stay in there for two weeks.” If you want to know more about prison and
you wonder if you would survive it, why not watch these gritty prison videos, “You DON'T
Want To Be Sent To This Prison (Worst Prison In The World In 2019)” and “What Happens
In The H Unit At Federal Supermax Prison?”
