What is jail really like?

[LiquidICE]

I have jailed it a couple times....The first time was in cumberland county pennsylvania and that county jail was sweet. My charges were also pretty insignificant(Possession of Molly coming back from all good festival). The jails was nice and new and you really didnt have to worry about anything but that was only for 17 days til my court date where I was ROR'd.
The second time fuckin sucked though. I got caught up in a secret indictment in Paterson,NJ for conspirasy to possess 133 bags on a wire tap on my phone. I was picked up on a warrent in my town in bergen county,NJ and was taken to patersons safety complex for 2 days and then transferred to Passaic County where i spent 14 hours in the bullpen and then 3 days in the basement till i got an area upstairs to go. On the 4th day I was taken up to 4 Main where i remained for 3 more months until my folks finally bailed me out on $25,000 bail. There are just a few things to remember which people have already mentioned but I will mention them again. For the first few days just take in what is going on around you and get used to the guards and people. Its pretty easy to see who not to piss off cuz you will be fucked with hard or have the shit kicked out of you if you do. Then dont fuck with peoples food like reaching over their tray. The last thing to really worry about is having people hook you up. IF you dont have shit to give em back that can start some serious bad blood and in a spot where you can run away from it that can be pretty bad.
As far as cells and showers, it was 3 or 4 to a cell. 3 on bunks and 1 on the floor(I was on the floor my first month it sucked). There was a toilet for all of us in the cell which wasnt a problem. There were two showers that had makeshift curtains on em so that wasnt a problem but make sure you have shower shoes or can borrow em from someone else or else you will be steppin on peoples kidzz and shit if you know what i mean.
Really if you keep to yourself and dont get involved in other peoples bullshit you will be fine. Find things to do like playing cards which can be a great equalizer, read books, write, get a radio on your commissary if you can. The radio helped me get through some long nights of not sleeping.

 

[LiquidICE]

Just to let you know i meant 133 bags of Heroin.

 

[cocacrazy]

Ok so before I wound up in jail for a week I heard a comedian say that if you wanted to know what jail is like, just lock yourself in your bathroom for a few days. DAMN he was totally right. Besides that I would describe jail as being boring, so I slept most of the day and tried not to eat the shit that they called food. The most annoying part was the guards who are the biggest egomaniacal dicks on earth, way worse than cops. The mother fuckers flashed a light in my cell every half hour at night to make sure I was still their. Right in the eyes too. what ASSHOLES!!

 

[rachamim]

Hmmm...I have been in prison in the State of NJ in the US (Annandale AKA Mountainview AKA Galdiator School), as well as 2 county jails there (Monmouth, the one on the Maury Show all the time, back when it was harsh, and Hunterdon which was like a hotel), as well as Rikers Island in NYC (C95 AKA Anna Kross AKA The Dope House), and I was also in Military Prison in Israel.


In the US...in NJ State Prison, there is absolutely no rape that I ever saw or even heard of . There IS some violence but all that shi% usually takes place on the County level because in State Prison people just want to keep their privleges, make their parole, not be transferred to "Siberia," etc.


Annadale was a Medium Security place, I did 34 months actually, on a Flat 4 which means 4 year sentence but they gave me 405 Commutation Days credit. My charge? "Posession of CDS, 3rd Degree, to wit heroin and cocaine."

We would go to bed every night at 10 PM, 7 days a week. They had buildings called "Cottages" which is a sick joke but there you go. They had dorms which usually had 30 odd people in them although the big house, Cottage #10 had 100 odd people in each dorm. They laso had single man cells which I much preferred of course. I like my solitude.

There are also the "Units" or were then anyway. They had dorms and cubicles and were for Minumum Security inmates.

They also had a "Quonset Hut" which was a barracks outside the Wall and Fence, for Work Release, and then also 2 Honour Camps way up in "Siberia" which had no fences or walls, and were ultra Minumum.

Alot of homosexuality but all voluntary and gays were housed in segregated areas so as to control it a bit. Most fighting was over gay lovers or gambling, usually gambling.

Dayrooms had 2 TVS, one on each end, one in Spanish, one on sports all day, except when they showed CCTV movies, or System wide boxing matches between prisons and so forth. They had church pews to sit in, and the cells were brutal as far as environment since the prison had been built about 100 years back. Mostly black and Hispanic.


If you are familiar with Steely Dan, Donald Fagen was in that prison and worte "My Old School" about it, even mentioning it by name.

As for County, not much to say about Hunterdon, single man cells only but they would double folks up. Only about 90 people in the whole jail, great food, strangely almost all white which is really unusual for the NE of America.


Monmouth though was hell on Earth. I had been through institutions before, in Israel and grew up in the military so it was not a big shock in that way, only that in Monmouth at that time, if you were not a "Tree Jumper" (sex offender) or "Child Support Violator" you were put in dorms and these dorms usually had no guards (AKA "COs") around.

Two dorms to a "wing," huge soundproofed metal doors separating each dorm, and then again at the end of the wing onto the main hallway. So, if you got your brains bashed in which did happen rather often, they would only get to you well after the fact.

You had to go to a messhall to eat, some of the worst food I have ever had an in my SERE Training in the IDF I ate all kinds of nasty things, and in the war in Lebanon I ate raw rodent so imagine how bad the food was in that jail!

ALOT of homosexuality again which was suprising because in County Jails the people are not going to be there much longer than a year although this particular jail was "Contracting" inmates to do State time there. It was a max facility, very brutal.


Bed was 10 PM except on late nights which was holidays and Fridays and Saturdays and then we got to stay up until 1 AM if I remember correctly.

The yard was all asphalt, razor wire, walls, and pump shotguns in the towers.

2 riots in the 7 months I spent there.


For Rikers, well C95 where I have been (3 times) they have dorms which have like 50 odd people if I remember correctly, and they are called "The Projects." Then there are the cells which usually have 3 men in them, no bunk beds but single military beds, you have a locker and lock, whereas in the dorms you have foot lockers and locks.

I liked it because alot of Jews forme to hang with, we used to meet in the "synagouge" there and BS. Kosher meals for me but they get old after a bit, only a couple so no variety.

One TV in the day rooms, movies a couple of times a week.



ALOT of drugs, but mostly BS and very expensive. After the outlawed tobacco a single cigarette would cost 20 US per and made me doubly thankful that I never smoked.


The place is so huge, 14000 to 18000 inmates in 14 jails on the island, C95 is so huge that the COs drive golf carts instead of walking in the halls.


The phones, there are 2, payphones of course, and controlled by gangs. One by the black gang which was usually the East Cost Bloods, and the Spanish phone which was controlled by the Latin Kings or the Netas depending on the section. If you were white and not down you were not using the phone unless you bribed someone.

C95 was, and probably still is called the "Dope House" because when you go through the Precincts in NYC, you get taken to a place called "Central Booking." NYC has 5 Boros, or parts of the city. Each Boro has its own Central Booking. At Central Booking you get asked if you are addicted to anything and if you say heroin or any opiate/opioid you will automatically be going to Rikers and C95.


At C95, if you are on OST, methadone, you will be given 10 milligrams less than your dosage once they verify it which can take a few days in the worst case scenario, and then dropped 10 mgs. every 3 days until 40, then dropped 5 every 3 days until 0 at which point you are given Dalmane for a few days.

IF you are on a Misdemeanour, or are sentenced to less than State Time (meaning less than 1 year) you can join the "KEEP Programme" which will allow you to stay on MMT while incracerated and believe me, that is the BEST way to do time. Too bad it is not like the Swiss and others who give you injections of heroin in prison but beggars cannot be choosers. Most of the US is luvky to get Clonodine tablets once a day!

If instead you are addicted to heroin, AND have recent track marks, you will be given 20 mgs methadone, dropped by 5 each day I believe to 0. Luckily for me I was always on MMT when arrested in NYC.

ALOT of violence in Rikers, mega-violence to the point of actual shootings by inmates but not alot of homosexuality because like any other facility they segregate the openly gay. The violence has toned down ALOT in recent years now that they got smart and began using gang leaders in little paid jobs as what they call "S.P.A.s" (Suicide Prevention Aides) which basically means they bribe these gang leders to sit in chairs during lights out to make sure noone is stabbed to death during the night...what they call, usually, "suicide." You really have to love pigs' humour, yes?

I liked Rikers because those suckers caused me to collect 26,000 US but that is another story.

Israel? Makes American prisons and jails look like 5 Star Hotels. I once got 30 days in Military Prison for not having my beret on my head! Now you do not even ave to wear your beret!!!! I also spent 4 months in it because of a hashish smuggling scheme until I was cleared through "friends."


In the criminal prisons, I could only tell you what others tell me but in the Military joints it is no joke. The army is much more lax now though.


Well I hope you found this tour through Rachamim's sordid nightmares to be enlightening. I hate dreging this shi$ up but in hops of helping others...

 

[red.fury]

Jail sucks balls, i got locked up for a few days and i never wanna go back.

 

[Coolio]

Solitary confinement on the top floor of Cleveland's city jail is quite possibly the most frightening experience of my life. The food there is probably as bad as Monmouth, rachamim. 6 months in the old Carroll County, NH jail, one of the lasts jails in the country to allow smoking tobacco when I was locked up, was one of the best times of my life.