4 ms·

In a minimum security facility there are often no fences. I was at Morgantown and you could get anything you wanted for approximately 4x the retail value. It wa

In a minimum security facility there are often no fences. I was at Morgantown and you could get anything you wanted for approximately 4x the retail value. It was so fucking hot there guys would have their families buy a "prison" issue fan on Amazon and send it to someone who's family lived in Morgantown. Then they'd run out and bring it back in the middle of the night. Cigarettes were $2 each or $20 for a pack. Dip is like $12 a can for the Kayak brand with a 99c sticker on it. There were over 800 of us and around 10 staff on actual security detail at a time. There were maybe 40 searches a week and they were normally targeted on the people that they had suspicions about. It happened to me one time and they guy found my camel crush. Thankfully I had been there less than 3 weeks so he just assumed someone stashed it there since I moved into an empty bunk. After that I never had another issue. Spice is horrible. We'd have people vomiting regularly. They'd get "stuck" outside when we got called back into the units. It's really gnarly stuff that I would not willingly ingest. The most popular drug was definitely suboxone. The drug tests were not working for subs when I was still there. Supposedly they were just starting to come out with some for it that the BOP used. Every thing went in a cycle. One guy would run most of the smuggling for the white people. I'm not going to name names here, but his balance sheet showed about $75k in profit over a rolling 6 month period. Another ran it for most of the African Americans. Eventually runners would get caught or the ring leader would get busted with a cell phone. That gives you an immediate upgrade to the next highest level facility. Prices would jump until someone was crazy enough to start it all back up again. Right before I left the biggest person got caught with a sim card. Prices for cigarettes went up to nearly $15 each. That was if you were remotely lucky enough to find one. A guy came back on probation violation and luckily enough I was his bunk mate. Things went back to regular within a couple of weeks. He made more in Morgantown than he did on the street... Subs/meth/vape juices could be applied to paper inside of books or letters. Anything liquid and dried usually could come in that way, but in a minimum it's not even worth the hassle.

ErikAugust 7y ago
Sounds strange maybe but, does everyone have to participate in black markets? Are there any penalties for just being without vices like you mentioned?
- rwmurrayVT 7y ago
  No there's no penalty. You don't have to do anything in a minimum or really a low. You can just mind your own little world. The majority of people don't smoke/drink/drugs/etc. Most people trade//buy food or whatever. That's still "black market" I guess. The people from the kitchen steal food, etc. At higher levels things start to go more and more by the car system. You only associate with your race and your number. You get an ID number, which in my case is #####-083. The last three digits represent where you are from. 083 is Hampton Roads in Virginia. You ONLY hang out with your race and your area. It can go above just the city into more regional things. You only go outside of your car for business.
kyuudou 7y ago
I've heard stories about people improvising "hooch" by letting apple or orange juice sit around and ferment and using that as a trade item for the other usual stuff. When I got stuck in a similar minimum security facility (no cells, just half-walls between groups of 4 beds so there was lots of socializing going on), people would trade their prescribed Seroquels and other such meds similarly. I also found out about "making spread" and was amazed at the ingenuity of some folks and what they could do with ramen, water, some crumbled up cheetos and a pound cake. And how this was used in the internal economy. Fascinating stuff. On the negative side, most of the people were in there for petty drug offenses, e.g. victimless crimes not involving violence which upset me greatly. Such a shame since most of these guys were obviously above-average IQ and otherwise nice, sometimes charismatic people. What a waste of tax dollars and lives. So many stories just from my short stay there.
- lbotos 7y ago
  Your post reminded me of the poem pruno which has always stuck with me: https://pen.org/recipe-for-prison-pruno/ https://pen.org/recipe-for-prison-pruno/
- rwmurrayVT 7y ago
  That was not very popular at Morgantown. You could just buy actual alcohol from the street. It was usually 10 or 20 dollars for a peanut butter jar full of vodka, normally Grey Goose. It sounds "racial", but a lot of things were based on stereotypical vices. We had Newports and Grey Goose. You could request something specific, but then you'd be paying the 4x premium. You could usually get a better deal because they'd be bringing in entire cartons of Newports, etc. There was one night nurse who didn't watch you take your pills so tightly. Most people who had the prescription didn't share it. There is a lot of creative food. I don't know if I'd eat the cheesecake on the street, but it is good when you haven't had anything for a while. We'd occasionally get street food inside, but it was like McDonald's breakfast, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, or chicken wings. There was not a lot of petty criminals at Morgantown. Simple possession rarely lands you in federal prison. The worst of the worst is conspiracy. It doesn't take much for you to be linked to a conspiracy. The mandatory minimums don't make sense for that kind of crime. There's a lot of marijuana + money laundering. I'd say around 15% of people really had no business having anywhere near their actual sentence length.

ErikAugust 7y ago

Sounds strange maybe but, does everyone have to participate in black markets? Are there any penalties for just being without vices like you mentioned?

rwmurrayVT 7y ago
No there's no penalty. You don't have to do anything in a minimum or really a low. You can just mind your own little world. The majority of people don't smoke/drink/drugs/etc. Most people trade//buy food or whatever. That's still "black market" I guess. The people from the kitchen steal food, etc. At higher levels things start to go more and more by the car system. You only associate with your race and your number. You get an ID number, which in my case is #####-083. The last three digits represent where you are from. 083 is Hampton Roads in Virginia. You ONLY hang out with your race and your area. It can go above just the city into more regional things. You only go outside of your car for business.

kyuudou 7y ago

I've heard stories about people improvising "hooch" by letting apple or orange juice sit around and ferment and using that as a trade item for the other usual stuff. When I got stuck in a similar minimum security facility (no cells, just half-walls between groups of 4 beds so there was lots of socializing going on), people would trade their prescribed Seroquels and other such meds similarly. I also found out about "making spread" and was amazed at the ingenuity of some folks and what they could do with ramen, water, some crumbled up cheetos and a pound cake. And how this was used in the internal economy. Fascinating stuff. On the negative side, most of the people were in there for petty drug offenses, e.g. victimless crimes not involving violence which upset me greatly. Such a shame since most of these guys were obviously above-average IQ and otherwise nice, sometimes charismatic people. What a waste of tax dollars and lives. So many stories just from my short stay there.

lbotos 7y ago
Your post reminded me of the poem pruno which has always stuck with me: https://pen.org/recipe-for-prison-pruno/ https://pen.org/recipe-for-prison-pruno/
rwmurrayVT 7y ago
That was not very popular at Morgantown. You could just buy actual alcohol from the street. It was usually 10 or 20 dollars for a peanut butter jar full of vodka, normally Grey Goose. It sounds "racial", but a lot of things were based on stereotypical vices. We had Newports and Grey Goose. You could request something specific, but then you'd be paying the 4x premium. You could usually get a better deal because they'd be bringing in entire cartons of Newports, etc. There was one night nurse who didn't watch you take your pills so tightly. Most people who had the prescription didn't share it. There is a lot of creative food. I don't know if I'd eat the cheesecake on the street, but it is good when you haven't had anything for a while. We'd occasionally get street food inside, but it was like McDonald's breakfast, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, or chicken wings. There was not a lot of petty criminals at Morgantown. Simple possession rarely lands you in federal prison. The worst of the worst is conspiracy. It doesn't take much for you to be linked to a conspiracy. The mandatory minimums don't make sense for that kind of crime. There's a lot of marijuana + money laundering. I'd say around 15% of people really had no business having anywhere near their actual sentence length.