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I spent 3 years in US prisons for drug charges picked up when I was an addict and did a 90-day stint in solitary for breaking up a fight between two acquaintanc

I spent 3 years in US prisons for drug charges picked up when I was an addict and did a 90-day stint in solitary for breaking up a fight between two acquaintances. AMA. I'll start with: Yes, "fishing" is one of the first things you learn. It's not just for solitary, you use it to get stuff under other people doors when you're not out of your cells on a regular unit too, or when you don't want guards to suspect something. Another interesting thing fact -- where I was at, in solitary you could trade your 1-hour of your cell a day for an extra tray of food at either lunch or dinner. Because the guards had to let each person in the solitary block out, one-at-a-time, for an hour, they were lazy and would let you forfeit your one hour out to shower/make a paid phone call/walk around the cell block for extra food. Most people took the extra tray. --- Edit: While this is on the front page, want to raise a bit of awareness about US criminal "justice system" and prisons: I saw things like this regularly: https://live-production.wcms.abc-cdn.net.au/c567d688cc89f08446dea1fea431e2ae https://live-production.wcms.abc-cdn.net.au/c567d688cc89f084... Guards would beat the shit out of you, strip you mostly naked, strap you to a restraint chair and cover your head with a hood, and then wheel you into a back room somewhere and "accidentally forget" about you for +8 hours until you pissed yourself, and then they'd come and laugh at you. Lots of things I can't unsee from being in there.

bag_boy 5y ago
Can you summarize the experience in thirds? For example, what was the first 30 days like versus the last 30?
- randomacct8162 5y ago
  The first two weeks were very difficult. You have to sort of mentally come to peace with the fact that you're shut in this tiny room and you can't leave. It feels very claustrophobic and if you're the type that has anxiety disorders you will probably have to ward off panic attacks. After the first two weeks, time started to slowly speed up, and the days all sort of blurred together. Thankfully I was able to get a newspaper every day, and a book every now and then, and so I just read every word of the newspaper (even the ads) for something to do, and slept a lot. I think I handled it better than a lot of people would have, as I'm sort of introverted by nature. There's research on solitary confinement permanently harming mental health, but I think I got lucky on that one.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ROTMetro 5y ago
    Also, at least where I was, this was EVERYONE's life (no just solitary) for a year due to COVID. Only with no legal protections, all constitutional requirements waived, because, you know, emergency, and totally not just because the staff were lazy and this allowed them to do zero work.
    - vkou 5y ago
      Edit: My reading comprehension is very, very poor.
      - mastazi 5y ago
        I think that parent was describing life inside a prison, but out of solitary confinement, not life in general, this sentence of their post suggests it: "and totally not just because the staff were lazy and this allowed them to do zero work."
      - shuntress 5y ago
        I'm pretty sure you cannot just "go walking outside for as long as you wanted" when you are in jail.
      - goodpoint 5y ago
        > you live an incredibly sheltered, out-of-touch life This describes solitary confinement, in a sadly ironic way.
    - jknoepfler 5y ago
      Are you describing conditions in a prison in the USA outside of solitary confinement? (That's the only way I can make sense of the reply).
      - mastazi 5y ago
tokai 5y ago
Do solitary confinement help in correcting illegal/bad/wrong behaviour among prisoners in your opinion? Seems to me that it can only breed resentment and detachment.
- randomacct8162 5y ago
  No, not at all. The thing I think most law-abiding/normal people don't understand about the types of people in prisons is that they are almost exclusively habitual offenders. Even in the US, which is heavily punitive instead of rehabilitative, you have to have run-ins with the law a number of times before you are sentenced to serve time, rather than probation or a halfway-house etc. From my experiences, ~90% of people I saw during my time in jail and prison were coming in and out, constantly being arrested. There's no desire on their part to change, they're a lost cause. For the tiny handful of people that genuinely do want to have a normal life and not go back to prison, our justice system is awful. No, solitary is not good for that. You need supportive + rehabilitative programs. They won't solve everything, but for the small number of people who want to get out of the system, they need an honest-to-god out and chance at living.
  - ROTMetro 5y ago
    I don't think that's as true anymore with the fentanyl stuff. I saw a lot of ex-marines that got hooked on pain pills because their bodies were beat up, moved on to fentanyl, started dealing to support habit, and hatch a 17 year bit because someone ODd. Lots of first time in trouble people caught up in fentanyl.
  - alistairSH 5y ago
    The thing I think most law-abiding/normal people don't understand about the types of people in prisons is that they are almost exclusively habitual offenders. While that is true, there are classes of crime that are automatic felonies with mandatory prison time. Things like assaulting a police officer. Which doesn't have to be throwing a punch - simply resisting handcuffs is sufficient for the felony assault charge if the officer is mad enough and friendly with the prosecutor.
  - 5y ago
syki 5y ago
Thank you for sharing your experience and bringing these things to light. As Dostoevsky said, you can judge a society by how well it treats its prisoners. We are not a free people when we live under the threat of being out into a prison system as barbaric as the one we have.
- randomacct8162 5y ago
  I did have one positive interaction with a guard that stood out to me from my time in there I was being transported to a hospital for a medical procedure, and I was talking to the guard who taking me, to pass the time. I asked him why on earth he would want to be a prison guard -- after all, they are in there with us for 10 hour shifts, and prisons are some of the most bleak/depressing places on earth. That has to take a toll on their mental wellbeing too. He said that he originally was a regular police officer, but after seeing how much corruption there was in the police force and the things that happened, he felt like a hypocrite, so he said the better alternative was for him to be a guard. That conversation has stuck with me for a long time now.
  - syki 5y ago
    I taught a semester in a max security prison. It was described to me as a controlled movement facility. It was an interesting experience and one that stuck with me. That prison was a bad place. Thanks for your anecdote about the former police officer.
    - randomacct8162 5y ago
      Thank you for doing that, it's an important job. I learned spanish by taking an hour-long spanish class every weekday while I was in there. If your class wasn't mandatory, then I'm sure you know that most people were just there probably to get extra time out of their cell or to break the monotony. And I assume most of them were complete assholes to you. After I am financially independent, I want to try to get state/federal funding so that I can go back to prisons and teach programming AND partner with companies to have jobs/interviews lined up for release dates. The worst part about being incarcerated isn't even always the time you serve, it's that our justice system means that you usually can never get a good job again, regardless of what your charge was (in my case it was one of the lowest class of felonies). It's like a ghost that haunts you forever.
WhitneyLand 5y ago
What did/do you do for a living, tech related? How did it affect your career to have a felony drug charge?
- randomacct8162 5y ago
  I was on computers a lot as a kid and sort of taught myself programming (very poorly) in my early years. When I caught this charge, I had just turned 18. It really ruined my life. Currently, I work in tech. For a very long time I was barely making ends meet, working in a fast food restaurant for minimum wage while trying to interview to get a developer job. I went through 8 interview processes, and received offers from all but one. Each one of them was rescinded when HR learned that I had a felony, as a matter of company policy. It was really heartbreaking and a lot of times, it made me want to give up on life and just stop trying. I kept interviewing and going to events/networking, and eventually found a very low-paying job at a local place and sort of slowly worked my way back up from there. If anyone here has some degree of power at a company and wants to make a difference in the world, convince your company to hire felons with non-violent/non-finance related offenses.
  - mgkimsal 5y ago
    Had to go search for it, but YC funded a company - https://www.70millionjobs.com https://www.70millionjobs.com - that focuses on felon-friendly companies hiring.
    - randomacct8162 5y ago
      I won't sling mud, but the jobs are the same you can already get as a felon (construction, kitchen, hospitality, factory, etc) and I had a negative experience with my interaction there Thank you for looking though. I think it's important to offer felons the chance to get a decent job in a proper career field too. There's one organization doing this called "Underdog Devs": https://www.underdogdevs.org https://www.underdogdevs.org https://twitter.com/underdogdevs https://twitter.com/underdogdevs
matheusmoreira 5y ago
Holy shit I didn't know that. Those guards belong in jail themselves, what they did is torture. Prison exists to remove from society people who are incompatible with it, nothing more and even that must be constantly questioned and re-evaluated. Nobody deserves to have their dignity stripped away like that.
- jopsen 5y ago
  > Those guards belong in jail themselves... The guards are just the product of a system/culture.
  - pc86 5y ago
    As are most of the prisoners, but many of them belong there as well.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    Don't make apologies for people who choose torture and who chose to participate in said system / culture. It's a job; if they had morals they would quit, whistleblow, or punish colleagues for this behaviour. I can't believe the pay would be THAT good. There's clearly no adequate chain of command or repercussions for this crime.
    - malandrew 5y ago
      > they would quit Most prisons exist in places that are economically depressed with few if any other jobs. In some cases, the entire existence of a town revolves around the prison. Quitting is hardly an option when it’s the only real option for putting food on your table and a shelter over your head.
      - xapata 5y ago
        They could leave town. There's always another option.
        5y ago

bag_boy 5y ago

Can you summarize the experience in thirds? For example, what was the first 30 days like versus the last 30?

randomacct8162 5y ago
The first two weeks were very difficult. You have to sort of mentally come to peace with the fact that you're shut in this tiny room and you can't leave. It feels very claustrophobic and if you're the type that has anxiety disorders you will probably have to ward off panic attacks. After the first two weeks, time started to slowly speed up, and the days all sort of blurred together. Thankfully I was able to get a newspaper every day, and a book every now and then, and so I just read every word of the newspaper (even the ads) for something to do, and slept a lot. I think I handled it better than a lot of people would have, as I'm sort of introverted by nature. There's research on solitary confinement permanently harming mental health, but I think I got lucky on that one.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ROTMetro 5y ago
  Also, at least where I was, this was EVERYONE's life (no just solitary) for a year due to COVID. Only with no legal protections, all constitutional requirements waived, because, you know, emergency, and totally not just because the staff were lazy and this allowed them to do zero work.
  - vkou 5y ago
    Edit: My reading comprehension is very, very poor.
    - mastazi 5y ago
      I think that parent was describing life inside a prison, but out of solitary confinement, not life in general, this sentence of their post suggests it: "and totally not just because the staff were lazy and this allowed them to do zero work."
    - shuntress 5y ago
      I'm pretty sure you cannot just "go walking outside for as long as you wanted" when you are in jail.
    - goodpoint 5y ago
      > you live an incredibly sheltered, out-of-touch life This describes solitary confinement, in a sadly ironic way.
  - jknoepfler 5y ago
    Are you describing conditions in a prison in the USA outside of solitary confinement? (That's the only way I can make sense of the reply).
    - mastazi 5y ago

tokai 5y ago

Do solitary confinement help in correcting illegal/bad/wrong behaviour among prisoners in your opinion? Seems to me that it can only breed resentment and detachment.

randomacct8162 5y ago
No, not at all. The thing I think most law-abiding/normal people don't understand about the types of people in prisons is that they are almost exclusively habitual offenders. Even in the US, which is heavily punitive instead of rehabilitative, you have to have run-ins with the law a number of times before you are sentenced to serve time, rather than probation or a halfway-house etc. From my experiences, ~90% of people I saw during my time in jail and prison were coming in and out, constantly being arrested. There's no desire on their part to change, they're a lost cause. For the tiny handful of people that genuinely do want to have a normal life and not go back to prison, our justice system is awful. No, solitary is not good for that. You need supportive + rehabilitative programs. They won't solve everything, but for the small number of people who want to get out of the system, they need an honest-to-god out and chance at living.
- ROTMetro 5y ago
  I don't think that's as true anymore with the fentanyl stuff. I saw a lot of ex-marines that got hooked on pain pills because their bodies were beat up, moved on to fentanyl, started dealing to support habit, and hatch a 17 year bit because someone ODd. Lots of first time in trouble people caught up in fentanyl.
- alistairSH 5y ago
  The thing I think most law-abiding/normal people don't understand about the types of people in prisons is that they are almost exclusively habitual offenders. While that is true, there are classes of crime that are automatic felonies with mandatory prison time. Things like assaulting a police officer. Which doesn't have to be throwing a punch - simply resisting handcuffs is sufficient for the felony assault charge if the officer is mad enough and friendly with the prosecutor.
- 5y ago

syki 5y ago

Thank you for sharing your experience and bringing these things to light. As Dostoevsky said, you can judge a society by how well it treats its prisoners. We are not a free people when we live under the threat of being out into a prison system as barbaric as the one we have.

randomacct8162 5y ago
I did have one positive interaction with a guard that stood out to me from my time in there I was being transported to a hospital for a medical procedure, and I was talking to the guard who taking me, to pass the time. I asked him why on earth he would want to be a prison guard -- after all, they are in there with us for 10 hour shifts, and prisons are some of the most bleak/depressing places on earth. That has to take a toll on their mental wellbeing too. He said that he originally was a regular police officer, but after seeing how much corruption there was in the police force and the things that happened, he felt like a hypocrite, so he said the better alternative was for him to be a guard. That conversation has stuck with me for a long time now.
- syki 5y ago
  I taught a semester in a max security prison. It was described to me as a controlled movement facility. It was an interesting experience and one that stuck with me. That prison was a bad place. Thanks for your anecdote about the former police officer.
  - randomacct8162 5y ago
    Thank you for doing that, it's an important job. I learned spanish by taking an hour-long spanish class every weekday while I was in there. If your class wasn't mandatory, then I'm sure you know that most people were just there probably to get extra time out of their cell or to break the monotony. And I assume most of them were complete assholes to you. After I am financially independent, I want to try to get state/federal funding so that I can go back to prisons and teach programming AND partner with companies to have jobs/interviews lined up for release dates. The worst part about being incarcerated isn't even always the time you serve, it's that our justice system means that you usually can never get a good job again, regardless of what your charge was (in my case it was one of the lowest class of felonies). It's like a ghost that haunts you forever.

WhitneyLand 5y ago

What did/do you do for a living, tech related? How did it affect your career to have a felony drug charge?

randomacct8162 5y ago
I was on computers a lot as a kid and sort of taught myself programming (very poorly) in my early years. When I caught this charge, I had just turned 18. It really ruined my life. Currently, I work in tech. For a very long time I was barely making ends meet, working in a fast food restaurant for minimum wage while trying to interview to get a developer job. I went through 8 interview processes, and received offers from all but one. Each one of them was rescinded when HR learned that I had a felony, as a matter of company policy. It was really heartbreaking and a lot of times, it made me want to give up on life and just stop trying. I kept interviewing and going to events/networking, and eventually found a very low-paying job at a local place and sort of slowly worked my way back up from there. If anyone here has some degree of power at a company and wants to make a difference in the world, convince your company to hire felons with non-violent/non-finance related offenses.
- mgkimsal 5y ago
  Had to go search for it, but YC funded a company - https://www.70millionjobs.com https://www.70millionjobs.com - that focuses on felon-friendly companies hiring.
  - randomacct8162 5y ago
    I won't sling mud, but the jobs are the same you can already get as a felon (construction, kitchen, hospitality, factory, etc) and I had a negative experience with my interaction there Thank you for looking though. I think it's important to offer felons the chance to get a decent job in a proper career field too. There's one organization doing this called "Underdog Devs": https://www.underdogdevs.org https://www.underdogdevs.org https://twitter.com/underdogdevs https://twitter.com/underdogdevs

matheusmoreira 5y ago

Holy shit I didn't know that. Those guards belong in jail themselves, what they did is torture. Prison exists to remove from society people who are incompatible with it, nothing more and even that must be constantly questioned and re-evaluated. Nobody deserves to have their dignity stripped away like that.

jopsen 5y ago
> Those guards belong in jail themselves... The guards are just the product of a system/culture.
- pc86 5y ago
  As are most of the prisoners, but many of them belong there as well.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Don't make apologies for people who choose torture and who chose to participate in said system / culture. It's a job; if they had morals they would quit, whistleblow, or punish colleagues for this behaviour. I can't believe the pay would be THAT good. There's clearly no adequate chain of command or repercussions for this crime.
  - malandrew 5y ago
    > they would quit Most prisons exist in places that are economically depressed with few if any other jobs. In some cases, the entire existence of a town revolves around the prison. Quitting is hardly an option when it’s the only real option for putting food on your table and a shelter over your head.
    - xapata 5y ago
      They could leave town. There's always another option.
      - 5y ago