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Yikes. Here's a totally contrary opinion from someone who has also been to AggSeg - AggSeg is the VERY BEST place you can be in jail or prison. I spent almost

Yikes. Here's a totally contrary opinion from someone who has also been to AggSeg - AggSeg is the VERY BEST place you can be in jail or prison. I spent almost a year in AggSeg and it is lovely. - It's "single cell" meaning you don't have to live in close quarters with a random criminal. - You don't have to socialize with random criminals during your free time, so you don't have to worry about the constant violence and rudeness you find in General Population. Other than that, just read books, work out, and sleep. They bring you food 3 times a day. Honestly I would pay for this. There is nothing difficult or badass about it at all. Surviving in general population, that's actually difficult. Everyone who wants to it sound like "THE HOLE" is just being dramatic. They are also playing into the corrections industry propaganda about the matter: The industry wants people to think of this setup as awful and barely-legal because the reality is that all inmates would prefer to be housed in a cell to themselves and be guaranteed to not encounter violence in the yard, but it would cost 2-3x as much to provide this type of housing to the entire population.

meowface 4y ago
I think I could see where you're coming from if not for the near-total elimination of stimuli. If I could have any book I wanted whenever I wanted I'd consider it over being with the general population. If I could have an internet connection I'd probably not consider it very different from my current life. But it seems neither are possible. In that case, I'd rather risk dying from attacks than dying of boredom and loneliness, unless it were a fairly short sentence.
- i_like_apis 4y ago
  If it's loneliness that concerns you (whew lad), I would just say that being forced to socialize with the criminal population feels just like being alone, with the exception that you can really get stabbed.
  - byecomputer 4y ago
    You're part of the criminal population, though. You are in the group you're demonizing.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      The criminal population is as stratified as the outside population. The lifers often want nothing to do with the short term convicts, and none of them want anything to do with the violent or the child molesters.
bombcar 4y ago
There are prisoners in the system today that are in Seg and every time they get put back in genpop they immediately do the minimum required to get sent back to Seg.
sangnoir 4y ago
> AggSeg is the VERY BEST place you can be in jail or prison. You sound like you're introverted. Most people do not want to be left alone with their thoughts with no human contact - it would just drive them up the wall. You also sound like you were focused on surviving your incarceration which end date. The author is in for life, without parole: he's the "random criminal" you didn't want to socialize with, because that was his survival strategy as a lifer, and it sounds like he can manage genpop just fine.
- byecomputer 4y ago
  I like being alone and spend most of my days alone, but not having the choice to socialize would make me itchy. Gotta sate the urge to boogie every once in a blue moon. Which leads into your point -- the author didn't/doesn't have that temporary notion of "This will pass; For now, just get me away from these people." He's in it for life-o and has a totally different set of realities to cope with than a transient convict.
- i_like_apis 4y ago
  You shouldn’t make personality diagnoses via online comments. The math doesn’t change for introverts or extroverts. AggSeg is safe, easy living. It’s nowhere near torture, or dangerous, or inhumane, no matter what TikTok says your personality type is. Genpoop on the other hand is dirty and dangerous and you are statistically guaranteed to be involved in violence at some point. But there are lots of people like him who will complain as if it’s torture, because they like to complain, will say anything against the pigs, and they like to pretend they endured “the hole”. Meanwhile he talked with other inmates every day and likely had a view of a TV, as is common in most AggSeg pods.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    People forget that anyone (let alone criminals) will use everything available to improve their situation; criminals in prison are well known to abuse every process available to them for their own ends. And that includes crying about how horrible everything is. Every guard and convict knows the ones that do it, and when it's real and when it's faked. But nobody "outside" can admit that happens.
agileAlligator 4y ago
> AggSeg is the VERY BEST place you can be in jail or prison. I spent almost a year in AggSeg and it is lovely. You do realize that most people would go insane from lack of social interaction?
- i_like_apis 4y ago
  You have plenty of conversations in AggSeg if you want. Just with a small group of other inmates talking through your door while they are on individual free times. There’s also usually an air vent people talk through. And that is the real torture, listening to 90IQ criminals talking 24/7. I was lucky enough to have a quiet vent and kept people away from the door. It was great and not anywhere close to torture. People act like this is “the hole” from some POW camp. That doesn’t exist in the system. AggSeg is just a jail within a jail, for the violent and obnoxious troublemakers. Inmates are not allowed to be in the same space inside or outside of their cells because they are likely to be violent. It’s amazing because you can really relax, eat your 3 meals a day and do time. You watch more TV in AggSeg, have more personal space and privacy, you still get to talk to people if you really want to … the idea of calling it “the hole” and pretending it’s psych torture is absolutely ridiculous.
bobmaxup 4y ago
You are downplaying this scenario in my opinion, or were in a much nicer prison than I was in. Getting out of your 8'x6' cell, wearing leg shackles and cuffs, for 45 minutes a day to walk in a concrete 15' diameter circle with a fence blocking the view of the sky or to take a shower in a box with a CO staring at you the whole time isn't something I would pay for. There were no televisions. There was a gigantic industrial fan, incessant screaming from people, automated lights, and food that barely passed as edible. It is not something I would call lovely.
- i_like_apis 4y ago
  What state is that? I had the same experience in AggSeg at two different facilities. Automated lights? What's the torture there? It sounds nice. In fact the only real complaint I had (besides some behavior of the COs) was that in AggSeg, they don't turn off the lights at night. Something about safety and making their inspections easier. You have to devise something to cover your eyes to make it easier to sleep. Your story about leaving your cell for free time in shackles and cuffs is also a little suspect. These facilities have remote locking cell doors in AggSeg units. Even the older facilities have this with pneumatic locks. They let you out into an area and give you commands over intercom. You are almost never in the same room as a CO. There is no reason for shackles. Getting an AggSeg customer into shackles and cuffs is a whole affair, and dangerous, no one is doing it on a routine basis just for free time, when they have remote locking doors. Also, this is also your time to use the shower, so shackles? no. You're right about incessant screaming though.
  - bobmaxup 4y ago
    I was in a segregated housing unit in the early 2000s in a prison in the northeastern United States. We interacted with COs, were in the same room as them, and were often directly in front of them. There were no intercoms in the hole. In general population, these were only really used by inmates who were doing custodial tasks between units. To leave our cell, our hands were cuffed, through the door hatch before doors were released via radio, prompted by the CO. After, the COs secured our legs with shackles this happened whenever you left your cell. Shackles were removed to take a shower, hence being watched by a CO the whole time. What you are calling AggSeg is what they called the segregated housing unit, SHU, or "shoe". Having read others' experiences, this varies based on the prison. It is interesting to me that you assume that this is a fabrication over considering that things are different in other administrative areas of the United States. I have no reason to lie about my experiences while being in prison. Normally, I lie about ever having been there. > Automated lights? What's the torture there? I don't think I said it was torture, but it was incredibly annoying to me, having an abnormal sleep cycle. I slept with a shirt sleeve on my head, covering my eyes, which would leave me with acne, often. They went off at like 9PM and came back on at 6AM for breakfast.
bergenty 4y ago
Exactly, loneliness isn’t really a problem for me. You can read in peace and don’t have to deal with any violence.

meowface 4y ago

I think I could see where you're coming from if not for the near-total elimination of stimuli. If I could have any book I wanted whenever I wanted I'd consider it over being with the general population. If I could have an internet connection I'd probably not consider it very different from my current life. But it seems neither are possible. In that case, I'd rather risk dying from attacks than dying of boredom and loneliness, unless it were a fairly short sentence.

i_like_apis 4y ago
If it's loneliness that concerns you (whew lad), I would just say that being forced to socialize with the criminal population feels just like being alone, with the exception that you can really get stabbed.
- byecomputer 4y ago
  You're part of the criminal population, though. You are in the group you're demonizing.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    The criminal population is as stratified as the outside population. The lifers often want nothing to do with the short term convicts, and none of them want anything to do with the violent or the child molesters.

bombcar 4y ago

There are prisoners in the system today that are in Seg and every time they get put back in genpop they immediately do the minimum required to get sent back to Seg.

sangnoir 4y ago

> AggSeg is the VERY BEST place you can be in jail or prison. You sound like you're introverted. Most people do not want to be left alone with their thoughts with no human contact - it would just drive them up the wall. You also sound like you were focused on surviving your incarceration which end date. The author is in for life, without parole: he's the "random criminal" you didn't want to socialize with, because that was his survival strategy as a lifer, and it sounds like he can manage genpop just fine.

byecomputer 4y ago
I like being alone and spend most of my days alone, but not having the choice to socialize would make me itchy. Gotta sate the urge to boogie every once in a blue moon. Which leads into your point -- the author didn't/doesn't have that temporary notion of "This will pass; For now, just get me away from these people." He's in it for life-o and has a totally different set of realities to cope with than a transient convict.
i_like_apis 4y ago
You shouldn’t make personality diagnoses via online comments. The math doesn’t change for introverts or extroverts. AggSeg is safe, easy living. It’s nowhere near torture, or dangerous, or inhumane, no matter what TikTok says your personality type is. Genpoop on the other hand is dirty and dangerous and you are statistically guaranteed to be involved in violence at some point. But there are lots of people like him who will complain as if it’s torture, because they like to complain, will say anything against the pigs, and they like to pretend they endured “the hole”. Meanwhile he talked with other inmates every day and likely had a view of a TV, as is common in most AggSeg pods.
- bombcar 4y ago
  People forget that anyone (let alone criminals) will use everything available to improve their situation; criminals in prison are well known to abuse every process available to them for their own ends. And that includes crying about how horrible everything is. Every guard and convict knows the ones that do it, and when it's real and when it's faked. But nobody "outside" can admit that happens.

agileAlligator 4y ago

> AggSeg is the VERY BEST place you can be in jail or prison. I spent almost a year in AggSeg and it is lovely. You do realize that most people would go insane from lack of social interaction?

i_like_apis 4y ago
You have plenty of conversations in AggSeg if you want. Just with a small group of other inmates talking through your door while they are on individual free times. There’s also usually an air vent people talk through. And that is the real torture, listening to 90IQ criminals talking 24/7. I was lucky enough to have a quiet vent and kept people away from the door. It was great and not anywhere close to torture. People act like this is “the hole” from some POW camp. That doesn’t exist in the system. AggSeg is just a jail within a jail, for the violent and obnoxious troublemakers. Inmates are not allowed to be in the same space inside or outside of their cells because they are likely to be violent. It’s amazing because you can really relax, eat your 3 meals a day and do time. You watch more TV in AggSeg, have more personal space and privacy, you still get to talk to people if you really want to … the idea of calling it “the hole” and pretending it’s psych torture is absolutely ridiculous.

bobmaxup 4y ago

You are downplaying this scenario in my opinion, or were in a much nicer prison than I was in. Getting out of your 8'x6' cell, wearing leg shackles and cuffs, for 45 minutes a day to walk in a concrete 15' diameter circle with a fence blocking the view of the sky or to take a shower in a box with a CO staring at you the whole time isn't something I would pay for. There were no televisions. There was a gigantic industrial fan, incessant screaming from people, automated lights, and food that barely passed as edible. It is not something I would call lovely.

i_like_apis 4y ago
What state is that? I had the same experience in AggSeg at two different facilities. Automated lights? What's the torture there? It sounds nice. In fact the only real complaint I had (besides some behavior of the COs) was that in AggSeg, they don't turn off the lights at night. Something about safety and making their inspections easier. You have to devise something to cover your eyes to make it easier to sleep. Your story about leaving your cell for free time in shackles and cuffs is also a little suspect. These facilities have remote locking cell doors in AggSeg units. Even the older facilities have this with pneumatic locks. They let you out into an area and give you commands over intercom. You are almost never in the same room as a CO. There is no reason for shackles. Getting an AggSeg customer into shackles and cuffs is a whole affair, and dangerous, no one is doing it on a routine basis just for free time, when they have remote locking doors. Also, this is also your time to use the shower, so shackles? no. You're right about incessant screaming though.
- bobmaxup 4y ago
  I was in a segregated housing unit in the early 2000s in a prison in the northeastern United States. We interacted with COs, were in the same room as them, and were often directly in front of them. There were no intercoms in the hole. In general population, these were only really used by inmates who were doing custodial tasks between units. To leave our cell, our hands were cuffed, through the door hatch before doors were released via radio, prompted by the CO. After, the COs secured our legs with shackles this happened whenever you left your cell. Shackles were removed to take a shower, hence being watched by a CO the whole time. What you are calling AggSeg is what they called the segregated housing unit, SHU, or "shoe". Having read others' experiences, this varies based on the prison. It is interesting to me that you assume that this is a fabrication over considering that things are different in other administrative areas of the United States. I have no reason to lie about my experiences while being in prison. Normally, I lie about ever having been there. > Automated lights? What's the torture there? I don't think I said it was torture, but it was incredibly annoying to me, having an abnormal sleep cycle. I slept with a shirt sleeve on my head, covering my eyes, which would leave me with acne, often. They went off at like 9PM and came back on at 6AM for breakfast.

bergenty 4y ago

Exactly, loneliness isn’t really a problem for me. You can read in peace and don’t have to deal with any violence.