Nice blog! If you were offered to do hard time in any prison in America for one month, what'd be your preferences about: security level, cell style (door, windows, furniture), uniform, restraints (type, use policy). Just curious ;)
Hello! You are question #12
Again, another excellent question for me! I will add in to your question the provision for era (present or past).
My choice would have to be TDCJ (Texas Department of Criminal Justice) in approximately 1968. I would be guilty of doing something stupid like wrecking my car while drunk. The judge would sentence me "to the chain" or hard labor for one year (minimum sentence required to be sent to state prison) with a review of my behavior in one month. Medium security would be logical to "teach me a lesson"!
I would prefer to have a 4 man cell with 4 prison cots and one sink toilet combo. Bars on the front of the cell with a food slot. My cell mates are all about my age (22) from a mix of races and demographics. I am the smart ass, upper middle class caucasian who doesn't have a clue what life in prison is all about. I would be very straight acting, have a girlfriend on the outside but am really closeted gay. I am secretly excited as fucking Hell to be locked up with a bunch of guys.
It's got to be mid May when I arrive. Not super hot yet, but well on the way to daytime temps in the upper 80s or 90s. Lots of rain in the afternoon.
I would want to arrive from the Houston City Jail wearing a well worn set of jail denims and tennis shoes and sitting in a prison bus. Strip me down buck naked with the 25 other convicts on the bus and march me to the gang showers. When I step out, spray me down with delousing spray, give me a prison haircut and give me my first set of Texas prison whites and black leather work boots. I get three shirts, three pants, three pairs of boxers, white socks, tee shirts and single work cap and a chore coat. Everything is bright white with my name and prison number stenciled all over it. Front, back fucking everywhere! I put it all into a laundry bag and walk naked and stinking of delousing compound to my new cell.
I get there on a Friday afternoon and by 6 am Saturday morning I am carrying a big metal hoe and walking into a cotton field to work for the next 9 hours weeding a 40 acre field. By late afternoon, my brand new whites are covered in dirt up to my chest. My new black leather boots are caked in mud and I feel like I am going to pass out. All I can think of is my cot in my cell, taking off this fucking prison shirt and drinking about 10 tin cups full of water.
As far as restraints go, there sadly won't be any. The Screws have high powered shot guns and would shoot me dead if I tried to run. So those transport irons I wore on the bus were the last restraints I will wear until I am released or, I do something so damned stupid that I end up in the hole.
