TBTL Goes Back To Prison

Prison is a difficult place, made even more difficult by the lack of a short seminar or pamphlet explaining what happens there. You spend a few days in a segregation unit while you’re processed in, then you’re pushed out onto the compound without a clue as to what to do or how to act. I kept my mouth shut, watched everyone, tried to do the right things and still almost got thrown in the hole for not knowing the rules.

It was probably more difficult for me, initially, than most of the guys at FCI Sheridan because I had never done time before. I turned myself in at age 27 without ever having been arrested so it was all new to me. And the prison economy is pretty fascinating. While the administration turns a blind eye to most of it, making occasional token “busts”, illicit commerce hums along day and night. Why do the guards sit on their hands? Most of the business doesn’t hurt anyone and taking things away from prisoners makes them unhappy. And unhappy prisoners do bad things to each other and to the staff.

I arrived at FCI Sheridan less than a year after a riot happened. I didn’t ask a lot of questions about it because I was already under suspicion as a college educated white guy doing time behind razor wire. But there were two constant reminders of the riot. One was the building the prisoners burned had been rebuilt in a different style and the other was one of the guards who worked in the metal detector shack who had some gruesome scars from a struggle with an inmate.

Don’t go to prison. It was good for me. I needed it to grow up, learn how to live a clean life, and to make amends for all of the terrible things I did. But you’re all nice people, except Jo Ellen McCawley. She a basic bitch, yo.

Follow me @drewmcfrizz on Twitter. Friend me on Facebook where I can turn any post into an argument about iPhones vs. Androids. My “government” is Mike Frizzell. Go to TakedownPodcast.com where last night we talked about guys base jumping in wheelchairs.