USA: a day in the life of a prisoner

People are constantly asking me: What’s a day in prison like? Is it boring? Or are you busy? So the other day, I toted a pocket-sized notebook with me everywhere I went, scribbling down every single thing I did. I thought I’d share my findings with you to show you that we prisoners aren’t deadbeats — our days are, in fact, incredibly full.

At 1:30 a.m., I’m jarred awake in my cell by an officer wielding the brightest flashlight in the world. He gives me 10 minutes to throw on some clothes and escorts me to the isolation cells, where I strip down again for a thorough search and begin a three-hour suicide watch. This is my prison job: to sit with inmates deemed suicidal and just talk with them, and make sure they don’t try anything.

The 18-year-old black kid I’m assigned to on this day is soft-spoken, and severely depressed. (I’m 43 and white.) He opens up surprisingly quickly about the many horrors of his childhood. He’s lived a very hard life, which is typical for incarcerated people but is always deeply upsetting nonetheless. I almost cry several times. There’s not much I can do for him except listen, so I do so as if this young man is my own child.

Shift over, I’m strip-searched again and escorted back to my housing unit, where I take a quick shower, stretch, meditate, pray, then climb back under my itchy wool blanket and hit the sack around 6 a.m.

I wake up at 10, thanks to all the hooting and hollering outside my cell. I take a few minutes to center myself, climb from my top bunk and am met by my service dog in training, Ross.

As I dress, Ross wags his tail and prods me with his cold, wet nose, which never fails to make me smile.

I then hike down the Rock (our term for the cell block) to the communal bathroom I share with 48 other inmates, brush my teeth between four young kids who are rapping, handle my morning business on the toilet, and return to my cell once again, where I pour Ross another bowl of water, buckle on my pouch full of treats, then venture back out into the bowels of our unit with the dog in tow. We spend the next 40 minutes training him to follow my commands.

Next, I grab my tablet and a cup of instant coffee, and hurry to our JPay.com (a prison email service) kiosk (a computer encased in damn-near indestructible stainless steel), which is my only window to the outside world.

There, I pay a guy a ramen noodle soup for holding me a spot in line, then plug my tablet in and upload and download emails.

Once finished, I jog over to our unit’s kitchen area, where I wait in line to use one of two microwaves shared by 96 convicts. Luckily, I’m able to heat up my coffee before I hear, “Five minutes til count time, people,” blaring over the PA system in the same dull, unsympathetic voice that has spewed these words multiple times a day, every day, for years.

“Be on your bunks and be visible! I repeat, be on your bunks and be visible for 11:30 count or you will get a ticket!”

During count, I write a few emails (to be uploaded later) and listen to the news on the radio as I lie in bed waiting for the guards to make their rounds. I then throw on my workout clothes (a pair of tattered pants covered in patches), shrug on my state-issued “winter” coat, and stand by my cell door, waiting for it to open.

Count times in prison are an imprecise science, from a convict’s point of view. Sure, they start at the same times each day: 5 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 4 p.m., 9 p.m., and midnight. But when each one might end is anybody’s guess. It’s basically purgatory.

On this particular day, I get lucky. Count is cleared at 12:10, which means I’m out the door and on the yard by 12:20.
I usually pick this time slot to head out to the yard because it’s virtually empty — most inmates are inside right now having lunch. I run a few miles, do pullups, pushups, sprints, and finish with weights and stretches.

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