Prison isn't what you think it's like.
Despite their popularity, shows like Orange Is the New Black and Prison Break don't tell the whole story of how dangerous life on the inside really is. These ex-cons share the moment in prison that scared them straight.
All posts have been edited for clarity.
He Let Go Of His Ego Real Fast
“My husband was in prison as a young adult.
He said that they had a way of ‘checking your ego’ in the spot he was at. The toughest guys would come up to you on your first day and ask how many push ups you could do. If you were smart, you would just sort of blow it off or laugh it off and move on.
If you were a stupid show off or had something to prove, you would claim a large number or talk yourself up. If you did that, then they would be all friendly and be like ‘oh? let’s see it!’ So the poor guy would do as many push ups as he could. The tough guys would gas the new guy up, acting friendly, pushing him to do more. They acted impressed and joked around.
Then as soon as the new guy had done as many push ups as possible, they would jump him and beat him up. He would be helpless to resist because he had maxed himself out on push ups. Afterwards, any guy with an ego was normally really quiet for the remainder of their stay.”
Perceived Justice Turned Awry
“A family member of mine did a year in a small county lock up in 1980. He was locked up with about 100 other guys. He said that when he first got there, there was a couple of fights a week. But then this church group started coming in offering some kind of bible study. So at first a few guys went just for something to do, then he said that more and more people started going until it was almost everyone going. He said that it was really odd, but the fighting just stopped and everyone started getting along.
So, after a month of no fights, a new inmate arrives. One of the guard tells my family member that the guy abused and violated a baby. (I’m going to call this family member Kevin)
So nothing happens to the guy. A few days later the guard tells Kevin, in so many words, that the child abuser needs to be hurt. For whatever reason, no one hurts the guy. So the next morning, the guard comes and tells Kevin ‘Listen, he have a problem. There are 100 of you here and we only have enough food for 99 of you. So, either everybody eats or nobody eats. So, you know, if someone here had to go to the hospital, for some reason, then there would be enough food for everyone.”
Kevin said that they missed breakfast, lunch, dinner and breakfast again. He said after more then 24 hours of this they finally attacked the child abuser.
So 3 guys beat this guy. He said the guards watched and every minute or so the attackers would stop and look at the guards. The guards would shake their heads (as in not good enough) so the dudes would continue punching and kicking the guy. Finally the guards nodded and the beating stopped. They beat the guy unconscious and really messed him up bad. It took the guards hours to get him any kind of help. And he ended up with some brain damage.
Now here’s the kicker. Later it was found out that the alleged child molesterd was innocent. His girlfriend made up the story because she was mad at him for some dumb reason.”
The Boy, The “Bomb”, And The Blue Burrito
“I spent a couple weeks in county jail.
On the first day, when we were all being processed into the facility, we were told very succinctly to never ever even joke about taking your life while in the facility. Kind of like how you just don’t say ‘bomb’ on an airplane anymore. By day three, I had a good understanding of the other guys I was locked up with. There was one kid in the group that seemed underdeveloped mentally, but he essentially acted like a 12 year old. I knew early on he was going to get himself in trouble because he never stopped talking or moving, and he was rubbing everyone the wrong way.
I had been there a week, when the ’12 year old’ finally lost his cool completely. He was in the shower, singing and joking around, and putting on a performance that went too far when he made a huge mess with his feces as a joke. Afterwards, when he was locked in a cell near the showers, he was laughing and joking as other inmates had to clean up after him and make the shower area sanitary again.
The next day, everyone was looking at the ’12 year old’ with hate in their eyes. Everyone got really cold toward him, even openly mean. It took him a day or two to realize he was hated by all, and then his personality changed dramatically. He became sad, despondent, and started talking to the correctional officers because the other inmates wouldn’t talk to him anymore. He slipped up, told the COs that he should just harm himself and make everyone happy, and that was all it took. They dragged out the Blue Burrito.
This is the scariest thing I had seen in jail. The Blue Burrito was a 10-foot-long blue foam mat, like you would use in gym class, with two 12-foot-long red belts attached. They laid it out on the floor, forced the ’12 year old’ to lay on the mat, and then they rolled him up with his arms at his sides into the blue burrito. The two long red belts clipped together at the top and bottom of the burrito, keeping it all nice and tight.
They put that poor guy in the burrito around 8:00pm, dragged him into his cell, and left him laying on the floor, wrapped up tight, until breakfast the next morning, around 8:00am. Imagine being unable to move, barely able to breath, with no end in sight for 12 hours on the floor of your 8 by 8 cell. My cell was up above his, and I heard him weeping and moaning in agony all night.
He didn’t say a word to anyone, or look anyone in the eye for that matter for the rest of the time I was there. One night in the blue burrito broke him.”
A Sound He Would Never Forget
“A friend of mine did a short stint.
From what he told me, he was supposed to get paperwork detailing his charges before he got to prison, but did not. This made the other prisoners suspicious, as they believed he was a snitch and was trying to hide that fact from them. They threatened to beat him. An old acquaintance of his was in there and assured my friend that he had nothing to worry about, as they had been threatening him for months and nothing had happened.
That night, while my friend was making his bed, a few prisoners ran into his acquaintance’s cell and beat him within inches of his life. They were throwing the guy on the concrete to the point that my friend could hear it.
My buddy says that’s the moment that scared him straight.”
“Then The Weirdest Part Of The Conversation Happens” – It Gets Worse From There
“I am an ex correctional officer. The scariest thing I saw while working in a maximum security prison was this simple looking middle aged man who seemed nice at first, but was obviously very much insane.
I was doing my rounds in A bay (which is for housing general population) and he wanted to talk, so I talked to him for a while, not knowing what to expect. He said he was arrested for something he didn’t do and now he’s here. He looked like a sad, lonely man, but average in every way. Then he started talking about his sister and how he loves to touch her, and I start to get uncomfortable. I don’t like talking to him, so I try to make an excuse to leave, but then the weirdest part of the conversation happens.
He starts the conversation over completely from the beginning. He repeats the same story about his sister, word for word, and, yet again, I try to leave, but he starts the conversation over again. He does this 3 more times before I just walk away and he’s still talking.
Later in the day, it’s shave time so I have to go around and give razor blades to the inmates who want to shave their faces. Afterwards, I go around again and collect the razors and I think I’m done, but I go back to the same man and I notice he is holding a razor in his hand. I told him he ‘needs to give me the razor,’ but he said he wasn’t finished with it. I held my hand open and demanded he give me the razor and he kept saying, ‘no I’m not finished yet!’ Keep in mind I was 19 at the time and he was 54 I think.
I had about enough of his bull, so I very firmly said, ‘give me the razor now or I will go get another officer over here.’ He looked upset and promised to give it back when he was done and he wouldn’t be long, he just had to get the chip and the dirt out. I said, ‘what are you talking about?’ And he said he was innocent. Then I saw his arm.
He said that someone had put a microchip in his arm and he had to get it out. He also said the chip was dirty and that he had to get rid of the bad vein where the chip was. I watched this man pull a vein out of his arm. He didn’t seem to have any pain from it, and his facial expression looked pleased.
I had a mini freakout, but kept my cool and went to get my other officer to come get him before he did any more damage. I waited there while 2 officers came and took him to C bay, where they house the mentally ill. As he was walking away, he started the conversation over again and the last thing I heard him saying before he rounded the corner was how he touched his sister.
Some things they cant prepare you for in these places!”
Something Was Cooking
“I did 13 months in various prisons across Louisiana. It’s not all assault and shanks and learning to sell insurance like on Oz. There is some crazy stuff though.
Worst thing I saw had to have been when I was in this place that just had these huge dorms. No cells, no dayroom, just a big room with a bunch of racks. These two dudes got into it over what they call a ‘little boy’ – not just a gathering inmate, but one that either wants or thinks he has to to be a punk.
Anyway, these two dudes are going at over whose punk he is. One thing leads to another, shoes get put on, the correctional officer gets called, and he gives a beating. The guy on the receiving end doesn’t take to kindly to it. He takes a 2 quart plastic container and fills it with grits, milk, oatmeal, powdered milk, glue, whatever he can find, and starts microwaving this stuff. He cooks it and cooks it and cooks it. The guy isn’t even acting weird, just cooking a meal.
Finally, he gets done and walks back to his rack. As he’s passing the other dude’s cut, which is the row in between two beds, he chucks his soup right in the guys face. Sticks to him like napalm. Melts the dudes face off. One goes to the hole, one goes to medical.”
He Had A Few Bad Habits
“I have a friend who used to work in corrections. They had an inmate who had a habit of ‘pandering other inmate’s back doors’ so to speak.
This guy was serving a life sentence for murdering his grandparents, assaulting grandma before and after the murder, and disfiguring them after. He had been in since the 1980’s and nobody had been able to live with him because he was such a dangerous maniac.
They decided to bunk him with a huge guy who was in for a ton a gang-related, violent offenses. My friend said that Department of Corrections figured that since the new cell mate was 30 years younger and covered in muscles he would be able to handle himself.
Within the first few days, the big cell mate asked for protective custody and claimed he had been violated.
It seems that this old murderer had made a bet with his new cell mate that whoever could do the most push-ups would get the better bunk in the cell. After our young gang member cranked out a ton of push-ups, he was so tired that he couldn’t stop the beating and abuse that followed.
Last I heard, the old murderer had a room to himself. The assault was never prosecuted because the gang member was unwilling to testify. He claimed he ‘couldn’t risk people finding out.'”
A Rollercoaster From The Beginning To The End
“We got a correctional officer good one time. It was probably the scariest thing he experienced on the inside.
CO Bob (we’ll say) was a world class piece of trash. He would shake down cells randomly, break things purposely, then call them ‘contraband’ and take them. He would regularly berate inmates, trying to provoke them into ‘disobeying a lawful order’ so he could give them a writeup, take 30 days of good time, and throw them in the hole. Well, one day Bob took the wrong guy’s radio and fan – a small, skinny guy we will call The Fresh Prince.
The Fresh Prince loved his fan and his radio very much, because they were all he had in the world. So, having lost everything, he concocts a plan of revenge.
TFP gets to clean the stairs every day, and the next shift Bob works, TFP cleaned them extra special right before lockdown. Bob comes out from the little command cubby and joyfully proclaims, ‘Lockdown, ladies!’
It wasn’t even lockdown. We had 20 more minutes of dayroom time. But the COs hold almost all the cards, so we have to lock down. The whole unit mumbled a little bit and went to their cells. On the banistered, metal staircase to the 2nd tier, all the inmates were careful to stay to the far right as we passed the 8th, 9th, and 10th stairs. We all knew what TFP was up to. It was extra fresh.
We all get to our cells, but are careful not to shut the doors.
‘Did you not hear me? It’s lockdown time. Lock-diggity!’ Bob spits.
‘HEY PIG!! YOU CANT FADE ME PUNK!! COME LOCK ME DOWN!!!!’ Comes the reply from the top tier.
Bob springs into action. He pops the snap on his taser and rushes to the staircase. The stairs themselves are just cheap metal slats, no grip or covering on them, or even backing. That means that between each stair, there is a 10 inch tall, full stair wide rectangular gap at the back.
Everyone is watching. Bob hits the first stair at a sprint. He bounds up the stairs, two at a time, his steps loudly reverberating off the cheap metal slat-stairs. Third stair. Fifth stair. Seventh stair. Oh, lawdy.
The baby-oiled stair serves its intended purpose flawlessly. The bottom half of Bob goes forward, and his top half goes back. Both of his legs slip into one of the openings between slat-stairs. He twists awkwardly, throwing his left hand out to catch himself. He keeps his right hand on his still-holstered taser.
Bob’s left arm crumples under his full weight, bending his elbow the way it isn’t intended to bend. There is one loud snap from the elbow.
Bob’s right leg, which is on top of the left leg in the rectangular opening, fares well. Bob’s left leg, which is sandwiched between two cheap metal stairs and another leg, and being worked upon by Bob’s full, flailing, falling weight, is broken at the knee and then again just below the knee.
The unit keeps their doors open.
The Fresh Prince shuffles out from behind the painted cinder block wall on his knees, so that the single camera that can see him in his current position has trouble distinguishing his height. A ripped sheet has been fastened into crude gloves and a mask/helmet so that even TFP’s racial character cannot be discerned by the camera. In his hand is a special type of bomb.
Now this bomb is a crude chemical warfare prison bomb fashioned by cutting the top off a pop can (or shampoo bottle, or whatever) and then by filling it with…well, use your imagination.
TFP flings it and it lands inches from Bob on its still-sealed side, its bounty erupting into the air and raining down on Bob’s broken body just as he begins pushing the panic button on his shoulder.
Bob would never work in corrections again. Or walk.
I hope this serves as a cautionary tale for present COs. Lots of them are decent people who just happen to live in podunk towns that don’t afford a lot of employment opportunities. One of them even bought me and the rest of the inmate garage I worked at Burger King on a regular basis because we didn’t give him any trouble. But for every Burger King there’s a Bob. And for every Bob, there’s a Fresh Prince, crapbomb and baby oil in hand.
Be nice to the inmates.”
He Met Hannibal Lecter In The Flesh
Orion Pictures
“I had a buddy who was in jail. He was tasked with cleaning the cell that held a man on trial for murdering multiple women, but had not yet been convicted.
While my friend was in the room with him, the man jokingly asked, ‘do you know the difference between a woman and an onion? … I cry when I cut an onion.’
He said it really creeped him out and he refused to speak or look in the man’s direction for the remainder of the cleaning.”
He Was Cruelly Assaulted For No Good Reason
“I worked in a county jail once. There was this guy who clearly had mental health issues that was in the one suicide watch cell.
While you’re in the suicide watch cell, all you get is this anti-suicide vest thing. That’s it. You just exist in there with nothing to do. Needless to say, the guy with the mental health issues didn’t take too well to being confined to a small space with nothing to do all day every day.
One day, he was upset and demanded to talk to the sergeant. The sergeant came into the cell block, talked to the guy for a second, and then motioned for me to crack the cell door open. When I opened the cell door, the sergeant takes out his pepper spray and douses the guy with it, then motions for me to close it and let him out.
He just walks out and leaves the suicidal guy rolling on the floor screaming and kicking. I had to just sit there and watch this guy writhing in agony for no reason whatsoever.”
He Threatened To Start “Ripping Stitches”
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“I’m not a prisoner, but an ex-Correctional Officer.
I once had to work overtime in a segregation unit. The first thing that happened upon entering this unit was that we got a call that an inmate was out on a medical trip, was coming back in, and was to be placed into a suicide watch cell. This inmate had been taken to an outside hospital for wounding his entire forearm.
We placed him in the suicide watch cell and went to find a bed mat for him, which was hard because he couldn’t have one with a hole in it while being on suicide watch. He told me that if I didn’t get him a bed mat in 5 minutes, he was going to start ‘ripping stitches.’ I told him to wait, and went to find a mat.
Apparently, it had been 6 minutes because by the time I got back, he had torn off his bandages and ripped out every single stitch in his arm. It was a gruesome scene.
He agreed to cuff up, and went on his merry way back to the outside hospital. I later found out he had only initially done it because he ‘wanted to get out of prison for a while.’
That fact alone messed me up.”
Listening Saves Lives
“I was in an open bay dorm with a guy that was bit by a brown recluse spider somewhere in the head. He had his head all wrapped up in bandages.
He kept going up to the officers station saying he was having a hard time breathing. They told him to go back to his rack or they would put him in confinement.
He ended up dead by morning. Turns out he was allergic to what ever meds they gave him for the infection. This was in the Florida prison system.”
“I Fail To Call This Thing Even Human”
“I am not a prisoner, but an ex-guard. I worked at a Juvenile Detention Facility in New Mexico.
The absolute scariest thing I ever saw was a young boy, 9 years old, booked in for murdering both of his parents. There was nothing there. I fail to call this thing even human. I looked into this child’s eyes and felt more fear than I ever have to this day. This was no child; it was a monster. Pure evil, condensed and given human form.
And to clarify: I have booked and looked after murder suspects before, it was nothing new. But this kid was different. Very different. He never broke any rules and always followed commands, but never, ever spoke unless directly asked something. And then it was just a curt, short answer.
He never cried, either, which is highly unusual for a 9 year old kid in jail. He was eventually tried and transferred to a mental facility.
I’ll never forget the kid’s eyes. It haunts me to this day.”
A Fight So Bad They Made A Movie Of It
“If you’ve ever seen the HBO documentary ‘Gladiator Days’, I was just placed in general population in Gunnison (Central Utah Correctional Facility) in the same section that then had the riot.
Later, when the killing took place, it was across the way from us – we could see the whole thing go down through the huge bulletproof glass windows they had between our section (Cedar 1) and the section the killing took place in (Cedar 3). The guards repeatedly ordered us to lockdown in our cells, but no one listened. The whole place was on lockdown for several weeks.
I saw the documentary almost by accident years later and it freaked me out. It was like being right back there again. Worst thing I ever experienced (there were other bad things, but this one takes the cake).”
He Buttered His Corn, Minus The Bread
“I was in jail for one day, but here is the story I tell. There is a group holding cell you stay in if you aren’t going to be there very long, so I never made it to the general population. Anyhow.
I didn’t eat a lot there and I was rushed at every meal for my leftovers. Like 6 guys at once all were asking me, ‘hey, can I have that?’ For breakfast, this one guy seemed extra interested in getting my butter, so I gave it to him. He rubbed it all over his feet. He said his feet would crack badly then bleed, and he had no way of getting lotion; butter was the best he could do.”