The Tri-County Times is publishing a two-part series about prison life.  The first part came out over the weekend.  I was struck by several parts of their account and will highlight a few of the interesting excerpts here.

The article focuses on a man named Paul who was released from prison in 2008.  From the article:

Paul was in state prison.

Everything changed. Instead of a comfortable bed with a thick mattress and box spring, Paul was now sleeping on a metal bunk bed with a green mattress that was 2½ inches thick. His head rested on a thin plastic pillow, stuffed with cotton, “All the cotton goes to the side,” he said.

Paul’s street clothes were taken away. The “system” gave him three pairs of clothes, underwear and socks. The “system” had his nails clipped. Instead of the view outside his home by a lake, he now lived within four blue concrete walls. Instead of a house full of possessions, he could now fit everything he owned into a 6-foot by 18-inch locker. Nothing in that locker was from his outside life. Even his Bible was thrown away.

This is the value of long-form journalism which we have lost in the past few years.  It can provide the general public with a visceral experience of a world that is really foreign to them.   In just a couple of paragraphs, the author conveys the feeling of having everything that you know taken away from you when you are incarcerated.  He captures the sense of loss that must be experienced when you are first locked up.

Reporter Tim Jagielo provides still more description of life in prison:

His uniform at Adrian consisted of a dark blue shirt, orange on the back, which displayed his new identity — a six-digit identification number. The pants were dark blue, with an orange stripe, numbered. Orange shorts, numbered, were worn in the summer. The rest of his wardrobe consisted of T-shirts, numbered, and six pairs of underwear, numbered. He also had a radio, and personal TV, which he purchased himself.

“You are responsible for buying your own toothpaste, tooth brush and shampoo,” said Paul. “The state supplies only a small bar of green soap.”

The population in Adrian was divided into five levels, based on prison term length. Paul was with the least violent of the population, though he still witnessed violence. “They were just violent people who will fight you for nothing,” he said. The prison population also included some inmates who were mentally ill.

“It’s a whole different world,” Paul said. “I’ve seen guys that would carry on a conversation with cereal boxes.”

The walls of his unit were bright blue, with cement floors, sealed with wax. The windows had sliding glass with no bars. Inmates like him, with less time to serve, were less likely to try to escape, he explained.

The air in the unit was stagnant in the winter, and hot in the summer. “If it’s 100 degrees outside, it’s 100 degrees inside,” Paul said, adding there were no curtains on the windows. “If it was light outside, it was light inside. The light just pours in.”

His cube measures 12 by 20 feet. It contains eight inmates, four sets of bunk beds, eight lockers and four chairs. The inmates are responsible for keeping their own unit clean. There is no privacy, and little room to move around. Once per month tornado or fire drills interrupt their routine or their sleep at night.

“The State only supplies a small bar of green soap,” I know that this is the case in state prisons and yet I am moved and angered by the description.  It is illustrative of the “industrial” part of the prison complex.  His cell is 12 by 20 with eight other inmates.  If you are clausterphobic like I am you can almost feel yourself losing your breath.  Paul relays the story of seeing prisoners who carry on conversations with cereal boxes.  Again what comes through is the sense of loneliness and isolation.

Paul’s day began around 6 a.m., the only time breakfast is served. Inmates knew what would be served ahead of time by a menu. Aside from being vegan, or Jewish, there were no choices of meals. You eat what is on the menu that day. Inmates who wanted to eat would wait for their unit of 160 men to be called. “If it’s raining, you stand outside in the rain waiting to get in,” he said.

In St. Louis, Paul worked in the kitchen, serving food. Much of the food came from boxes that read, “Not intended for daily human consumption.”

Inmates had 15 minutes to eat. After eating, they would go out to “the yard,” the outside communal area. There, inmates could lift weights, walk around a track, or sit at tables in the inside yard. Paul lifted weights, and played softball and volleyball in the summer. “It killed time,” he said. The “weight pit” was a dangerous area, because there were few security cameras.

Guards were always watching the activities.

Paul regularly received letters from friends and family, and visits nearly every week. “When you get a letter, it’s like gold,” he said. He tried to avoid trouble and keep to himself. “You learned to read a situation and avoid it before it gets out of hand.”

At 11 a.m., all the inmates return to their cubes. A red light at the end of the hall turns on, and every prisoner sits on their bunk and waits to be counted. Count time takes about half an hour, depending on the guards on duty. Anyone not on his bunk at count time is given a ticket, which can lead to disciplinary action.

Contraband and fighting can also warrant tickets. Being caught with weapons, or doing anything considered a felony, would extend prison time. Inmates called these extensions “flops.”

After the count is finished, the red light turns off and the meal cycle begins again. Paul and the inmates can go wait for lunch or go outside for yard time again. “Every day is the same in prison,” he said.

“The food smelled awful,” said Paul. They were often served “rainbow” hot dogs — which turned colors as they cooked — pink to green to red, and tasted “like really horrible hospital food.”

You can almost taste the wretched food being served in these prisons based on this description.  “Not intended for Human Consumption” That really says it all. This is uncivilized treatment.  Even people who believe in prisons as the right place for punishment to be meted out should find this inhumane and disgusting.