That is pretty ****ed up. You need to serve jail to have no criminal record but I understand the theory. It allows them to show people being convicted without using jail resources. That is how they are judged.

You have to be 1 in 1000 that actually chose jail. First-time offends. You are the only person ever I have heard going to jail for a DUI.

I couldn't make food that bad on purpose. There were literally some meals I just couldn't eat.

The wet bologna sandwich was probably the worst. They served some lasagna that was pretty good, but also gave me the ****s, which was its own hell.

The food was really bad. Worse than I thought it would be.

They served a "holiday meal" on the 24th (that war on Christmas, yo) ... it wasn't awful but it was awfully bland. Everything could have used more salt. We got turkey in gravy, mashed potatoes and a soggy holiday cookie.

All means came with either milk or kool-aid. Who drinks milk after middle school?


Yes and no. Some people are more than happy to tell you their life story. Others were quiet.

One guy didn't wanna talk because he was in for rape. Another guy, call him Sammy, he was this older guy, like in his 60s but he looked much older. Hard living. He'd knocked out his neighbors tooth and broke his glasses over some disagreement and the judge gave him a choice: 15 days or $1,000.

The entire time we were in the dorm together, he laughed about that 15 days. He was broke as ****, could never have paid the grand. Oh, he laughed about how he'd do it all over again in a hearbeat. Guy was a riot.

DWIs cost a lot. They kill you with the process. The figure tossed around is $10,000 for the average DWI. Probably about right. I think mine will be around $7,000+ before it's all said and done.

Not really, at least not because it was solitary. It did suck. The mattress was thin, on a steel plate, the temps were in the 50s, they NEVER turn the lights out (never), it's rarely quiet ... Jail is dumb. Paying people to guard a bunch of guys sitting around watching TV is just dumb. There has to be a better way.

I must have written something wrong, you're not the first to mention 3 guys. I was in the dorms with seven other guys.

Drug charges, the assault I mentioned in a previous response, violating a protection order, rape, parole violation of something not-too-serious. Those were the dorm guys.

The middle security guys, I never had a conversation with. I just stayed in lockdown and they hung out in the "pod," but the communal table was out of sight of my cell. It was kinda weird, but it's hard for anything to be too weird in jail because no one has any choices.

When my lawyer called me up, he says, "I have great news ... But you're not going to think it's great news."

I agree, it's all kinda nuts.

They offer NA and AA, I believe. And a couple of other programs, but I didn't look to closely into them since I was going to be there long enough to use any of them.

No, nothing special for Christmas. A quasi-holiday meal on the 24th.

The general mood is pretty good. As a whole, people aren't unhappy. "Three hots and a cot!" Goddamn I heard that so many times.

But ... there is this vibe I always get from ex cons, this loose, happy vibe. And maybe it makes sense... once you've had everything taken away from you .... I dunno.

RE: bolded, you didn't write anything wrong (you said four bunk beds) but I guess people aren't reading closely or not understanding that two guys sleep on each bunk bed.

I read Ted Conover's book about the year he spent as a corrections officer in Sing Sing. He made it seem like it was mostly just dreary and silly, given how immature most of the inmates are, and the innane ploys they try to use to get over on the guards.

Sounds like Hogan’s Heroes.

One of my close friends spent like 3 weeks in jail instead of paying a $1500 fine and it was partly because he wanted to see what jail was like. He spent a week or so of it in LA county jail which was not entirely safe, though he didn't get in trouble. He was robbed of his mattress though. He spent the rest in Santa Rosa or something and said that was easy.

Why was the rapist in the lowest security tier of jail and not in prison?

I'm gonna hazard a guess that he was awaiting trial. A lot of people in jail for that.

You fell asleep drunk and got 4 days solitary confinement right out of the gate. LOL prisons. Seriously, the US is so ****ed up with this.

You were sentenced on a Friday and didn't see the judge til Tuesday. So I'm guessing Christmas was on the Monday while you had solitary confinement?

Why didn't your lawyer or the judge get you sentenced on a Thursday so you didn't have to be alone for 4 days? This is what they do for a living. You'd think it would come up from time to time.

This article was an eye opener to me about prisons. I laugh at morons that think the US is #1! in everything. But no one wants to really tackle the problem so it will never change.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...igation-bauer/

I think you're confused about what happened. Sapo stated that all inmates spend some time in solitary upon admission, during which time they're evaluated for placement by internal staff.

He just had the misfortune of being admitted right before a long, holiday weekend, since the people who make these decisions were out from work.

No, I get that. I meant why don't they plan for this ahead of time so the prisoner doesn't get stuck alone for 4 days.

I shouldn't have said seen the judge. I meant get assigned or whatever it is.

I was in for the same thing (I assume 2nd offense?), except I did 90 days. This sentence above is pretty accurate. It was a lot of cheap carbs mixed with low grade meat and whatever canned vegetables they had around, mixed into some slurry that they marketed as "chicken a la king" or "chop suey". I think I read that the average cost per plate was around 18 cents. I lost 20 lbs in 3 months.

You always take a tray though, because you can sell it for trays down the road, or for canteen items on the spot, or you can get cookie futures. There was always a dessert that was actually not that bad and those are typically what you gambled/traded with, since cash/smokes weren't allowed. I had a huge cookie roll at one point and felt I had possibly established myself as kingpin of the cookie game, but I hit a bad run of cards in spades and dusted off my cookies pretty quickly.

It was a sad night when you realized you lost all your cookies at spades and your only reading material was a secondhand Nora Roberts novel you took out of desperation from the library cart.

Jail sucked, and I never want to go back, but 10 years later, I look back on it fondly.

I also remember, I checked in shortly after Christmas but before New Year's. Our "treat" for NYE was some trail mix and a 6 oz cup of flat Roundy's brand cola. I think I went to bed at 11.

The alleged rapist, were his eyes abnormally close together?

Where did you go to jail? I did a month in tent City Arizona, it was an interesting experience.. the racial politics were fascinating..

Why did you take the jail over the probation?

Cuz if you **** up probation (depending on terms, highly possible) you do the year/whatever the max is.

Sounds remarkably similar to my "Spending Christmas involuntarily committed to a mental hospital" tbh, including steel toilets, terrible food, and no privacy, except I didn't get out early for good behavior and we got lemonade and decaf coffee instead of milk and koolaid.

Would you make the same choice again now that you know what it's like or would you roll the dice with diversion?

US public mental hospitals sound terrible. Are they separate from normal hospitals or a psychiatric ward? Was this last Christmas?

To be fair, there WERE doors on our bathrooms, we just couldn't spend more than a couple of minutes without either a staff member checking on us or one of the fellows who was more confused walking in on us.

I've spent time in psychiatric wards in regular hospitals in the past, but since I was involuntary this time and didn't have insurance it was the state hospital (which is run by an out of state for profit company that gets reimbursed by the state and the patients for our stays....talk about conflicting goals...we can't leave without a doctor or judge's say-so and they get more money the longer we stay.)

I don't want to derail or compete with this thread, though. If you're still interested in a few days I might start a thread of my own.