This was Christmas of 2017, unfortunately. Some of you might remember my roommate who didn't let us use the dishwasher? The one who rents a room upstairs while I rent the basement apartment?

Well, my cat got out into the main part of the house and I went looking for her and former roommate called the police saying that I wasn't supposed to be in that part of the house (untrue, btw.) But I was having an episode and refused to answer when they asked me some basic questions. Next thing I know I'm in an emergency room for three days and then it's off to the state hospital, where I came back to reality in roughly 24 hours but was held for two and a half weeks.

VR,

What a horrible situation. Sorry for derailing the thread by asking you those questions. I appreciate you replying though and would definitely be interested if you were to start a thread about it. I'm very glad you are out now!

CCA changed its name to CoreCivic. I've worked in one of their facilities. Not as bad as this place in the article is depicted, but talking with COs, they did complain about the pay and short staffing.

One guy had written up so many inmates, he couldn't work in dorms for his own safety. He walked the perimeter.

Jail > Funny Farm

I said the same thing about food when in Vegas county. Honestly I'd like to try and find a way to fund prison food, nobody should be forced to eat that dog****.

All,

Try kicking opiates in jail. That is not a fun experience.

I saw a documentary once where they had a prison with very high rates of violence and they introduced a really healthy and relatively tasty menu and the rates of violence dropped dramatically. I wish I could remember what it was called.

Awesome that Tiger post here.

You can't really compare 7 days in jail to anything, because there really isn't anything less. My 15-day sentence didn't qualify for "weekend jail" because it was too short.

So maybe I' feel different at 90 days, or 9 days, or whatever.... But yeah, I get thinking fondly of the experience. It was something.

My first thought on getting out was, How can I make that better? Donating to organizations, visiting, writing letters .... I mean, make jail better broadly because the entire experience was also stupid. But the food....

Inedible garbage, most of it. Always eat the fruit, and try to get down whatever veggies they give you.

This is it. My lawyer was REALLY excited we got this deal. Imagine how baffling it felt to me ... I ****ed up, I know it, but JAIL is a good outcome for my first-time DWI?

But looking at it, it was the best outcome. Important not to forget that yeah, an unlikely worst-case scenario was a year in jail. Both my lawyer, and the 24 year-old public defender who represented me for 5 minutes when I was first arrested, told me it was extremely unlikely I would do any jail time.

But in exchange for a clean record, lower fines and the inability to do more time or fines if, say, I failed a piss test .... jail it was.

That I was curious about the experience wa a bonus.

The whole thing was like a big "time out." All the people I work for were closed that week. Most people off doing their own thing. Now it's done with.

Thanks!

Fair question. I started and deleted this thread a few times.

I think, frst, because there might be some funny or interesting stories. Also, it's helpful to me, because obviously I want to write something about this experience, so this is helpful to make notes.

Also, I don't think it should really be a big deal for someone to go to jail and come back. I'm not really thinking about me ... but there's some stigma and the truth is, your totally average, decent and good citizen, once in a while makes a mistake. Maybe something like this is a reminder that it happens, and it's not the end of the world.

Also, everyone needs to know how bad the food is in jail.

EDIT--I read this at first, "Why would you start a thread about this." I mis-read, but I'm leaving the response.

You did a month in Arpaio's Tent City? That mother****er.

Tompkins County NY.

Maybe my lawyer would have said, "Hey, in a perfect world you should go in on a Monday, if you don't wanna be in solitary for several days." But I chose the days I would do, in order to make sure I was out by the time work started back up.

You got coffee? Whoa. Paradise.

Yes, I'd still make the same call. Like I said, I'm happy to have this on my life's resume, in my experiences ... I can't really say why. ... And it sucked, absolutely, but looking back on it now it seems easy.

Something like this. "Rape 2" is what I heard someone say, which isn't an official charge so I've got no idea what he actually did. He said people called him "Red." He was an average looking young dude who didn't say much and read most of time time.

There seems to be a split, in jail, among those who are kind of ashamed of what they did and keep it quiet, and those who dgaf.

Jail is a big equalizer. Nobody is in charge unless they're in uniform.

There is a lot of kindness, also. Everyone has already been in that bizarre and scary first few days. As long as you are cool to people, others will be the same.

The funniest moment in jail, where I was truly laughing out loud by myself, was during the Eagles football game over the holidays. Some crazy finish. Everyone was locked down, and the one guy with a cell who could see was narrating and the place was going nuts ....

I only saw one confrontation, though they probably aren't entirely uncommon.

In the dorm, we had Meth Kid. This guy was about 25 and super annoying and sad at the same time. He was living in The Jungle, some area around Ithaca where all the meth addicts go .... Smart guy, he could talk chemistry (about making drugs), and just seemed like he'd had a fairly average middle-class upbringing. But man he loved that meth.

We all agreed, as did he, that in 3 months he'd be back in jail or dead.

Anyways, he got into some argument with Manny, and Manny WENT OFF on him. They were across the room from one another, and Meth Kid is a tall scrawny debate-team looking kid and Manny carries himself pretty well.... I don't even know what they argued about but suddenly all you hear is "YOU DO NOT WANT TO **** WITH ME. I AM NOT THAT GUY. I WILL COME OVER THERE AND KNOCK YOU THE **** OUT."

And that ended that.

That incident got mentioned a couple of times, and some of the inmates were all impressed, "Meth Kid's eyes got so big! He bitched out!"

And Manny would just say, "I hate being like that. But you can't let people think they can walk all over you. But I hate having to act like that."

Seemed really telling.

The local newspaper makes the rounds. One of the funniest medium security things I heard was, "Oh, hey, yeah I was reading about you!"

The entire experience made me spend a lot of time thinking about community. What it is, what it means ...

I have a friend who is a criminal defense lawyer and is very good at what he does.

My old roommate got a DUI hit and run with injury. Big, big deal.

He managed to plea down to 3 weeks in county, which could be served on the weekends. My roommate opted for 400 hours of community service + fines. The lawyer was PISSED. I was too, honestly.

“Community service” is a nice name for it. Basically you’re in a chain gang for 8 hours on the side of the road with a bunch of nasty dudes.

As in, the lawyer secured a better deal but your roommate took the worse deal because he didn't want to do jail?

This is probably not uncommon. For your average guy (me), any jail sentence feels ... huge. The urge is to stay out of jail, even if it's your best option.

Yea, but he ended up hating it so much that he almost didnt finish the program.

What was he facing if he didn't complete it? That is a v serious charge.

I’m not totally sure - he was really stressed about it. He had a year to complete the service which ended up being like 8 hrs/week but he waited til he had 2 months left so he had to do 40+ hours a week at the end.

If i am ever faced with a similar decision I am snap calling jail time. I’ve been in county for a night, about a decade ago, and other than raging ******* guards, it wasnt that bad. I specifically remember thinking that most of the other inmates seemed like otherwise normal, polite dudes, with the exception of a few scary ones that no one wanted to talk to.

Yeah. And most of the guards I interacted with were decent people. Everyone in jail is just doing their job, be it prisoner or guard. For the most part, nobody hates anybody. Most people don't want any trouble.

During the day, jail is all about routine. Breakfast at 6, meds at 7, showers, the TV comes on, lunch at noon, rec time, meds at 4 .... how the day passes.

So most of the guard-prisoner interactions get to be rote. Yeah, I have to do certain things and so do you, and eventually you get them all down. Cell door opens, take tray of food, say thanks, eat, slide it back under the cell door ....

Guards come through every 30 minutes at least. They swipe in at sensors within the pod or dorm that requires them to see every cell.

Lots of joking between guards and prisoners, especially if there's a shared sport or team .... everyone wants to flirt with the female guards, but it's all polite and low-key.