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I've been thinking about writing this thread for 2 years now and now I finally get to do it. I was released from the Michigan Department of Corrections on October 23rd, 2014. I can't remember the exact date I was incarcerated, but 2 years ago on Halloween I did some heroin and a few days later was called in for a drug test and failed. After that I was incarcerated in County Jail, then Quarantine, then a prison in Jackson, MI. So basically I did maybe 2 weeks short of 2 years. I've been on this site for years and I know SA always seems to be pretty interested in prison. I also know people on here have very strong views on prison, many of which I held, some of which I still hold. If anything I have tons of stories to tell about prison. I met some true characters and saw some crazy stuff. The media's depiction of prison is so off it's ridiculous. My whole until would be laughing at how prison was portrayed on Sons of Anarchy when it would come on. I hope maybe I can answer some questions to give people a clear idea of what state prison is really like. I'll start off by telling you about my case. I was on a few forums where people sold drugs through the mail before I ever actually did drugs. Once I started getting high these sites where like the holy grail for a 16 year old. The only problem was funding the wacky E-Currencies that came before bitcoin was a major hassle. You had to send a money order to some fly by night company in bumfuck southeast Asia and like a month later you'd have the money (back then it was E-Gold). I noticed that hard drugs went for ridiculous prices online (as they still do to this day) but I could get those same hard drugs relatively cheap in cities like Flint and Saginaw. Instead of getting a $100 money order and waiting a month to get the E-Gold I could buy $100 worth of Cocaine/Weed/Heroin/Oxycontin and sell it for $200-$250 and have the money in my account in less than a day. I would then use the money to buy psychedelic drugs like LSD, MDMA, Ketamine, etc online. I would then sell those for about twice what I paid locally. Soon though I just became a regular vendor selling mainly Cocaine, Oxy, other pills, and at the end weed. Keep in mind I was still in high school at the time and I started doing Oxy every day so this wasn't exactly a professional operation. Anyways after about a year of regular vending I was busted. The police and my paperwork was very vague on how they caught on to me, and I believe some of what is on my paperwork is completely incorrect. I'm 99% sure I got busted like this: I sent something like a half gram of cocaine to a guy via express mail. I had checked the "waive signature" box but they still asked him to sign for it anyways just because he was home. He freaks out and rejects the package. They notice the return address and name is a fake and flag the package as suspicious. A drug dog smells it and they use that as probable cause to open the package. They find the cocaine and flag the fake name. Months upon months later I accidentally use the same fake name (Casey Holland) at my local small town post office where the employees kinda knew where I used to live. They used where I used to live to find out who I was and my families house was raided soon after. They found like 4 weed brownies and charged me with possession of a couple hundred grams along with 13 counts of delivery (1 cocaine, the rest oxycontin, and a few weed). I ended up getting 6 months in county jail and 5 years of probation. I made it almost 4 years on probation until they violated me for a dirty drop and gave me 6 more months in county. You can only do 1 year in county on any specific case so I knew any more violations equaled prison time. However I'm a dopefiend and 6 weeks later I violated for another dirty drop (heroin again). I was sentenced to 23 months to 20 years with something like 14 months credit. Let me explain that sentence since most people don't understand min and max sentences. I was sentenced to 23 months minimum meaning I have to do at least 23 months. 20 years it the max time I can do, but the only way I'd actually see that 20 years is if I kept stabbing the COs for like 20 years or something. So I thought I was only going to have to do like 9 months then I'd be home, but the parole board ended up flopping me for "lack of programming" because MDOC didn't get me into drug treatment in time for when I saw the parole board. Usually you only do 6 months of a 12 month flop, because 6 months before you're expected release you see the board, and after you meet you're minimum they can cut you loose any time. It was expected I would see the board in April 2014 and be let go within a month but for some reason they made me do every single day of my flop. Anyways that's pretty boring and I'm sure no one wants to hear about that so I'll talk about prison. I could go on for hours about what prison is like so I think it'd be easier just to answer questions. For the most part the joint is soft now. Don't get me wrong people still get stabbed and killed but no one is getting raped like in the 80s. There's plenty of consensual sex to go around although homophobia runs strong. I was in a level 1 prison which means low security, where most people are within 4 years of going home. That doesn't mean it doesn't pop off though. I've seen people stabbed over honeybun debts. There's plenty of drugs and tons of gangs. It isn't like hardcore racially segregated though, Aryans store food out from Black Muslims and there's white kids in Latin gangs. I spent my time in prison working out and getting high. I smoked a lot of weed and drank when I first came down. Prison prices are ridiculous but my family always sent me whatever money I needed. You make alcohol in prison by storing up orange juice from breakfast and mixing it with sugar and letting it ferment in your locker. One bottle sells for about $3. Heroin costs about 8-10x what it costs in the streets. Suboxone is $100-$150 a strip compared to $5-$10 in the world. Weed is about $100 a gram. Suboxone is a loving epidemic in prison. It comes in primarily through the mail since they are paper thin. A syringe costs $10-$20 and people rent them out for $3-$5. I would buy my own ones from diabetic friends who would sell them still in packaging. If anyone wants to hear more about drugs in prison feel free to ask questions. I would say about 50% of the people I hung out with were affiliated with some sort of gang, especially the younger guys. A few of my close friends were Aryan Nation and I had friends that were Cobras, Latin Kings, Latin Counts, BoA, and GD. Almost all of the older black guys are affiliated with some sort of black muslim organization (there's like 5 or 6 of them). Other than the Bloods most of the gang members weren't total pieces of poo poo. The Bloods were absolutely horrible though, they were all under the age of 30 and there were like 2 of them that were white. They would just steal and do random stupid poo poo. I absolutely hate prison thieves and think they deserve whatever they get but unfortunately they can rob without repercussions because of their numbers When I used to read the prison thread on here there is a huge idea that prison is filled with non-violent drug offenders who are there because they got busted with $5 worth of weed. This was absolutely not true in my experience. When you look at young offenders it's primarily property crimes. The vast majority of the young white guys were dopefiends that broke into a house/car/business to fund their habit, or robbed something. The vast majority of younger black guys where there for property crimes as well although none of them were hard drug users. Personally I really hate thieves and think property crimes are loving stupid. I mean how many times do you think you can rob a gas station or break into a house before you get caught? I can get why people that are dopesick do it but I could never understand why legions of younger black guys would commit property crimes as if it possible to actually be successful at it. I don't want it to come off like I'd just dogging minorities though. When people say "non-violent drug offenders" I think people don't realize how many of those property crimes go beyond shoplifting at Wal-Mart. My friend Brian was a dopefiend who stole to support his habit. Yeah rehab would have helped him more than jail but he broke into 10+ peoples house while they were home (Home invasion 1st degree) and led the police on a high speed chase. You can't really just let stuff like that go. Almost everyone in prison is a habitual gently caress up of epic proportions. I really hate that I used drugs my entire time in prison. It puts me at a huge disadvantage now that I am out. I've never been in trouble with the law for anything other than delivery and possession, I don't go out and rob places, but when you're on papers even just using drugs is enough to get sent to/back to prison. I come from a pretty good family who owns a business where I've worked on and off for years. I am returning back there in about a week. I am a lot luckier than most in that regard. I know my parole officer is going to be calling me in randomly to drop. I used to have this delusion that I could get away with using drugs on parole/probation but now I realize you cannot beat a drug test. Still I'm a dopefiend and it's hard not to try to time my drug use around my scheduled report dates. Being in prison isn't as bad as you think, but going to prison is absolutely loving horrible. Anyways I think I'm gonna open this up for questions. I have a couple good stories in line regarding fights I've been in, stabbings I saw, drug rings I saw come and go. I promised some friends I would try to find them penpals so I'm gonna post some names and addresses. The first is my aforementioned friend Brian. He's a real solid guy from the suburbs of Detroit. He's doing 6 years for breaking into a bunch of houses to support his dope habit. He is a complete loving dopefiend but he's my homeboy. He is gang affiliated but he's a good guy. He is very desperate for mail, you could draw a picture of a dick on scrap paper and mail it to him and it'd probably make his week. Seriously you don't have to be women with romantic intentions you can literally mail him anything and it would be great. Here's his address and picture:  Brian Deriemacker #704395 3500 N. Elm Road Jackson, MI 49201 EDIT: ^ Updated to reflect his new address from "Camp Candyland" JCS to "pound me in the rear end and stab me" cotton. Feel free to ask anything about my time selling drugs, my time in prison, or my life now that I am released. EDIT: I was in a cube with This guy. <-Trust me you want to check this out. The Valuum fucked around with this message at 22:26 on May 15, 2015 |
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Oct 29, 2014 02:38
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Can you talk a little more about the gangs? Did people come in with gang affiliations or join after arrival for protection/friendship? Are the Aryans still neo-nazis? How are gang relations? Any crazy gang wars while you were there?
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Oct 29, 2014 02:57
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laxbro posted:Can you talk a little more about the gangs? Did people come in with gang affiliations or join after arrival for protection/friendship? Are the Aryans still neo-nazis? How are gang relations? Any crazy gang wars while you were there? Very few people come in with gang relations they had in the streets. Some GDs are GDs in the streets. The exception to this are the Latin Counts who have a heavy presence in South West Detroit. Many of them were LCs in the world. That said there was a 5'3" white kid from the upper peninsula that was also a Latin Count. People join for protection/camaraderie just like you said. Aryans aren't really nazis in the MI prison system. There's Aryan Nation and Aryan Brotherhood. The AB of Michigan isn't like the AB out west though, you don't have to kill anyone to get in. The vast majority of Aryans are dopefiends so they're buying drugs and storing out money from whoever has the sack, which is almost always a black guy. The Aryan gangs are really just white gangs, they have very little philosophy other than to look out for fellow honkies. There were never any real gang wars, but there were a few stand offs. Usually it stems from a guy in gang A disrespecting/wronging a guy from gang B. Both sides have their "brother mans" come and back them up but it never resulted in an actual rumble. They "politic" as they call it and usually either squash the beef or set up a 1 on 1. Not only are there gangs but there's alliances too. There's the 5 point star which includes bloods, latin kings, and a few others. Then there's the six point star which includes GD's, Cobras, BoAs (brotherhood of arms, basically white GDs), I think they're also called folk nation. I only saw 1 crip the whole time I was down. He was an absolute nut though, he was only on the compound for about 2 months and managed to stab 5 or 6 people. Got away with it every time too. And he was a little white guy. I wasn't really affiliated that hard with anyone but I was good friends with a lot of Aryans as I said as well as good friends with a Cobra who was bringing in suboxone (making him very influential). However whenever I had any real problems I got my friend CX (ChrisX) who was a Molanic (Black Muslim group). Anything CX did was backed up by hundreds of guys. CX was bar none the most solid guy I met in there, probably the most solid I ever met in my life. I got into a problem involving a bunch of greedy dope dealers. Basically I owed the dopeman $1k which I had no problem paying. Then this crew of guys from Jackson tried telling me to pay them and they'd keep the dopeman off my back. I saw that these guys weren't gonna go away empty handed and I was really close to leaving so I couldn't fight them my selves without risking losing my parole. I took the problem to CX and he loving butchered the guys that were messing with me and all he asked in return was to see if my family could possible order him a few books. Very solid guy.
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Oct 29, 2014 03:10
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One of the weirdest experiences in my life was when I met Butch Balteria who was on 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom. He was the father of Butch Balteria who was on the same shows plus Couples Therapy on Vh1. Anyways I had seen the shows when I was out in the world and this dude tuned up the mother's mom on the show and was smoking crack. Then I see him in the unit one day and couldn't believe it.
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Oct 29, 2014 04:34
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Wow, I worked just down the road from your prison for a little over a year and always wondered what it was like inside. This is pretty surreal. Thanks for making this thread. How was the food?
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Oct 29, 2014 05:24
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BlackIronHeart posted:Wow, I worked just down the road from your prison for a little over a year and always wondered what it was like inside. This is pretty surreal. Thanks for making this thread. Yeah I hear Jackson is actually an alright little area. I think they try to keep all the Jackson County boys at JCS, Parnall Road and the other Jackson prisons because there are TONS of local Jackson guys in that prison. I mean like a hugely disproportionate amount. Prison food? It's not as bad as you would think I can almost guarantee you that. Inmates love crying about prison food. There was this guy I did most of my bit with, Dino, who we called "The Bitch Box". This guy would complain about the food at chow every single meal so hard, but every meal he was the first guy in line for chow. I don't know what exactly people expect. Whatever you picture prison food being like in your head, it's probably not -that- bad. Plus you can buy commissary from the store. It's mostly gas station type food but it's there. People make what are called "Cook Ups" which making a big bowl with say Rice mixed with cheese, then a tortilla to separate the layers, then ramen noodles mixed with chili and/or refried beans, etc etc. There's no specific recipe people just typically use what they have. People steal raw meat out the chow hall and sell it as well. I'm sure you've heard about Arra Mark. Every single person in the prison pronounces it "AirMart" which baffled me. Arra Mark is a private company that bought the contract for the MDOC's food. They keep having scandals with loving the inmates, bringing in drugs, etc. There was never an incident at the prison I was at though. In St. Louis an inmate was caught getting a blowjob by a Arra Mark employee like 3 months after they came into MDOC. Didn't take him long to lay down his play. In reality though the vast, vast, majority of drugs in Prison will always come in through Visits, Gatepass (inmates that get to work outside the prison), or the mail. Institutional employees bringing in contraband (especially drugs) is extremely, extremely rare.
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Oct 29, 2014 05:47
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What do you think about how the internet drugs scene has become so open and publicly known with all the news surrounding the silkroad and it's public takedown? Also the way it is now focused on open markets rather than private forums or email addresses. How did you pay for the drugs you bought inside? Your family sent you money, but did they fund your commissary account and then you would buy a tradeable item, or was cash used in prison?
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Oct 29, 2014 14:01
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Hows your healthcare over there? In NY their answer for any ailment from aids to broken bones was medicine D and cough suppresant.
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Oct 29, 2014 14:19
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Digital-Smoke posted:Hows your healthcare over there? In NY their answer for any ailment from aids to broken bones was medicine D and cough suppresant. SD as well. I got lucky and only had to do a few days (and a ton on paper) but when I went in i had an abcessed tooth and it was treated with tylnol (that I had to buy myself from commissary) and then three days in they gave me an antibiotic. I hope other states are better, but i highly doubt it. Y'all made your pruno with sugar? my buddy did a bunch of hard time (including San Quentin way back in the 80's...I've been kinda trying to get him computer literate so that he could do an a/t about his time, but you beat him to it) and he swears by grapefruit and honey...and it comes out fantastic. honey takes a little longer to ferment but dear god it tastes 10x better than anything made with regular sugar, and it's something I still have him make for me from time to time because it comes out so good. How much did your guards sorta turn a blind eye to the poo poo that went down? He's got a ton of stories of guards just ignoring stickings depending on who was involved because if it was a regular shithead that caused problems a few weeks in the infirmary were a few weeks that they didn't have to deal with the guy. How many privleges did they give y'all in MI? Y'all get TV in your cell, or did you have to go down to the center of the block to watch anything? Decent library, or was it the same 20 novels on the cart every single time? Decent yard/rec area? Also, gently caress cookups. I always hated it when my buddy was living with me and he wanted to cook, because it was always some kind of cookup, and when you have the benefits of a full grocery store, fully stocked kitchen and pantry, there is no need for that poo poo, its delicious when your option is that or the sludgy "meatloaf" they serve that looks like they sorta emptied out the sewer pipes onto the tray (we didn't even have the benefit of ArraMark here, so our food was even worse than most places), but on the outside, its definitely not something I want to eat. Do you still find yourself cooking prison style, now that you're out, or have you started adjusting and cooking normal poo poo again? Also seconding the whole AB not being neo-nazi's thing, for anyone wondering. My buddy is no more racist than any other little white boy that comes from a rural area that just doesn't have any minorities from it, but he was apparently pretty instrumental in starting a few AB offshoot groups when he was transferred to various other facilities, and still writes TD from time to time after getting to meet him when he did time in CO. It was never about racism, or anything like that, it was about forming a group of other people that were equally visually identifiable across the yard (and lets face it, race is the easiest way to ID someone from a long distance away) in case poo poo went down.
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Oct 29, 2014 15:55
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GlassElephant posted:What do you think about how the internet drugs scene has become so open and publicly known with all the news surrounding the silkroad and it's public takedown? Also the way it is now focused on open markets rather than private forums or email addresses. There's was a huge shift in the ratio of buyers/sells when everything went public. Back when I was into it there weren't such a massive amount of customers and vendors actually cut crazy deals. Back then (just like now) there were some vendors that were sitting on huge bags. I think the darknet is really conducive to scams though, although that happened plenty back then too. I think a lot of people get caught up in the weird TOR philosophy of free trade and don't realize they are dealing with a bunch of dopefiends. Also whenever there's money like that being spent there's scurveballs lurking around like sharks. Overall though I think the worst part about the new system is how expensive everything is. I paid small debts via food. A honeybun + a ramen = $1 etc etc. Other than that people use GreenDot moneypak cards, Western Union, and Moneygram. My family not only sent me money but they would get Greendots for me as well. I guess you would say they are enablers. Digital-Smoke posted:Hows your healthcare over there? In NY their answer for any ailment from aids to broken bones was medicine D and cough suppresant. I know they have a full dental program. I never went to medical though. I know you get like a $5 co-pay charge for pretty much anything. I'm pretty sure that technically they do cover pretty much everything, but good luck getting over the the hospital. My buddy hosed up his Achilles tendon playing basketball and they delayed treatment for so long now it's going to be a permanent problem when it could have been totally taken care of and solved. AA is for Quitters posted:How much did your guards sorta turn a blind eye to the poo poo that went down? He's got a ton of stories of guards just ignoring stickings depending on who was involved because if it was a regular shithead that caused problems a few weeks in the infirmary were a few weeks that they didn't have to deal with the guy. Some people throw in yeast but the main recipe is orange juice and sugar. I've heard of people making it with puree too. Some guards are way more lenient than others. There were certain C/O combos who when they would work the whole unit would be smoking, tattooing, fighting, etc. Then there were others where everything shut down. Typically they don't like to be "fronted off" ie: they don't really care that you're tattooing, but put the gun away when they make a round. Some COs don't really care about smoking, some will tear the unit up. They pretty much all respond to violence though. Low security prisons in MI have tons of privileges. I had my own TV, you can only get 13" ones and they cost $150 in the catalog. You can also get MP3 players for like $120, each song costs $1.50. The library was somewhat decent, I found David Foster Wallace books when I first got there. I would have my family order me books from Amazon though. The yard was pretty small especially for 1700 people. There were 2 small weight pits but they were pretty much always full. There was a track in the back where something like 5.3 laps equaled a mile. Haha, yeah I don't eat cook ups anymore. I did buy a whole batch of taffy my buddy makes to take home though. People make fudge, suckers, taffy, all kinds of poo poo with the commissary food + a microwave
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Oct 29, 2014 18:05
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Did you ever run into people trying to get out of gang affiliation? An old co-worker of mine was a Latin King out in LA and when he got thrown into Jackson, he ran with them for a couple months before trying to separate himself from them. In the process, they whooped on him several times and even ran into problems after his release. Is this common place?
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Oct 29, 2014 18:27
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Sypher posted:Did you ever run into people trying to get out of gang affiliation? An old co-worker of mine was a Latin King out in LA and when he got thrown into Jackson, he ran with them for a couple months before trying to separate himself from them. In the process, they whooped on him several times and even ran into problems after his release. Is this common place? Yeah it's not a huge problem now, they just call it "non-rotating". Non-Rotating means you don't have to do hits, pay dues, etc. Maybe if you tried to totally cease relations it might cause problems. I knew guys that were GDs in the streets that didn't rotate in prison because it's a totally different thing than being a GD in the world. Keep in mind this is probably way different at the higher security levels like 2 and 4 though. A lot of these guys started off in level 4 with 10 years to go, worked there way down to 2, then to 1. They might have been gangbanging in 2 and 4 but when they're in a level 1 and are actually close to going home they become non rotating. I remember there was this White Latin King who was really close to the door. A bunch of higher ranking Mexican Latin Kings rode in and they didn't really like that he was so high ranking as a white kid. Also a bunch of rumors surfaced that the white kid had been fuckin' dudes and getting blowjobs and such. Anyways he was like a month from his release and they told him he had to stab someone and he refused so they forced him off the yard. The vast, vast, majority of them though never want to get out though.
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Oct 29, 2014 19:02
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You've mentioned a couple times your family was pretty liberal giving you money. Did they know it was supporting a drug habit, and if so did they care? Does easy access to outside money like that make you a target for extortion?
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Oct 29, 2014 19:03
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Kazak_Hstan posted:You've mentioned a couple times your family was pretty liberal giving you money. By my family I mean my grandmother. I don't know, she never said anything. I think in the back of her head she had to know I wasn't eating that much food. I would have if I didn't know so many people or if I didn't know how to stand up for myself. The thing is at any given time I had 3 or 4 guys I owed lots of money too. For example CX ran a store and I'd owe him my whole $106 store bag every 2 weeks. Plus I was sending him GreenDots. Then there were other store guys who I had debts with. Then I was buying a couple hundred dollars in subs from my Cobra homeboy every time they hit. Plus I was spending with the dopeman who is almost always black-muslim affiliated. So if anyone tried to extort me they would be, by proxy, loving with all those people too. For the most part though I stood up for myself, but it's hard to get a fair fight in prison. There's pretty much no way to win a fight against a black guy. Even if you somehow manage to get a fair one on one fight set up, and then win that fight, they will almost never just let it end with that. They'll comeback with their homeboys, or sneak you with a padlock inside a sock, or a knife. Also a lot of those older black muslim guys -do not like- to see white guys get down in a fight. There is a huge double standard when it comes to fights/hits/theft in prison. Edit: I'm trying to veer away from racial topics because I think a lot of people on here won't like it. I'm not trying to be racial about the previous paragraph that's just how it is the majority of the time. Just because there's white guys in mexican gangs doesn't mean that prison isn't an extremely racial place. Edit2: In order to take this thread towards a lighter place I'm going to talk about MDOC's biggest export: Chomos Chomo is short for child molester. I never really understood if it was a mix of the words "Child" and "Molester" or a play on the word "homo". Anyways MDOC is FULL of chomos. The actual term for any sexual crime in Michigan is CSC or Criminal Sexual Conduct. They put a lot of people in prison for "Romeo and Juliet" ("Chomeo and Juliet") which is like a 19 year old banging a 15 year old. They aren't looked down on like real chomos though. Other names include "treejumpers" and "Waldos" (because you look up sex offenders in your neighborhood online and it's like "Where's Waldo"). People also say "he's got a drug case...he drug her into the bushes" and tons of other stupid jokes. My prison had 2 whole 160 man units that were CSC only. And those were only the guys in programming, there were plenty of others in every other unit. I think a lot of guys on here will find it funny that people did play Dungeons and Dragons in prison, but they were all chomos. I got into a fight with a chomo I was in the cube with one time. He was a multiple repeat offender who was doing time this time around for pulling out his dick in front of his sister's kids or something. We used to gently caress with him heavy and I won't get into what I did to prank him but I assure you I was 100% in the wrong. Anyways my friend and I were walking the track when suddenly he comes up and sucker punches me. He wanted to fight on the back track but the police were like 15 feet away so I told him we'd settle it in the cube. He wanted to fight right out there, because he wanted the police to break it up as soon as it started. Anyways a lot of people offered to just take him out for me but I decided to handle it on my own. We fought in the cube with tons of people watching. Now I'm not a very good fighter at all, but this guy -really- couldn't fight. After I got on top of him I ended it and we shook hands. Actually were on good terms after that believe it or not. That guy wasn't even really that hanus of a cho'. I've heard some absolutely horrifying stories. The crazy thing is sometimes these guys barely get any time for diddling kids. All they have to do is take SOP (sex offender programming) and the parole board kicks them right out. It's crazy how some of these guys even get access to kids. I mean you take one look at them and go "Whose big idea was it to let this guy babysit?". The Valuum fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Oct 29, 2014 |
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Oct 29, 2014 19:16
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The Valuum posted:By my family I mean my grandmother. I don't know, she never said anything. I think in the back of her head she had to know I wasn't eating that much food. That's pretty interesting that being in debt to the drug dealers makes you less likely to get hosed with by other people, I had not considered that. Can you suggest any policy changes that would make drugs less prevalent in prison? The feedback loop of going to jail because you're an addict, and jail being maybe the worst possible place for an addict to be is objectively awful. Did you find it painfully ironic that it was easier for you to do the really super duper bad thing that got you sent to prison, while you were in prison? How common are addicts inside who don't want to use? How successful are they? Did you try not to use inside?
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Oct 29, 2014 19:36
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Kazak_Hstan posted:That's pretty interesting that being in debt to the drug dealers makes you less likely to get hosed with by other people, I had not considered that. Make drugs less available? I have no idea. Drugs are a huge deal in prison. When you can take a $80 gram of heroin, have you're girl hand you it in the visiting room, then sell it for $1,000, it becomes attractive for many people. Drugs sell at atleast a 10x markup. Plus most of the people selling them come from super low income homes. It becomes a way for these guys to provide for their families while they're incarcerated. Being the guy with "the bag" is a huge deal in prison, poo poo it's a big deal in the world too. Yeah I found it a bit ironic. What I found more ironic was that prison was the place where you could get away with getting high. Now that I'm free I get drug tested regularly so I've been staying clean. I would try to quit but every time after mail ran and they opened yard at 5pm I'd be walking over to whatever unit the subs where supposed to have hit at. There's plenty of addicts who don't use in prison, but it's almost always because they can't afford it rather than an actual choice. My friend Jimmy ran the NA and SOS meetings and he was one of the biggest drug users on the compound. When you can afford it it's hard to stay away. If you're money is good the dealers push the poo poo on you so hard, just trying to get you into debt because they know you'll pay.
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Oct 29, 2014 19:42
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What's "the bag"? The stash?
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Oct 29, 2014 19:45
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Kazak_Hstan posted:What's "the bag"? The stash? Yeah it's like Detroit slang for being a major drug supplier (relatively speaking).
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Oct 29, 2014 19:49
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You mentioned you were in some fights. What kind of fights did you get in?
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Oct 29, 2014 20:02
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Did any 'chomos' lie about why they were in there to avoid getting hosed with, and what's the longest a person like that went before they were found out?
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Oct 29, 2014 20:05
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Kazak_Hstan posted:You mentioned you were in some fights. What kind of fights did you get in? I edited another post with this story: " I got into a fight with a chomo I was in the cube with one time. He was a multiple repeat offender who was doing time this time around for pulling out his dick in front of his sister's kids or something. We used to gently caress with him heavy and I won't get into what I did to prank him but I assure you I was 100% in the wrong. Anyways my friend and I were walking the track when suddenly he comes up and sucker punches me. He wanted to fight on the back track but the police were like 15 feet away so I told him we'd settle it in the cube. He wanted to fight right out there, because he wanted the police to break it up as soon as it started. Anyways a lot of people offered to just take him out for me but I decided to handle it on my own. We fought in the cube with tons of people watching. Now I'm not a very good fighter at all, but this guy -really- couldn't fight. After I got on top of him I ended it and we shook hands. Actually were on good terms after that believe it or not." I also go in a fight with a younger black dude who stole my headphones. I got my rear end kicked and I didn't get my headphones back. But no one stole from me again. I've got a few more I'll type up soon. Most prison fights don't last very long though. I did get high in the head with a padlock one time. My cubie was making hooch and cut my bunky in on the deal. My bunky would help bring back juice from the chow hall and in exchange when it was finished he'd get a bottle or two to sell. At the end though he started getting too scared to sneak the juice out and wasn't bringing anything to the table so my homeboy making the hooch cut him out. My bunky told on him and the next day the police came into the cube and went directly to the stash. The guy making the hooch planted a knife on my bunky to get him back. Both of us feigned ignorance about the knife but for some reason this dumbass though I was the one who did it, even though I wasn't even involved in the hooch operation aside from bringing back juice. I was walking the track listening to the radio, I'll never forget but that Iconapop song "I Don't Care" was playing when all of the sudden everything goes black. I wake up maybe a few minutes later with my face in the gravel and everyone around is trying to pretend like they don't see me laying there. The guy was heavily affiliated with the Moorish Scientists of America (Black Muslims) so there was nothing I could do though. flashy_mcflash posted:Did any 'chomos' lie about why they were in there to avoid getting hosed with, and what's the longest a person like that went before they were found out? Oh yeah of course. The thing is it's real easy to ask someone to see their paperwork, or to call your people and have them look them up online. Typically you can't lie about having a sex case, so people try to minimize. "Oh yeah I was pissing in public so they gave me a CSC" is a real common one. There must be 5,000 people in prison for "pissing out side a bar", haha. People do fly under the radar though, all of the sudden you'll see some gangbanger or guy you thought was solid dragging their poo poo to E or F unit (the CSC units). I remember this one wanna be rapper guy got moved into the CSC unit and he came up to every single person he used to be in the unit with, including me, and told us "Oh yeah, mang, see we had some girls up in the trap, ya know so they hit me with that sex trafficking" which was a huge lie.
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Oct 29, 2014 20:16
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AA is for Quitters posted:SD as well. I got lucky and only had to do a few days (and a ton on paper) but when I went in i had an abcessed tooth and it was treated with tylnol (that I had to buy myself from commissary) and then three days in they gave me an antibiotic. I hope other states are better, but i highly doubt it. I'd guess because honey has antibacterial properties --prison alcohol would be very prone to spoiling with how it is made if you just used sugar. When everything is sanitary the difference between using honey vs. sugar for making alcohol is really subtle.
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Oct 29, 2014 20:53
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tsa posted:I'd guess because honey has antibacterial properties --prison alcohol would be very prone to spoiling with how it is made if you just used sugar. When everything is sanitary the difference between using honey vs. sugar for making alcohol is really subtle. People say it turns into vinegar if you let it go too long. I have no idea people typically sell it real early, as soon as it has the faintest alcohol taste.
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Oct 29, 2014 21:06
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How does getting drunk on prison booze compare to regular booze?
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Oct 29, 2014 21:32
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Another one, i know you were only level 1, so you prolly didn't have to deal much with it, but you wind up with any non chomos who were guys that you just Did Not Want to gently caress With that you had no clue how they were only in a level 1? I mean like, mass murders and stuff? My buddy has a fun story about winding up in Florence (A fed max prison) for what should have had some low-sec fed time on a small bank robbery because they found out he was childhood friends with a mass murderer and were hoping someone could talk the dude down when he snapped, and my buddy could. Also, any fun tats? Y'all make proper guns, or the old school single poke at a time poo poo? He started doing the single poke at a time poo poo for a tat for me and i gave up because hot drat, that hurt so much, and i got it finished at a regular shop because of it.
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Oct 29, 2014 21:35
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smokestacks posted:How does getting drunk on prison booze compare to regular booze? It's the same, except instead of "drinking" you just slam everything at once. AA is for Quitters posted:Another one, i know you were only level 1, so you prolly didn't have to deal much with it, but you wind up with any non chomos who were guys that you just Did Not Want to gently caress With that you had no clue how they were only in a level 1? I mean like, mass murders and stuff? My buddy has a fun story about winding up in Florence (A fed max prison) for what should have had some low-sec fed time on a small bank robbery because they found out he was childhood friends with a mass murderer and were hoping someone could talk the dude down when he snapped, and my buddy could. Hah, yeah occasionally someone slips through the radar. My buddy Coop was doing 12 years for running a home invasion ring and was in a level 1 for some reason. He eventually got caught smuggling heroin in the visiting room but what does he care, he isn't even gonna see the board for another loving decade. There's plenty of murderers that for whatever reason didn't get life and work their way down to a level 1. The real threat comes not from having people with violent crimes at level 1s, but rather having guys with tons of time to go at level 1s. They have nothing to lose. What does a guy with 6 years left care about stabbing you? By the time he sees the parole board that stabbing is so old it doesn't matter. Yeah I got a tattoo of a 5 point star with my grandmother's name and my mother's name. I show my mom the tattoo of "Anita" and she pulls out her ID. Her name is "Annita". So yeah I have my mom's name misspelled on me. Thankfully the ink was a lovely batch so it's already super faded. It can't really be fixed though. Also the 5 point star is only an outline because the artist got stabbed and taken off the compound before he could finish. That's what happens when you pay for tattoo work with honeybuns and ramen! Yeah you can make a proper gun out of a cassette player motor or a pair of hair clippers (I think). You make needles out of guitar string or springs. Ink is made from soot made from burning a homemade candle inside a locker. Some people can lay down pretty good work with prison rigs, most cannot. I've seen so many absolutely awful tattoos. It's crazy how many people get facial tattoos as well.
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Oct 29, 2014 21:47
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What was the first meal you ate after getting out?
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Oct 29, 2014 23:27
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Does the 'surprise bumsex in the showers' thing actually happen?
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Oct 30, 2014 00:11
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The-Mole posted:What was the first meal you ate after getting out? My mom brought some no bake cookies but after that I had a steak. I really wanted a substantial piece of protein as all the meat you get in prison is really small. jag420 posted:Does the 'surprise bumsex in the showers' thing actually happen? There's so many people who are openly homosexual that doesn't really happen anymore. Also there's shower stalls with their own curtain. The only reason 2 people go in one is to smoke some weed.
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Oct 30, 2014 00:47
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Give us a rundown of your average day from waking up till when you went to sleep. Was there any difference in Weekends/Weekdays?
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Oct 30, 2014 15:27
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The Valuum posted:Yeah you can make a proper gun out of a cassette player motor Where do you get a cassette player from?
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Oct 30, 2014 16:06
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I just got out two days ago. Do you feel like everyone knows you've been in prison and looks at you differently? I feel like im having a hard time relating to people on the outside anymore. And everyone allways wants to know what its like in there, but I feel like they don't believe it. One friend of mine seemed pretty skeptical. They fail to understand though that its a different set of rules in there and crazy poo poo happens all day. Ive been through riots. Ive seen people shot(cut), stabbed, 190'd, lock in a sock, jack mack'd. You live with extrememe brutality everyday, and the crazy part is I know c.o.'s with more bodies than alot of the inmates. So going back to the real world its hard for me to readjust to the societal norm. How long did it take you to get out of the mindset and readjust?
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Oct 30, 2014 16:26
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Athanatos posted:Give us a rundown of your average day from waking up till when you went to sleep. Was there any difference in Weekends/Weekdays? Wake up at maybe like 10:30am. They start closing down movement at like 11am to get ready for count so I'd make myself a cup of coffee and watch TV until count was over. Then depending on who was working the unit I'd sneak over to early chow. I usually walked laps and ran a couple miles during afternoon yard. Yard closes again from 4-5 for another count. They pass out mail (which is how the suboxone gets in) during this count. Once they cleared it I'd go out to whatever unit was expecting a package and see if it hit. Depending on my workout schedule I'd either go in the weight pit, do dips, or pullups. If I ended up getting high I'd run laps for a couple hours. I don't know why but I started compulsively exercising on subs. Yard closes at 9:30, unless it had been violent lately in which case they'd close it early. I'd usually watch TV until midnight which is when they turn the power off on weekdays. The CO's make a round at 12:15 after which I'd smoke a cigarette with my homeboy. Then I'd either read or just go to sleep. Weekends you had late night power, which was awesome. Tiggum posted:Where do you get a cassette player from? Digital-Smoke posted:I just got out two days ago. Do you feel like everyone knows you've been in prison and looks at you differently? I feel like im having a hard time relating to people on the outside anymore. And everyone allways wants to know what its like in there, but I feel like they don't believe it. One friend of mine seemed pretty skeptical. They fail to understand though that its a different set of rules in there and crazy poo poo happens all day. Ive been through riots. Ive seen people shot(cut), stabbed, 190'd, lock in a sock, jack mack'd. You live with extrememe brutality everyday, and the crazy part is I know c.o.'s with more bodies than alot of the inmates. So going back to the real world its hard for me to readjust to the societal norm. How long did it take you to get out of the mindset and readjust? I have a real baby face so I doubt anyone suspects I'm an inmate, other than from my very obvious prison ink. Yeah everyone wants to know what it's like and don't really understand how poo poo works in there. I feel like it's really weird being around normal people. I went to the gym the other day and it was kinda surreal. I'm real nervous talking to strangers. You can buy TVs, cassette players, shoes, fans and mp3 players through various catalogs.
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Oct 30, 2014 20:29
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Tell the Catfish story.
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Oct 31, 2014 01:01
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membranoid posted:Tell the Catfish story. Ok so it was I think Tuesday night. There was a brand new episode of MTV's Catfish premiering. If you've never seen the show it's about online relationships and they reveal if the person is really who they say it is. I'm sure most people know the premise. Anyways the episode happened to take place in Macomb county Michigan. There were a lot of people that watched the show in my unit so there were quite a few people all watching it at the same time. My friend Brian (the one whose picture and address I posted in the original post) yelled over to me "Dude I think they're talking about my ex girlfriend" and I pretty much just laughed at him. He kept claiming that it might be his ex-girlfriend but we thought he was joking. During the commercial break he pulls out these pictures of a chick and says "those aren't her real pictures they're showing on TV but I swear this is really her". He then went on to tell us about how she had got in a car accident and had a glass eye. He said the girl in the pictures name with Kristen Hillock, and the girl on TV was using a slight variation of that name. Well the show comes back on and the hosts do a little google-fu and come up with the girl's real facebook. And they start showing all the same pictures my friend just showed me in real life. They also mentioned the glass eye thing. By now everyone in the unit has heard what's happening and tunes in. My buddy Brian was super psyched telling people "Yeah, I hit that!" and such. Then the girl comes out and she's like 300+lbs and the whole unit goes nuts laughing at him. Somebody from another cube screamed "Is that what you meant when you said you could bench 315?" We clowned him about that for a long time. I was also in prison with a guy that was on 16 and Pregnant/Teen Mom, Butch Balterria. His son was the star of the shows but he was on them a bit as well. He smoked a bunch of crack and tuned up his girlfriend if I recall correctly.
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Oct 31, 2014 01:33
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The Valuum posted:You can buy TVs, cassette players, shoes, fans and mp3 players through various catalogs. Sorry to fixate on this, but why are they selling cassette players? Do people actually buy them to use to play tapes, or is it just to make tattoo guns? Surely the people in charge of what prisoners are allowed to buy know what they're actually going to be used for? If MP3 players are available, why are they still letting people buy cassette players?
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Oct 31, 2014 03:47
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How often do people smile in prison, or is it just flat faces or frowns all the time.
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Oct 31, 2014 03:51
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Tiggum posted:Sorry to fixate on this, but why are they selling cassette players? Do people actually buy them to use to play tapes, or is it just to make tattoo guns? Surely the people in charge of what prisoners are allowed to buy know what they're actually going to be used for? If MP3 players are available, why are they still letting people buy cassette players? Not everyone keeps up to cutting edge technology, especially if imprisoned. There would be dudes who went in when cassettes were still the main method for portable music consumption, and it's not like they're going to be publicly shamed for pulling out a last-gen iPod at starbucks or something. Also tapes are easy to share and duplicate so instead of burning up $1.50 per song you would be able to trade with other inmates and maybe even borrow from a library. I'm interested to know why it's so easy to get drugs into prison by mail and personal visits, I'd have thought they would known all the tricks in the book for contraband smuggling and have that poo poo on lockdown but seemingly not.
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Oct 31, 2014 04:45
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are you going to shank the op of the other thread for moving in on your posting turf
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Oct 31, 2014 05:07
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The Valuum posted:Somebody from another cube screamed "Is that what you meant when you said you could bench 315?" Ahahahhaah, that is amazing. Are there many moments where you find the whole place amused, or happy? What is the general atmosphere like. Did you walk through the day paranoid? Did you feel safe? What were the holidays, namely Christmas, like? Just another day, or did you get better food or anything like that?
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Oct 31, 2014 06:05
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