
Preparing for Prison (2016) - Tomte
https://prisonuk.blogspot.com/2016/03/preparing-for-prison.html
======
crazynick4
I only know from what I've heard from people who have worked in jails/prisons
in the US (and maybe things are different in the UK although I doubt it) but
the one thing anyone can expect which is not mentioned here, if they are
reasonably young/physically acceptable appearance, is to get raped.

From what I understand, there's really no getting away from it either. There's
the myth that you just have to stand up and fight and they'll leave you alone
but it's not really true. You might fight off the one guy today, tomorrow
there will be four of them.

Even the young kids coming in who might be gang members and think they are
'tough' or connected end up getting it, their outside status really ends up
meaning very little.

Not to seem like I'm derailing what the author of the article is talking
about, but the fact that he doesn't mention what will likely be the most
brutal part of anyone's experience in prison makes the other advice seem
almost trivial and irrelevant by comparison.

~~~
sschueller
Where is the outrage and action to prevent these kinds of abuse in US prisons?
What does this say about a society that just accepts this as normal.

Makes it clear that what happened in Abu grab was not just some bad apples but
and underlying acceptance of such behavior at home.

It is shameful.

~~~
everdev
It's not only shameful but counter productive. Some think that horrible
conditions are a deterrent, but there are several problems:

1\. Innocent people do get convicted

2\. Prisoner suicide

3\. Inability to integrate back into a less violent community

4\. A prisoner code that requires you to participate in violence or be
subjected to it

For a sobering account, check out Shaun Attwood on YouTube:
[https://youtube.com/user/derickatt](https://youtube.com/user/derickatt)

He served in Maricopa County Jail under super Max and medium security. The
stories of violence from medium security are just as violent as any fictional
movie you've seen.

Our prisons seem to be trying to fight fire (violence) with more fire.

It's a horribly unethical game we're playing with people's lives that seems to
provide little comfort to our society or the victims.

~~~
kbenson
I think it's currently a losing battle in America, where much of the populace
thinks "being a criminal" is a binary toggle that means you deserve anything
that happens to you in prison, and doesn't put enough thought into it to
realize how crazy that idea is.

I'm fairly sure if you took anyone with this view and forced them to have a
conversation with you where you presented various scenarios (such as some low-
harm and impact crime prisoner ending up getting repeatedly raped), they might
change their mind, but actually getting people to listen with an open mind to
alternative points of view is amazingly hard in the current charged climate
where every issue is a political one.

~~~
abfan1127
Americans seem to think Prison is a punishment so the more miserable the
better. In Reality, Prison _should be_ a place to isolate those who can't be
trusted to be free. When trust can be established, they don't belong there
anymore. When the concept of prison as isolation is adopted, fewer people go
to prison, including innocent people.

~~~
renholder
>Americans seem to think Prison is a punishment so the more miserable the
better.

Aye, they view it from a purely punitive perspective, rather than a punishment
+ rehabilitative perspective. In other words, zero thought or care is given to
what happens in prisons or how those prisoners will reintegrate into society.
They're dehumanized down to that action: shoplifter, murderer, etc.

If you remove the humanity from the person, you care less about anything to do
with them.

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
Just my opinion, but from watching prison documentaries from around the world,
it's not that simple.

American prisoners seem to have some narcissistic pride in how "bad" they are.
Being the gangster type is glorified, and they're given a bit too much freedom
in prison.

In Russian prisons, any ego is quickly dealt with, there's more discipline,
and prisoners are afraid to come back. I remember a prisoner interviewed in an
American prison having a very blasé attitude and saying "yeah, I get out in a
couple of weeks, and then I'll probably be on the streets for another week
before I'm back in here. That's just the system maaaaaaan."

~~~
renholder
No offence intended or inferred but it's a little disingenuous to say it's not
that simple and then imply that a simple reason is quashing ego - not that the
fact that Russia isn't known to be a humans right bastion of the world should
really need to be addressed, here.

You also seemed to have missed the recursive pattern in her statement. "I'll
probably be on the streets," infers - to me at least - that she'll be homeless
and/or without the prospect of any employability. This facet, right here,
explains the recursive nature of repeat offenders.

Approached another way: Was she originally in for theft, which could be a
felony, and keeps landing in jail because she can't get a job with a felony on
her record and, therefore, has to steal to survive?

Disbarment from employment because of a criminal past is an example of how,
even though the debt to society has been paid (e.g.: prison time, fines,
etc.), the person is still - punitively punished - until they die.

Now to finally address the Russia question: How do you think the quashing of
the ego occurs in there, if - indeed - such action occurs there? Somehow, I
highly doubt that discipline is the reductionary answer and that it includes
far more unsavoury contributors than simple discipline.

Put another way, a lot of military forces in the world have rigid discipline
training but that doesn't mean that the ego is quashed.

Now, having said all of that, the problem is manifestly far more complicated,
I do admit, than my simple explanation.

For example, when jails and prisons are run by for-profit corporations and
they're only paid per head, then there's - likely - an unnecessary influence
in the sense that the city, state, county, what-have-you will need to keep the
prison population at a certain level to maintain the business' profit
maintained, to continue to retain their services. The for-profit design, in
this regard, is such that a reduction in crime (and, as a byproduct,
criminals) doesn't bode well for the system.

Is it any wonder, then, that the three-strikes law[s] aren't desinged around
three gross offences but one gross offence (e.g.: felony shoplifting) and two
minor (misdemeanor) offences?

Then, there's the societal implications of the devaluation and dehumanisation
of life in society. Reduction to a simple action is how a person is defined.
So, if we do this, then we are implying that this is all the person is -
forever. That's it. Paid your debt by serving 30 days for stealing a candy
bar? Too bad, still a shoplifter.

I agree that the issue isn't very simple but I think the majority of the
corrosion that enters is far more societal-based than anything else.

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
> You also seemed to have missed the recursive pattern in her statement. "I'll
> probably be on the streets," infers - to me at least - that she'll be
> homeless and/or without the prospect of any employability. This facet, right
> here, explains the recursive nature of repeat offenders.

It wasn't a direct quote — I paraphrased from memory. As I recall, she wasn't
homeless. By being "on the streets", I think she meant she'll be consorting
with other common criminals, possibly dealing in drugs and sex. She gets in
with the wrong crowd, offends, is incarcerated, gets out, rejoins the same
crowd, etc.

I don't have any grand answers to this big complex problem. My point is I
still believe in punishing criminals (proportionately).

If you have an unruly kid in the class and you send him outside, if he is able
to pull faces at the other students or in any way undermine the teacher's
authority, he will endure the punishment and then continue to be unruly
because his spirit is not broken.

I don't think adults are any different. The key difference between cultures
(at least what I could glean from these documentaries, so this is totally
unscientific) is that the Russian authorities do not give an inch, so the
inmates have no choice but to surrender their pride and learn their place.

Empathy doesn't work with everyone. Anders Behring Breivik is an example; he
commits a truly terrible crime, and now he is mocking us from the comfort of
his cell which has more amenities than in the homes of many innocent and hard-
working people in Eastern Europe or South-East Asia.

------
WarDores
> Witnesses might not say what you expected them to; you might not fare well
> under cross-examination and there is always the risk that some unexpected
> piece of prosecution evidence might be served on the day in court (I’ve seen
> this happen more than once). Your barrister might screw up your case too.
> Finally, the jury – 12 random men and women – may simply not believe your
> defence and vote to convict you, even if you are genuinely innocent. Even if
> two jurors have doubts, the votes of the remaining ten are sufficient for a
> conviction.

As screwed up as our justice system is, having rights of the accused (such as
to review evidence before it's presented and needing unanimous votes for a
conviction) makes these errors less of a concern in the US. Not impossible,
but less likely.

~~~
jopsen
If you can afford a lawyer, 90% in the US go to prison in a plea bargain..

The UK have a few limits on what can be bargained...

No justice justice system is perfect, but I'm generally pretty bummed by of
what we hear coming out of them..

~~~
nostromo95
>90% go to prison in a plea bargain

I also think our criminal justice system is in need of some reform, but this
number by itself doesn’t say anything.

What % of defendants are actually guilty? What portion of that 90% are for
offenses that in better circumstances wouldn’t call for prison time?

~~~
candiodari
In Belgium, in youth facilities something like a solid 90% of inmates
(children) are not even accused of a crime. Rather their parents have divorced
or they "have been diagnosed with ADD" (a condition psychiatrists don't even
agree exists in the first place), or ... And their "development needs to be
safeguarded".

The remaining 10% (at most) mostly (>80%) are convicted of running away from
youth services, about half the time with help from their parents (which is a
crime, for children, "statusdelict"). For the remainder the vast majority
committed theft, and there are single digit children who committed serious
crimes. And while the cells are slightly nicer, not much nicer. The doors are
very much locked. Also if the staff judges there to be any risk of you
damaging your room, yourself, or they just think you did something wrong, you
may spend an arbitrary amount of time in an isolation cell, in 2018
inspections reported cases where 2 weeks isolation cell was done.

You have no rights as a child before the law. You do not have the right to a
lawyer. You do not have the right to demand proof. You do not have the right
to not be incarcerated if you're innocent (yes, really). You do not have the
right to even know what your punishment is. If you're under 12 you do not even
have the right to speak during your trial, and above you only have the right
to be heard. You do not have the right to know what you're accused of (which
may be nothing at all, just that "your development is in danger"). You do not
have the right to not be punished twice for the same crime (effectively
meaning incarceration can be arbitrarily prolonged, during and even after
they've finished, on the say so of the "educators" at the "institution"). You
do not have the right to appeal a decision (the judge must allow that, yes,
really, needless to say, this is extremely rare). Sentences are carried while
an appeal is hanging or being carried out (often you don't have the right to
attend your appeal). You do not have the right to education. You do not have
the right to books, or library, tv, contact with the outside world, or ...

Those "educators"/guards who tell the judge to extend or not extend your
incarceration are employed by companies who have a direct financial incentive
to demand extensions (they're paid per "filled bed" and treatments provided).
The same is true for the investigators of child abuse. They're paid per
investigation ... and per treatment provided.

Needless to say, the system is rife with abuse (and youth services choose the
side of the "educators" who commit the abuse in all examples I could find). In
several cases in the past 5 years these people got caught sexually abusing
children, in one case they got caught pimping out minors.

(As for actual crimes: total number of serious crimes (technically involuntary
maslaughter): 2. Theft with violence or other violence was between 20 and 40
for the whole year. Total number of MOF (crimes) cases < 200\. Total number of
inmates: ~4000)

NEVER EVER cooperate with youth services. Any of them at all. Any kid is MUCH
better of in even a very abusive relationship than in the "care" of these
assholes. If you think they will physically survive the abuse, I would
literally ask you to lie to child services, and to the police to protect
children from them. This is the only moral action, and you are protecting
those children from a much, MUCH, worse fate.

~~~
kevinskii
This is very interesting. Do you have any sources? I can't seem to find much.

~~~
candiodari
This is the law governing these practices:

[https://codex.vlaanderen.be/portals/codex/documenten/1023237...](https://codex.vlaanderen.be/portals/codex/documenten/1023237.html)

What you will not find there is any requirement for any kind of proof (not
that it matters because there is no appeal process, so they're not exactly
making sure they follow this in practice).

Or, for "MOF" ("crimes", knowing that by far the most common youth crime is
running away from youth services):

[http://docs.vlaamsparlement.be/pfile?id=1427106](http://docs.vlaamsparlement.be/pfile?id=1427106)

They're in the Dutch language.

And here is a report on what is done with the kids, again in Dutch:

[https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2018/09/03/lorin-parys-n-va-
ver...](https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2018/09/03/lorin-parys-n-va-
verontwaardigd-over-toestand-in-gesloten-jeug/)

Meanwhile, they have appointed the person in charge of complaints about Youth
services ... head of youth services. "Bruno Vanobbergen", who lied in
Parliament about the reports he had received. Apparently there is nothing
wrong at all !

Here he is doing just that:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bDeIb22uY0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bDeIb22uY0)

(This leaked out because one of the parlement members had just adopted 2 kids
with his partner and heard their stories about their situation in youth
services)

------
jpatokal
> _you will be locked into a holding cell – a very bleak room indeed – but
> also offered a cup of tea._

A useful reminder that this is about prison in the UK. I suspect this little
touch of sympathy is absent in the US.

~~~
didgeoridoo
On the plus side, in the US they generally don't shackle you in view of the
jury, it takes a unanimous vote to convict, and the prosecution can't drop
surprise evidence at the last second.

I'll take those over tea.

~~~
Scoundreller
Which also has an impact on the makeup of the prison population.

------
testrun
Very interesting story. He has been outed later as a child sex offender
([http://barristerblogger.com/2017/08/09/unfortunate-
silencing...](http://barristerblogger.com/2017/08/09/unfortunate-silencing-
alex-cavendish/)).

~~~
jopsen
Yet, that shouldn't invalidate his insights on the cruelties within the prison
system..

------
fpoling
In Russia there is an old saying/adwise how to live in prison:

Don’t trust, don’t fear, don’t ask for. (Не верь, не бойся, не проси.)

------
JTbane
This was a very humanizing read and provides a good perspective of how
devastating any prison term can be.

I find myself asking whether other forms of rehabilitation can be more
effective than prison terms.

~~~
jopsen
It seems to me that we all ask for a better alternative.. how come we can't
make it happen?

------
exconthrowaway
This is really interesting to read and this website is a great resource. I
wish I had seen it before I went to prison (in Australia, pretty recently for
nonviolent drug related crimes).

Once you get over the dehumanisation and anxiety of being locked in a box
helplessly for many hours at a time, the most challenging thing is navigating
all the complex systems and processes for doing anything (e.g. finding a time
to go to the gym, doing your washing, collecting meals) - there are deeply
engrained and often arcane / nonsensical rules around these things.

Some examples:

\- When doing washing, speak to the washing billet (different prisons have
different systems around this). When the washing in front of you in the queue
is finished, it's your responsibility to put it in the dryer or queue it up.
When drying, you must fold the washing which you take out before putting yours
in, and take it to the person who's nametag is attached on the bag.

\- The "screws" (guards) are "dogs" (the worst kind of thing you can possibly
be). Never be seen to have any more contact with them than is absolutely
required. The line here gets a little tricky and difficult when you start
applying for jobs and trying to improve your living situation by petitioning
for a single cell etc. How much contact you have with them before you are a
"dog" yourself basically depends how much time you've done and how respected
you are yourself.

\- Never call someone "boss" (this is what a lot of people call the screws,
somewhat ironically) or "champ", because it rhymes with "tamp" which is a
shortening of "tamperer", as in "kiddie tamperer".

In Australia I think the prisons are closer to UK than US, although we are
going down the route of privatisation and the system is deteriorating in a
similar way to the UK.

The strangest thing is how calm it can seem on the surface most of the time
around the prison yard. A casual observer could think it's a holiday camp.
Right until some guys pull you into a cell and beat the shit out of you or cut
your face with a knife because of some minor infraction or rumour.

------
reesesfeces
Find someone you trust and sign over power of attorney if you have legal or
financial issues to deal with while incarcerated. Floated on a tax return for
months this way. (Former inmate in the US)

------
Jaruzel
Some background on the Blog Author:

[http://barristerblogger.com/2017/08/09/unfortunate-
silencing...](http://barristerblogger.com/2017/08/09/unfortunate-silencing-
alex-cavendish/)

I'm not judging, just found it interesting.

------
trothamel
A very relevant link, albeit from an American perspective, is the
AfterPrisonShow on youtube:

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSonmKTLAPC2bTCF4JHQ1lg](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSonmKTLAPC2bTCF4JHQ1lg)

------
csense
If I went to prison, I'd stay in my cell 24/7 and read books and math papers.
Up to the point of refusing to eat unless guards brought food to my cell. I'd
actually prefer to go into solitary confinement and completely stay away from
all human contact for the duration, and I'd do what I could to arrange that.

~~~
rebuilder
Have you tried it? For most people, solitary confinement is torture. Maybe not
for you, but I've been to prison, and even without solitary, the effective
social isolation takes its toll. (I didn't exactly fit in in that environment.
No drama, but also no companionship.)

~~~
reshie
hes probably thinking solitary confinment with benefits. it usually means you
get nothing in the cell but your own thoughts. i have never been to prison so
not solitary confinement but thats what i am led to believe.

------
paradoxparalax
I was a happy guest at a Chinese Jail facility for a couple months. It's a
short-term jail, and the Law in China forbids any Chinese citizen to be
sentenced for more then 20 days(yes, it's less then 1 month) in the said kind
of vip SPA. For some reason of the destiny, there is a loophole in the Law,
where the law doesn't says clearly what to do with the somewhat unlucky
foreigners, and the many conflicting regulations can lead a foreigner to stay
up to 9 months there!(Lord have mercy on his soul, because after 9 months
there, your soul will stay there forever the day your physical body walks out
of there to know what the Sun is again) This soul I mention is from Cameroon,
or Nigeria, It is not clear, and this is exactly the reason he stayed 9 months
there, It wasn't clear! And said soul must be still wandering around those
cells there to this very Night, wherever the physical body is now, so, in my
case I was lucky. Now what I will say will sound like I am a regular Jail
frequenter, but I am not : D , Well, If I had to choose between that jail in
China, where you are completely(and this means 100% no less) deprived of
Coffee, Cigarettes, Anything to smoke at all, not even pure toilet paper,
forget about smoking, you will not even remotely see it or smell it from far,
anything to drink but water or sometimes home-made WangLaoZhi(what is superb,
I have to say) and sometimes you can get some brown sugar that they sell for
the Girl's jail for alleviation of menstruation discomfort according to
Chinese ancient predictions, and where you are almost completely deprived of
Salt, and if you have never try this deprivation, it isn't nice at all. I have
asked the doctor for Salt, please. He could gave to me or to any other inmate
any painkiller I or anyone asked for, but "I don't have Salt". I will not talk
about Sun. But, a Big But with a capital B, Those beautiful and sexy cop girls
that you can see running in the Jail's athletics track (like those from the
olympic games, but smaller, not for the inmates, seems that they use the Jail
as an training place of the Police Academy too, so those young angels are
probably still Student cops) these girls will never let anyone, anyone, ever
touch a hair of yours, actually If anyone touches anyone, the angels will see
it on the camera and Shout by your room's loudpeakers: "Physical contact is
forbidden, you both have lost one point in your point's score record"(Actually
usually they are much more human then this, sometimes they called me by my
given name, Stockolm syndrome and all other theories in this field don't even
begin to scratch the surface of the deepness and intensity of the human
relations and the feelings involved in the jobs of these girls, with their
parents expecting them to have the dream husband that they cannot, and don't
want to find, and the Society expecting them to be Model Citizens and They,
the girls themselves, expecting to fulfill their true belief, the sheer and
crude and nude and absolute belief in the Written Law, and that their lives
have a meaning and a reason, a important contribution to the Development,
Improvement, Justice and Freedom of the Chinese Society, and they are doing
exactly this, my friend, even going a milimeter or a meter out of the written
Law, for the sake of their believes in Human Fraternity and the bright
unwritten Justice itself and at the same time to have to witness and look with
maximum attention to all the literally nude misery of the human
animality(maybe neologism, but you get it) and see the "lowest" level of
people taking shower and hearing these men speak all kinds of dirty things and
talk about these same watcher girls as sexual objects sometimes and sometimes
even whistle at them if they see them doing the guard, of course not too much,
and never if the girl can spot who was the guilty one, because people were
scared of them too, off course, but Freedom of Speech there was complete, even
political, some people were there because of somewhat political reasons, and
people support them freely and everyone give him advice about how to go on
with his political activism, this is surprising but completely true, it was
about the government seized this poor people property to make a big real state
Business and they go to protest in Beijing from all over the country, this is
common there, so after some years the Beijing City gov got tired of handling
them and now just send them back home with a few days jailtime in his own
hometown as a trip souvenir. People who was caught with a lot of drugs or
selling drugs gets 7 days jail or so first time, second time 20 days(maximum
legal stay allowed by Law at a specially designed to be unbearable for more
then 20 days concentration SPA) Third time you go "real" jail (lord have mercy
on you) China is much more relaxed then people think, don't try anything weird
on my advice, surely, but even the Death Penalty is probably going to be
abolished rather sooner then later(someday I explain why the Chinese people is
the boss of the Chinese government, and not otherwise, when you hear is an
ancient cultured People, you underestimate, I only realized that in my 12th or
13th year in china, call me dumb and the majority of Death Sentences passed
today in China is scheduled for 2 years from now, with some little clause on
it, and if you behave well 2 years later your sentence will be silently
changed to Life in Prision, unless you are a political communist
authority(will be executed the next morning after trial), or you sold unsafe
food and some kid died, or you killed someone and don't show regret in front
of the Court Judges, or you show regret but killed a child, then you will be
executed right away. ((I have lost the pairing of the parenthesis here
already, this isn't a code editor) Brazilian Jail, by the other hand, you get
Marijuana, other drugs, sometimes booze, visit of professional girls(woo-hoo!)
Sun, Music and Barbecue, but 1 time in 2.8 years will happen that you look
around after a fraction of a second and everyone is dressed like Ninjas with
their shirts covering their heads and touching the ground with 1 or the 2
hands like Stressed Monkeys, so the guy next to you says: " Dress all clothes
you can find quickly, so you will have less black bruises and it will let less
scares on your skin when it has all finished..." but this is another story,
this tale is ridiculously long already.

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
Broken return key?

~~~
paradoxparalax
Didn't succeed in making the comment take a shorter vertical space. You don't
want to see me using the return key.

~~~
cwillu
Line breaks aren't to make it shorter, it's to break it up so the reader can
keep track of where he is in the reading. I must have reread certain lines 4
or 5 times before I actually got to the next line, even using text selection
as a bookmark.

~~~
paradoxparalax
I see, sorry for that, Is too late to edit now, but I will keep that in mind.

I think you mean that the lack of line breaks is not to make the comment
shorter in vertical space.

More line breaks, or at least one single line break, please, I understand you
now, for readability and politeness towards other peoples eyes, would actually
take more vertical space.

But I got it, better use line breaks next time. Or don't make long comments
anymore, ever.

At least not in winter time.

Or if it is winter, only on weekends.

No, better just abstain from it.

:edit Now that you say it, the line breaks don't show in the comment! go to
google -->Oh I need two blank lines! Dang. Ok!

Still something wrong. better give up the Internet, it's healthier overall.

