Survive Jail

SURVIVE JAIL The Ultimate “How To” Guide for Surviving A Jail or Prison Term © 2005 Gulf Coast Magazines, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Disclaimer: The author and publisher of this work have used their best efforts in preparing this document. The author and publisher make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness, or completeness of the contents of this work. They specifically disclaim any warranties (express or implied) of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. The author and publisher shall in no event be held liable for any loss or other damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. As always, the advice of a competent legal, tax, accounting or other professional should be sought. The author and publisher do not warrant the performance, effectiveness or applicability of any sites, software or resources listed in this work. All links are for information purposes only and are not warranted for content, accuracy or any other implied or explicit purpose. This work contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. STATEMENT OF LANGUAGE USED HEREIN: You will find that several words designated by many as profanity are used throughout this work. In that this is the same language used daily by inmates in county, state and federal penal institutions, the author chose to use those same words as a way of desensitizing you to their constant use inside jails and prisons. If you are in any way offended by the use of such strong language, the author apologizes, but also advises you to get used to it, because in the event you find yourself incarcerated, you will find that virtually every person inside your jail, from the lowest of inmates up to the warden himself, rarely completes a sentence without the use of such language. STATEMENT OF GENDER REFERENCES: You will further find that the author chose to use the masculine form of nouns and pronouns within the body of this work when referring to inmates, lawyers, judges and guards. The author acknowledges there are females that hold each of these positions, and many of them do a very competent job. However, for consistency, and to avoid the clunky “he/she” types of designations, the author selected the masculine references since the vast majority of participants in the criminal justice system are males. No insult or denigration of the females who perform in these functions is intended. 2

Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………Page 4 I. Avoid Jail Entirely……………………………………….Page 6 II. Plea Bargaining To Avoid Jail………………………….Page 13 III. When Jail Is Unavoidable…………………………...…Page 24 1. Physical Preparation……………………………..Page 26 2. Mental Preparation………………………………Page 30 3. Your First 24 Hours Inside………………………Page 34 4. Dealing With Staff………………………………..Page 48 5. Dealing With Inmates……………………………Page 54 6. Avoiding Sexual Assault…………………………Page 64 7. Working On The Inside…………………………Page 67 8. Making Your Time Pass Quickly………………Page 70 IV. Conclusion………………….………………………….Page 73

3

Introduction If you’d taken a poll 20 years ago, I probably would have been voted Least Likely to Go to Jail. In fact, over my 13 year career as a criminal defense attorney, I represented at least 10 people I’d attended a school with. When you figure into the equation that I attended 8 schools in 10-1/2 years, it would figure I’d run across someone I knew every now and then who was in serious legal trouble. But no one ever thought it would be me. I was your basic nerdish, almost straight-A non-jock student. Maybe even a teacher’s pet once or twice. Not exactly the resume of your average felon. But that didn’t keep a judge in San Diego County from handing me 270 days in jail like he was giving away Halloween candy. The hows and whys of my case don’t really matter. Suffice to say I went from semirespected attorney to inmate in just a few short steps. I found myself facing the ultimate survival challenge, one not likely to appear anytime soon on Reality TV. I had nothing to guide me but my wits and the bits of intelligence I’d picked up from my clientele over the years. Combining the two, I managed to do my time in remarkably easy fashion. And I can honestly say there were times when I had a little fun on the inside. If you’re reading this book, then the odds are pretty good you think you might find yourself in a similar situation in the not-too-distant future. Or you just have bizarre reading tastes. In either event, realize that even within the broad parameters of a “how to” book, every person’s situation is going to be at least a little bit different from my own. That’s just common sense. Just because I handled a situation in a certain way does not mean I handled it correctly. You’re going to have to make a lot of split-second judgment calls, and I am not going to assume liability for how things turn out for you if you happen to follow in my footsteps. However, there are certain situations that arise for just about every inmate, over and over again. If you know about these situations in advance, you can plan for them and be ready to deal with them in the best manner you can muster under the circumstances. Or at the very least be ready with a few options at your disposal. But in typical sleazy lawyer (or, in my case, ex-lawyer) fashion, I am going to hide solidly behind the legal disclaimers in the front of this book. Mainly because I can’t control how you are going to handle yourself on the inside. For all I know, you can’t address a black man without dropping the “N bomb”…a guaranteed way to get out of jail early…and dead.

4

But all ass-covering aside, you’re going to learn a lot of things you probably didn’t know about being locked up in jail. You can accept it as fact, or choose to write it all off as bullshit. It doesn’t matter much to me either way. I’ve been locked up, and I got through it in good shape. I’m hoping you’ll be smart enough to do the same.

5

I. AVOID JAIL ENTIRELY A Good Lawyer Can Make All the Difference In The World “Q. What do you have when you have ten lawyers buried to their necks in sand?” A. Not enough sand.” A joke my lawyer, Larry L. Fields, told my jury during his voir dire of the panel, in an attempt to demonstrate negative public feeling towards lawyers in general. Apparently my jury agreed with him. About the sand, that is.

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to have an attorney you trust. You are about to turn over the decision making in the most important event in your life to a complete stranger. You’d better be able to trust that person with your life, because that’s exactly what you are about to do. When you’re staring down the barrel of a criminal prosecution, you have two basic choices when it comes to legal representation: Hire your own attorney, or let the court appoint one to represent you. (Technically, there is a third option, representing yourself, but if you choose self representation, you’re too fucking stupid for words and totally beyond my help, so quit reading right now and start building up a piggy bank that some trusted friend or relative can dole out to you during your impending long prison stay). If an “appointed attorney” sounds familiar, that’s because it’s a part of the “Miranda Warning” every TV cop since 1969 or so has been reading to whatever poor s.o.b. is being hauled away. “You have the right to speak with an attorney before questioning; if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you by the court, yada yada yada.” How you proceed is up to you. Most people with at least a minimal amount of good sense and a few extra dollars will spend those dollars to hire the best attorney they can afford. The rest just wait for the court to appoint an attorney, and pray they get a decent one. What never ceased to amaze me was the number of people who should have hired counsel, and obviously had the money to do so, but chose to let the court appoint their counsel for them. When I was in practice, I spent my first five years working off “The List.” The List was how we referred to the process of obtaining court appointed cases. If you were not too busy, you’d go “Fishing in F” for new cases. Department F of the then-Municipal Court was where all the new felony cases were first routed for arraignment, which is the process where the accused was first informed of the charges filed against him and entered his not guilty plea. This was also where the majority of appointed attorneys got their cases. 6

It’s been said that new doctors get to practice their craft on dead people (cadavers) before they ever see a live patient. New attorneys don’t get to practice on the dead before they get their first living client. New attorneys get to practice their craft representing the poor (or the wealthy that are too cheap or too stupid to hire their own attorney). Over the years, I lost track of the number of clients I represented, free of charge to them, who actually made more money in a year than I did. I specifically remember this one clown who walked out of court with me after his arraignment. We stood in the parking lot and spoke briefly about his case. I then I got in my 10 year old Chevy Malibu and watched in amazement as he drove away in a 2 year old Mercedes. I guess you can’t afford to buy a car like that unless you are willing to scrimp in other areas, such as paying for your own attorney. I always prided myself on the fact that I tried to give my “free” clients the same level and quality of service I gave to my paying clients. I was fired fewer than 5 times in 13 years, so I guess most of my clients were happy with the service they received. Happy clients who are not paying for your services have no incentive to spend their money to hire someone else. However, there were plenty of attorneys of my acquaintance who were less than attentive to their appointed clients. I know because I ended up being hired by many of theses unhappy potential felons over the years. Alcoholics, drug addicts (including one guy who was arrested three times by undercover cops, twice by the same cop), wife beaters, cop biters, and other. And these were all the attorneys. The truth is that there are some very good attorneys who work on an appointed basis for the poor (or those with poor judgment), both as public defenders and as private attorneys appointed by the court to the case. There are also a bunch of boneheads that view their clients as nothing more than a source of easy money. Money they use to pay their bills, buy their rock cocaine, or whatever. The problem with accepting an appointed attorney is you have no control over who you get…Sam Superattorney or Charlie Crackhead. If you have money, any money at all, you should strongly consider giving all of it to an experienced criminal defense attorney. One who can guide you through the jungle that is a criminal prosecution and, hopefully, bring you out on the other side in reasonably good shape. The big question is, then…

7

HOW DO I FIND A GOOD CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY? The absolute best way I can recommend to you is to get a referral from someone you know and trust who has used that same attorney in the past and gives him a solid recommendation. Instead of closing your eyes and blindly stabbing at names in the phone book, go with an attorney who has performed well for someone you know. At least you will have a little information to work with when negotiating a fee, not to mention a little peace of mind, knowing you’re represented by someone who has gotten good results in the past for a trusted friend or family member. If you can’t get a direct referral from someone you know, a second and almost as effective method is the old “friend of a friend” method. Maybe your friends and family aren’t a bunch of arch-criminals in constant need of legal representation. But the odds are pretty good that you have a friend, or neighbor, or coworker, or someone who knows someone who used a good criminal defense attorney in the recent past. Find out who they used and don’t be afraid to drop their name as the source of the referral. Nothing warms the heart of an attorney more than to know that he has a good reputation in the community, and that community is recommending him to the other unfortunates who need legal help. I’m not kidding. We all love to hear that our old client so-and-so said we were really good at what we did, and that you should hire us on the spot. Sometimes that warm feeling actually translated into a slight fee reduction when the prospective client was a little short on funds. You know, since he was a friend of so-and-so and all, I cut the fee or took it in payments. Sometimes. Regardless of the fee issue, you want to find someone you feel comfortable with and trust to guide you through the jungle of criminal prosecution. If a certain attorney comes highly recommended, but you don’t feel comfortable dealing with him, then keep looking! Never hire someone you don’t trust to represent you in a criminal defense matter, even if they come highly recommended. It’s your life and your money. That means, in at least this limited instance, you actually have total control. It doesn’t exist anywhere else in the criminal justice system, so use this control wisely, and hire someone you trust. But what if no one in your circle of influence can give you a referral? How do you find a good attorney in this instance? Hit the library or the internet, and search back issues of your local newspaper for news stories about local trials. Look for the names of attorneys that:

8

1. Appear over and over again, and 2. Either win their cases outright, or seem to get good deals for their clients. It should be pretty easy to spot stories where an attorney won a case outright…normally the reporter mentions this fact in both the headline and in the first couple of paragraphs. The more difficult job is deciding if an attorney got a good deal for their client. One clue to look for is a quote from the “victim” in the case. If the victim seems really pissed off, then the accused probably got a pretty good deal. Another clue to look for is comment from the prosecutor that sounds like sour grapes. If they blame anyone for being forced to offer a deal for less than what the accused deserved, then the accused again probably got a pretty good deal in the case. The reason you want to look for certain attorney names that appear regularly in the paper is because they are the attorneys that specialize in criminal defense law. They are probably in court every day, often on several cases at the same time. They tend to know the press, and can sometimes get sympathetic press coverage if your case is newsworthy. They are, at the very least, very good at getting their own names in the paper. Publicity Pays! A well known criminal defense attorney has more influence, tends to get better deals for his clients, and actually KNOWS how to try a case before a jury. If your attorney has been around for a few years and nobody at the corner bar has ever heard of him, chances are you have a slacker that doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. Find somebody else. Somebody good at what they do, which is defending the criminally accused. Also, the guys who are in court every day tend to have decent relationships with prosecutors and judges. This can be crucial when it comes time for plea bargaining and sentencing. Most of the parties will deny it up and down, but I’ve seen the “old boy network” in action too many times to put even a tiny amount of faith in their denials. When you have two cases that are essentially equal, Prosecutors and Judges will regularly offer better deals to defense attorneys they know and respect than they will to someone they do not know, or for whom they have little or no respect. This good working relationship can mean the difference between jail time and a noncustodial sentence. A good attorney with a good working relationship with the powers that be can sometimes keep you out of jail, even if you deserve to be there. But assuming there is no one on Planet Earth you know or trust enough for a referral, and the newspapers are no help, how can you find a qualified attorney? The last two effective methods are to use a Referral Service or the Yellow Pages.

9

Most Referral Services are run by County Bar Associations, which are nothing more than a group of lawyers located in the same region (usually city or county). Most of these Services are populated by attorneys who pay the Bar Association for each referral they receive. Since the Bar Association is governed by their own local peers, you would think most attorneys would work extra hard to do a good job so their colleagues would not hear about what a “dump truck” they are (“dump truck” being a favorite client phrase used to describe a criminal defense attorney who does the absolute minimum necessary, and seem more interested in making money than finding justice for their clients). Like anything else, the truth is that some of the attorneys on those lists are very good, some are average, and some should be forced to repeat law school, since it’s obvious they didn’t learn very much the first time around. There is a Latin phrase, Caveat Emptor, which means “Let the Buyer Beware!” If you decide to use a referral service, then Caveat Emptor, baby, Caveat Emptor! If the service gives you three names, call all three and make and keep all three appointments. Don’t hire the first person you speak with, just because he says all the things you want to hear. Keep the other two appointments! You can always come back and hire Attorney #1 later. Last, and quite honestly least, pick up your phone book and turn to the Yellow Pages. In an average sized city, you’ll find anywhere from 15-250 pages of attorney ads. It’s absolutely overwhelming the first time you do a Yellow Pages search. Page after page of double-truck (2 page) display ads, hundreds of smaller display ads, column after column of names, it makes you want to start looking for countries that have no extradition treaty with the United States. Start by making things simple. Skip the big display ads. These are really nothing more than big love letters attorneys write to themselves anyway, and very few will ever give you enough information to make an informed decision. A few may tout past good results for old clients, but the disclaimers always read “past results are no guarantee of future performance.” If you are forced to use the Yellow Pages, at the very least focus on the attorneys who advertise themselves as Criminal Defense Attorneys. It may seem obvious (at least it does to me) but on more than one occasion I saw an attorney I knew to be a Tax or Probate specialist in court representing someone on a DUI or a petty theft case. There is no law against an attorney trying to branch out into different areas of legal practice, but you don’t want to be the guinea pig he practices upon. Spend your money wisely and hire someone who has been practicing criminal defense law for at least a year or two. Remember…it’s your money AND your ass, not just your money like it is in all other types of cases. In most Yellow Pages, there are columns of names and phone numbers, each column broken into different specialties. Look for the column entitled “Criminal Defense” and start calling people for appointments. Most attorneys will give you a half hour or hour of their time for free, to discuss your case and see if they can help you out in any way.

10

In truth, 99.9% will always be able to help you out, in one way or another. Even if all they do is go to court and hold your hand, it’s better than going in there alone. So don’t let the attorney’s statement “I think I can help you” be the one factor that persuades you to hire him. Instead, try and get a feel for the attorney as a person. Is this someone you think you can relate to, work with, and actually feel comfortable hiring to represent your best interests in court? If so, then put their name on your short list of possible hires and move on to your next appointment. Never, ever hire the first attorney you speak with, the first time you meet them. Always check out two or three others before you decide. You can’t really test-drive an attorney the way you would a used car, but you can at least spend a little time checking out the field before you decide to hire one.

WARNING!!!!! If you use the Yellow Pages to find an attorney, you need to be aware of certain services, run by law firms, which are nothing more than modified referral services in disguise. You call a phone number listed for a Law Firm and someone will usually travel to your home to meet with you and discuss your case. Many times this person is not an attorney, but will be dressed in a suit and tie and will give the appearance of being an attorney. In fact, this person is a salesman (sometimes called a Case Manager), hired by the attorneys to sell you on the idea of hiring their referral service. Once you sign a contract and pay the fee, the case manager then assigns your case to a specific attorney, who pays the service for the referral. Many people are not sophisticated enough to realize the case manager is not going to be the person who represents them in court (he cannot, since usually he is not even a lawyer). They’ve just hired an attorney they’ve never even met. Sometimes it works out okay, and sometimes it turns into a complete disaster. If you hire someone out of the phone book, ask them point blank if they are going to be the person who represents you in court. If not, ask to meet the real lawyer before you sign any contracts and pay any fees. If they give you any grief, or tell you that they just don’t do business that way, then get up and leave (or throw them out of your house). It’s your life and your money that is on the line here. Don’t put either one at risk just because some salesman makes a good presentation. Along those same lines, be aware that just about any attorney you do hire (or even the ones appointed by the court) will have conflicts with their time on occasion, and need a colleague to appear in court with you on their behalf. Normally this will be at a meaningless hearing (and there can be one hell of a lot of those!) so don’t sweat it if an attorney other than the one you hired shows up at your arraignment, or at a motion setting hearing. A good attorney will let you know in advance that someone else will appear in court with you on their behalf, whenever advance notice is possible. But sometimes last second

11

emergencies pop up, so don’t get your panties in a twist if it happens once or twice. If it begins to happen regularly however, then you need to have a talk with your attorney and find out what exactly is going on. Never be afraid to ask questions! Remember, it’s your life that is at stake here. You are entitled to as much information as you can gather, and no decent attorney will get pissed off if you want to ask questions about the process. Just don’t ask the same questions, over and over again. That WILL piss them off, every time! So you’re going to do the intelligent thing and hire your own attorney. The #1 question every single client ever had, even before they wanted to know how I thought their case would turn out, was

HOW MUCH IS THIS GOING TO COST ME? One of my favorite scenes in the movie “National Lampoon’s Vacation” was when Clark Griswold cracked up the family station wagon on a dirt road in the desert, and had to be towed into a repair station in the middle of nowhere. In reply to his question “How much is this going to cost me?” the mechanic replied “How much you got?” In all honesty, I rarely knew how much other attorneys charged for a particular case, and I never cared, either. I charged what I thought the case was worth, and you, as the prospective client, either paid me or moved on to someone else. Most attorneys have the same attitude. The real question you should be asking is “How much am I willing to spend to try and get myself out of this jam?” Anyone with brains will spend every available penny, and go into debt for the rest, to hire the best attorney they can find. This in not the time to wait for the famous K-Mart Blue Light Special. I know of several attorneys who run phone book ads that have a coupon good for $500 off any of their services. What a Crock! They are going to charge you exactly what they think the case is worth, and your $500 coupon has already been figured into the fee they quote. If you are shopping for a criminal defense attorney and using coupons, all I can say is Enjoy Prison. So if you are still asking “How much should I pay?” then my answer would have to be “Whatever it takes to get you the attorney you want to hire.” Save the coupons for the grocery store. That’s about all there is to say about hiring an attorney. Just use your common sense, and realize that this is going to be one of the more important decisions you ever make, so take as much time as you have available to you, and shop around for the best fit between you and your counsel (and price be damned!).

12

II. PLEA BARGAINING TO AVOID JAIL Slightly more than 97% of all criminal cases are resolved without going to trial. A small percentage are dismissed due to any number of reasons, and a larger percentage are held in abeyance (meaning an alternate disposition is worked out, usually involving the accused entering a drug treatment program or other type of counseling without entering a plea of guilty). The rest are resolved by Plea Bargaining. Plea Bargaining is nothing more than the Prosecuting Attorney and your Attorney working out a deal whereby you plead guilty to a lesser charge than the one you are now facing. Normally this also means you will face less jail or prison time than you would if you went to trial on the current charges and lost the case. Many times it can mean you will not go to jail at all…you simply are placed on probation and ordered to sin no more. Plea Bargaining normally becomes a hot issue every time the office of District or Prosecuting Attorney comes up for election. Everyone who runs for the office makes all kinds of ridiculous statements about how they will stamp out plea bargaining and demand that all those convicted of crimes in their district serve the maximum allowable time. What a bunch of bullshit. In truth, most courts are strained to the maximum by the number of cases that actually go to trial (less than 3% of the number of cases filed annually). If plea bargaining were eliminated, it would take less than 4 weeks for the entire criminal justice system to collapse, and virtually everyone awaiting trial would go free, assuming no radical changes to the U.S. Constitution. By way of example, I heard a story a few years ago from a guy I knew who prosecuted cases in Alameda County (Oakland), California. He said they had so many murder cases filed and pending trial in Oakland, and so few courtrooms, that anyone charged with a less serious crime than murder (and that is pretty much all of them!) could snag a Get Out Of Jail Free card simply by agreeing to continue their trial dates for a year or more. Agreeing to this continuance meant they got out of jail on their own recognizance, without having to post any bail. All it would have taken was a handful of these guys to say “No, I want my speedy trial as guaranteed by the United States Constitution” and Alameda County would have been in deep shit. So Plea Bargaining is going to be with us for the foreseeable future, and there is an almost 100% chance you are going to be offered a bargain before you get too far along with your case. Each court operates differently, but normally after you attend your initial arraignment, the court will schedule some sort of Preliminary Hearing. This is a hearing where the court

13

will listen to the evidence presented by the Prosecutor, and decide based upon that evidence, if there is enough to justify “Binding you over” for a jury trial. If the law allows, at that hearing the Prosecutor can call only a single police officer to testify to the statements and evidence gathered during the investigation in your case. Otherwise, one or more witnesses in your case will appear and testify. If there is even a slight connection between you and the crime, you can count on getting “bound over” for trial. Prior to the start of this hearing, however, most jurisdictions will allow the prosecutor to make you an offer…plead guilty (or “no contest” if allowed) to one or more charges for a limited sentence, and avoid having that hearing. This is where a good attorney can make all the difference in the world. Most courts have a policy that the best deal is offered prior to the start of the preliminary hearing. The idea is, if you confess your sins early, and save the taxpayers the time and trouble of putting on a full blown hearing, you’ll be rewarded with a better deal. Turn them down, and the deals just get worse as time goes on. In truth, sometimes it works out that way, and sometimes the offers keep getting better and better. It depends on the charges, the quality and quantity of witnesses for and against you, and a variety of other factors your attorney can explain to you that are present in your case and in no others. This is why in the very beginning I warned you that no two cases are alike…each has something about it that makes it very much different from all the others. The guy next to you may be facing identical charges, but his case is radically different from your own. A good attorney will lay out the pros and cons of taking a deal at this stage. Many times, additional investigation conducted by your attorney as the case progresses turns up evidence not available at the time of the Preliminary Hearing, and your case can become significantly stronger. Stronger cases usually translate into better deals offered before trial. After the question about fees, the next most asked question I ever fielded from clients was:

IS THIS A GOOD DEAL? There never was a hard and fast rule to use to decide if a deal being offered was a good one or a bad one. In one case, a deal with no custody time offered could actually be considered a bad deal, whereas I had one case where the client was offered twenty years in prison, and all things considered, it was a pretty good deal. (Okay, I admit it…it was a shitty deal, but when the DA has a Hollywood quality security camera tape of you committing the armed robbery with more than a dozen victims alleged as separate counts, and various enhancements and prior convictions adding up to approx. 110 years worth of prison time, 20 years doesn’t sound too bad!).

14

Probably the best way to decide if a deal is good or not is to first be absolutely honest with yourself. Did you do what you’ve been accused of doing? If so, there is a better then even chance you’re going to be convicted at trial, and after a jury says “guilty” you can pretty much forget about any plea bargaining. You’re going to get whatever the judge feels is an appropriate sentence, and I can tell you from painful personal experience the judge isn’t going to care too much about the deals you were offered in the past. So if you’re offered something that carries 25% or less of the overall time you are facing if you are convicted as charged at trial, I always felt that was a pretty good deal in most cases. In California, most felonies carry a sentencing range that runs from probation and no jail time, up to one year in jail (while on probation), to a sentence of no probation and 16 months (low term), 2 years (mid-term) or 3 years (upper term) in state prison. If a client had never been in trouble before, there was a 95% certainty that probation would be offered as a plea bargain (and even after losing at trial, I cannot remember a single client I ever had who went to prison on their very first felony conviction other than those involved in sex cases or causing great bodily injury or death to someone else). However, even if probation was offered, the court had the discretion to sentence the client to as much as one year in the county jail, and under the guidelines in place at the time, the client would do anywhere from ½ to 2/3 of that time in custody. The best plea bargains were the ones where the court and the prosecutor agreed that the client would not serve any time in custody at all. Assuming the client was guilty of something, these deals were the easiest to sell. They were also the hardest to obtain, as courts don’t like to be limited in their sentencing options, and rarely agreed to go along with a “no custody time” deal in felony cases. Again, this is based on my personal experience in handling criminal cases over a period of about thirteen years, in courts up and down the state of California...always listen to and rely upon the advice of the lawyer you’ve hired as he can give you the scoop on how things are done in your jurisdiction. On the flip side, there are times when bad deals are the only ones on the table. The rule of thumb I always used to decide if a deal was bad, was to try and estimate what the client would get if he went to trial and lost. If the offer wasn’t much better than what I thought he would get if he lost at trial, I’d tell the client I thought the deal sucked and if he went to trial, it probably wouldn’t get much worse. For example, petty theft with a prior conviction for theft is a felony in California, and carries the sixteen months, two years or three years in state prison if convicted and probation is not granted. I lost track over the years of how many times a client was offered the middle term of two years as a plea bargain. If he lost the trial, the most he would get (at least in this example where there are no other enhancements to add to his time) was three years. Since California prison inmates served ½ of their sentence before release he would only be risking an actual six extra months in prison if he lost at trial and the court gave him the maximum three years. That is a bad plea bargain offer.

15

In fact, I would classify this one as being far shittier than the twenty years offered where 110 years was the maximum prison sentence available. At least a twenty year offer was less than 20% of the time the client faced. In the petty theft case the client had almost no incentive to take a deal, since six months either way isn’t that long for most people. That means everyone has to withstand the stress of going through a jury trial on a case that would probably have settled if the offer had been more reasonable, all because of a lousy six months difference in time. If you’re at the stage where a plea bargain is offered, I cannot stress enough that you need to rely upon the expert advice and counsel of your attorney. This is one of the situations I spoke of earlier, where you are literally putting your life and your future into the hands of a complete stranger, so I hope you have chosen wisely and hired someone you can trust implicitly. But remember…. While your attorney can make a lot of procedural decisions for you, in order to make the case move along as smoothly as possible… THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE DECISIONS! The decision to accept a plea bargain is yours and yours alone. Maybe your spouse or parents will have a say in the matter, but the ultimate decision to plead out or reject the deal and go to trial is all yours! Your attorney can and should give you all the information available so you can make an informed decision, and one you can live with. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I hope you’ve done the smart thing and hired someone you can trust, because this is THE JOB you’ve hired them for! If your attorney is telling you that based on his experience and the facts of your case the deal being offered is a good one, and you don’t trust your attorney, you are, in a word, fucked! So avoid all the trauma and hire well from the beginning. After all, when the case is finally over, your attorney will go back to his office and start working on the next client’s case. You are the one who has to do the time, pay the fine, pick up the trash on the side of the highway, or whatever. So you need to make the best decision, based on all of the quality information you can acquire from counsel you can trust. So what are the risks of going to trial versus taking a plea bargain? First and foremost, there is the chance that new information (bad information) will surface before or during trial that will put you in an even worse light than you were in prior to trial. Witnesses decide to shade their testimony, or recall new information that was not included in a police report (if the witness is a cop the term we always used was

16

“testilying”: testimony designed to insure your conviction even though it is completely false and only arises during a trial, never in a previously provided police report…this is the number one reason why most people caught up in the system hate cops). Also, during the plea bargaining phase your average prosecutor will be working on 20 to 40 different files, so the odds are good he hasn’t taken a real close look at yours. Yet. Once trial is set and all plea bargains are rejected, you become the focal point in his life, and he’s going to have your file memorized prior to trial. He may (and most likely will) run across facts (or statements, or evidence, call it what you will) that he did not notice during the plea bargaining phase. He will use this new information to justify asking for a significantly harsher sentence should you lose at trial. On your side of the courtroom, your witnesses may turn out to be shit, and either not show up for the trial (a crime in and of itself), or worse, show up and do such a horrible job that you would vote to convict yourself if they’d let you in the jury room. You could even let yourself down by making a horrible impression on the jury should you take the stand and testify. For the past 50 years, your jurors have spent hundreds of thousands of hours watching court room dramas, from Perry Mason and The Defenders in the fifties and sixties, to L.A. Law and The Practice in the nineties and two thousand’s. They expect every witness (including you) to come across as believable and professional as those actors on T.V. It ain’t gonna happen, Sport! The closest they’ll find are the cops, who are pretty much nothing more than professional liars. Add to that the fact that most jurors have had nothing but positive contacts with the police during their lifetimes, and you have all the ingredients for a Greek tragedy, starring You! Then there is the stress aspect…you’re only on trial for your life. You can cancel any plans you might have for a good night’s sleep or to fully digest a meal during this timeframe. Your body is going to betray you in new and unusual ways just about every hour that your case remains unresolved. Upset stomachs, headaches and diarrhea are the most common ailments. Skin rashes, hair loss, excessive body odor are also regular issues for defendants. You’ll be short with the people you love (or at least the ones who love you). If you have existing addictions to drugs or alcohol, you’ll probably amp up your use of your substance(s) of choice, which makes you worthless to your attorney, and puts you at high risk of being jailed once you arrive in court, for being under the influence of whatever. There are other negatives I could mention here, but hopefully you get the picture. Being the accused in a criminal jury trial is probably the most stressful event you’ll ever endure. Hopefully you have a sense of humor which will carry you through these times. Or at the very least, a strong stomach.

17

So with all of these negatives surrounding a jury trial, why would anyone want to go through that process? I can only three think of three reasons. Reason Number One: You got a shitty plea bargain offer. Like I mentioned earlier, when the only difference between the time offered in your plea bargain and the maximum time you could do if you went down in flames on all counts in a jury trial is six months, you might as well roll the dice. You never know when lightning will strike, the gods will smile, and a jury will unanimously decided to send you home a free man. When the only cost to find out if this is one of those times in six months, I say put twelve in the box and let’s get started. Reason Number Two: The case is falling down around the ears of the prosecutor. Even with all the negatives I just mentioned about your going to trial, sometimes it hits the prosecutor even worse. Witnesses take off and cannot be found, evidence is lost by the crime lab and will not be available at the time of trial, a continuance is needed by the D.A. but denied by the court (this one is extremely rare, but happened twice during my career), all are good reasons to take a shot at trial. If the jury is empaneled and a witness called, the D.A. is locked into the case. If he dismisses after this point, due to lack of witnesses or evidence, the case is over for good, my friend, and cannot be re-filed at any time. It’s called double jeopardy. The only way he can retry your case is if the jury cannot reach a unanimous decision, and a hung jury is declared. Catching a hung jury is better than losing, and can often times force the D.A. to make a better plea bargain offer the second time around. But your attorney will usually only be truly happy with a not guilty verdict. I can only assume you would share in his joy. Reason Number Three: You are genuinely and truly not guilty. The odds are overwhelming that this does not apply to you. As much as it pains me to admit it, the police normally catch the right guy. I know, I read the papers and hear about the occasional innocent man released after serving 30 years in prison, thanks to a bunch of lying cops and lack of DNA evidence at the time of the trial. But let’s face facts. Even if you read about ten of these guys, every single day for a year, that would only make a total of 3,650 men. In an average year, well over 5 million people are prosecuted for offenses ranging from traffic violations to murder. 3,600 guys make up a very small percentage of that total. So I am going with the odds on this one, and assuming you are guilty of at least something you are being accused of. If this is true, and only you know in your heart of hearts if it is, then you probably should drop the wounded innocent bullshit façade and take a deal! Don’t expect to bluff your way past a jury, because it normally just doesn’t happen. For all their deficiencies, juries have a pretty good sense of whether you are telling the truth or not, and only rarely do any jurors ever come back and say they now have doubts about the way they voted. Most just convict you, and get on with their lives, never giving you another thought.

18

And God help you if your trial judge thinks you lied during your trial! If you weren’t looking at a maximum sentence before trial, you will be now! I’ve had too many clients snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, because the judge thought they were trying to lie their way out of trouble. Whatever good I was able to do on their behalf prior to their taking the stand to testify disappeared like a fart in a windstorm. So if you’re guilty, and you know that you are…Take a deal, dummy, and avoid all the trauma associated with trial. But what if you are truly not guilty of anything at all? Every lawyer can tell their own collection of stories about representing someone they truly believed was innocent of any and all charges. I had a half dozen or so clients who fit that description, at least in my own mind. I hated representing each and every one of them… at least at the time. Nothing is more nerve wracking to a lawyer than the prospect of having an innocent client convicted and serving time behind bars. I thank God that in the three cases where I went to trial with someone I thought was truly innocent, their juries agreed and found them not guilty. So much for your lawyer’s state of mind. What about yours? If you were truly not guilty, and you were my client, in most cases I would tell you to fight the case out. Turn down any and all plea bargains, and take the case to the box. However, and this is a HUGE however, there are going to be times when you’re not guilty of anything but you need to seriously consider taking a deal to avoid super serious consequences should you lose the case at trial. I can vividly recall one case where my client was accused of molesting two boys (his own sons) and was facing a mandatory minimum nine years in prison if he lost the case. This was in Kern County, California, which is a county nationally known for throwing damn near everybody into prison in the 1980’s for molesting kids. Of course, twenty years later, we’re finding out that almost every single case was pure-D horseshit from the very beginning, and Appellate courts are letting the defendants out of prison. Finally. But only after serving ten to twenty years of actual time inside. My client did not do the things he was accused of. Even the acts themselves were described in such fantastical fashion by the boys it was obvious that someone was coaching them to say these things, and doing a piss-poor job of it at that. Learning that the clients ex-wife had moved in with a guy fresh out of prison, who was going around town telling everyone he knew that he was going to adopt the boys as his own once their daddy was put away forever cemented in my mind my client’s innocence.

19

The deputy D.A. on the case, who was a bonehead as a D.A., and now is a bigger bonehead as a judge, didn’t see things quite the same way I did, but offered my client a deal to plead to one count of molesting as a misdemeanor, with no requirement that he register as a sex offender, and he would get out of jail that same day. So the client has to decide: press his claims of innocence and risk anywhere from nine to 24 years in state prison (as a child molester no less… more on that later) or plead no contest to something he did not do and go home in about six hours. He spent less time thinking about it than I thought he would, given he was going to plead to a sex offense (a misdemeanor, but a sex offense nonetheless) and decided to take the deal and go home that same day. Obviously, I don’t know the facts of your case, but you might find yourself in a similar position: falsely admitting guilt in order to minimize your exposure to jail or prison. The case I just told you about was an extreme one, but similar situations exist for less serious cases, every single day in courts across America. If you happen to be one of these unfortunates, then you have to weigh out the risks of going to trial and the possible punishments that await you should you lose, the financial burden of paying for a jury trial (and I know for a fact those are not cheap), and the stress factors that will affect you and your family. It might be better for you in the long run to abandon whatever principles that drive you to want a trial and just plead out to get the case over with. If it comes down to a question of balancing many years in prison versus going home today, the decision might be an easy one for you. If you are faced with this kind of decision, you’re going to have to rely heavily upon the advice of your attorney, so I again warn you, beg you, cajole you, and even outright order you to hire the best attorney you can afford to help you make this most critical decision. You need a solid, accurate estimate on your chances of winning your case at trial before you decide to admit guilt for something you didn’t do. It’s a decision you’re going to have to live with for the rest of your life, so you need the best advice possible to help you make the decision that’s right for you. So you’ve been found guilty. What happens now? This may be the most important, critical stage of the criminal proceedings…it’s your last chance to avoid going to jail. The things you say and do at this point will pretty much affect the rest of your life, so think long and hard before you say or do anything that might have an impact on the judge who will impose the sentence upon you. If you’ve followed the one piece of advice I’ve hammered into you over and over (hiring a good criminal defense attorney), your attorney will be able to guide you through this process and advise you on the options available to you. Unless you’ve been found guilty of an offense that carries a mandatory prison sentence, you have a number of options that might be available to you to avoid spending even one night behind bars.

20

First and foremost, you have a chance to be placed on probation. Now some people (convicts who have been in and out of the system a few times) will argue that is better to go to prison than it is to be placed on probation. They argue that the rules in a state prison are a little more relaxed than they are in the county or city run jail, and after release, state parole officers are usually more lenient than probation officers. There actually is some truth to that argument. But assuming you have little or no prior experience in the criminal justice system, the degrees of leniency are so slim it is likely you would not notice the difference. Assuming that to be true, the benefits you can realize from a probationary sentence far outweigh the few luxuries you might enjoy in a prison setting. The biggest benefit to a probationary sentence is that in most jurisdictions, after you successfully complete a probationary period, you’re allowed to petition the court to reinstate your civil rights. You can also ask that your conviction be set aside or erased from your permanent record. If granted, this allows you to apply for jobs and answer “No” to the question “have you ever been convicted of a felony?” This one benefit alone makes probation the preferable sentence. Of course, if you’re planning to become some kind of Lex Luthor-style arch-criminal, you probably won’t care too much about your future. But if this is a one time only fuck up, probation gives you the chance to make amends to society and then move on with your life as if nothing happened. The next biggest benefit is that as a term or condition of probation, the court can impose a custodial sentence upon you ranging anywhere from one day to one year in jail. How much of that time you actually spend behind bars varies from county to county. Some places have so much overcrowding, a one year sentence can be satisfied in as little as three months. Other places make you spend as much as eight or nine months behind bars before you are deemed to have satisfied your custodial sentence. The benefit is that with probation the court can send you home with a slap on the wrist and a stern talking to. This is far more preferable that spending a year or two behind bars. Obviously, avoiding spending even a night in jail is everyone’s goal. Your attorney can craft a sentencing memorandum for you designed to achieve that goal. In that document, he’ll point out all the positive aspects of your life: your educational and/or employment achievements, your family and community ties, the drastic consequences custody would have on your family (usually including the loss of income), whatever charitable or volunteer work you regularly engaged in prior to your arrest. In short, anything that puts you in a positive light before the court is fair game for inclusion in this document. You’re going to need it, because in almost every case, the local probation department is going to prepare a sentencing report for the court, and I can all but guarantee you they are going to highlight every negative factor they can unearth about you. The biggest

21

drawback is that you need to meet with them for an interview, and many times you end up being their primary source for negative information. I usually advised my clients to be respectful during this interview, but to never, ever speak about the crimes or the case with a probation officer. Simply tell the p.o. that their attorney would be submitting a statement from the client to the court prior to sentencing. The reason I would do this was too many times a probation officer would not truly understand the facts of the case, and take client statements out of context. The statements would then become gospel for both the probation department and the court, and no amount of correcting on my part would change anyone’s mind. Very little good ever came from letting a client speak with probation, so I usually advised them to not say a word beyond name, rank and serial number. How you should precede a strictly between you and your attorney, so you should discuss this issue in depth before you make any decisions on how you should respond during the probation interview. Are you finally beginning to see why I keep harping on the subject of hiring the best attorney you can afford? The other big benefit to a grant of probation is that the court can order you to serve a custodial sentence in ways that avoid you actually going into jail. There are several alternatives, although one or more may not be available in your jurisdiction. House arrest (where you wear a bracelet on your wrist or ankle and have to stay inside your own home, watching TV, downloading porn off the Internet, or whatever it is you do to amuse yourself inside on a rainy day), community service (a.k.a. volunteer service), and work release (those are the poor s.o.b.’s who don’t look like road workers, picking up trash on the sides of the freeway) are all options the court has as far as alternative sentences. If you have a drug or alcohol problem (or can fake it really good) there is always this old standby: a drug rehabilitation program. This can range from going to a couple of N.A. meetings each week all the way up to going into an in-house, lockdown program where you live in the treatment facility and spend at least the initial portion of your stay locked in your room. It’s kind of like jail, but nowhere near as dangerous. I’ve heard that the food is a hell of a lot better in some of these rehab facilities. All of these programs are alternatives to spending any time in jail, and a good attorney can at least get you approved or accepted into one of these programs before your sentencing date. Most of them cost money, but most of them also allow you to keep your job while you “do the time” so you can pay as you go. If you have a career level job, it’s well worth the effort to find an alternative to jail just to keep your job. Again, you can rely upon a good criminal defense attorney to help you find and enroll into one or more of these programs. Sometimes it’s better to get into two or three, just so the court has a number of options at its fingertips when imposing your sentence. You

22

might want to get into the house arrest program, envisioning long nights of Nintendo and the Playboy Channel. The court might prefer to see you picking up trash on the freeway every Saturday morning. Give the court as many options as you can. It can only benefit you in the long run. As long as your record is fairly clean, the charges you are facing are not too serious, and you have a good attorney at your side, you should be able to avoid jail or prison time in most cases. However, sometimes there is a jail cell with your name written on it, and no way to avoid spending a little (or a lot of) time in the slam. If this is one of those times for you, and particularly the first time for you, then you might want to continue reading. What you learn in the rest of this book might just save your life.

23

III. WHEN JAIL IS UNAVOIDABLE On his first day in prison, Steve was introduced to Adam, the inmate assigned to help the new fish get acclimated. “Do you like tennis,” asked Adam? “Why yes, I do” replied Steve. “Well, you’re going to love Sundays” said Adam. “Every Sunday afternoon we have a doubles tennis tournament out in the main yard, and the tournament winners each get a box filled with cigarettes and cookies, to use or trade later in the week. Do you like to play backgammon?” “I was champion in my college fraternity three years running” said Steve proudly. “Well, you’re going to love Wednesdays” said Adam. “Every Wednesday night we have a doubles backgammon tournament, and the tournament winners each get a box of soups and sodas that the winners can use or trade later in the week. Are you by chance a homosexual?” “God no!” exclaimed a horrified Steve. “Well, you’re going to hate Fridays,” said Adam My all time favorite prison joke

--------------------------------------Let me take a guess here. What is happening to you is completely unfair. You don’t deserve to go to jail, no matter what it is you did. You’re not a criminal. Plenty of people you know do far worse things than you did, and they got off with a fine, and some of them got their cases dismissed. This is just not fair. Why aren’t they spending their money going after murderers and rapists, instead of penny ante bullshit like your case? This is just not fair, and it’s not right. Am I right? Well guess what, Tex? Nobody gives a shit, and you need to get over this bout of self pity right fucking now and start preparing for a hard dose of reality. You’re going to jail. If you’ve never been there before, you’re about to get the King Hell eye opener of all time. If you have any kind of notion that you are the least bit superior to other members of the human race, I strongly suggest you have that portion of your brain surgically removed, because it will make what is about to happen a whole lot easier to stomach. But we’ll get to all of that shortly.

24

If you’re lucky, you’re reading this at least a month or more before you are scheduled to turn yourself in (or before you are even sentenced). This will give you enough time to get physically and mentally prepared to do your time. You need to address both aspects in order to give yourself the best chance to survive, and even thrive a little bit in the custodial setting. I’m going to give you some recommendations on how to prepare, and like always you’re free to follow as much or as little of that advice as you see fit. Just remember, jail is about to become your reality, and it is unlike anything you’ve experienced before, with new rules of order and new expectations for your attitudes and behavior. So pay attention, and maybe you’ll learn a thing or two.

25

1. Physical Preparation I don’t know what kind of physical shape you’re in right now, but the odds are pretty good you can stand to lose a few pounds and gain some muscle mass. I only say that because better than 95% of all my clients were at least a little flabby and overweight (except for the cranksters…They were too skinny, most even grossly underweight). Surviving Jail, particularly when you’re not already some hardcore, arch-criminal gangster, is almost all about appearances. If you appear to be strong, appear to be tough, appear to be levelheaded, appear to be able to handle yourself in virtually any situation, then you have a very good chance of getting out of jail unscathed, your anal virginity intact. To enhance that appearance, you need to be in decent shape. Not Arnold Schwartzenwhatever shape. Just lean enough and defined enough to make most of the shit disturbers in lockup think twice about trying to start anything with you. These clowns are basically grown up versions of the schoolyard bully. They pick on those who appear to be too weak to defend themselves. If you look like someone who could throw a punch and make it mean something, they’ll steer clear of you and aim it at some poor skinny s.o.b. (the above mentioned cranksters, for instance). Your first task is going to be to lose some weight. There are tons of diets and pills on the market designed to help you drop weight quickly. Some work, some don’t, and some are damned dangerous, worse than being locked up. The smartest way you could lose weight, and actually train for being locked up, is simply to eat less. Your average jail meal is going to be two things: 1. Small, and 2. Unappetizing. I cannot swear by it, but I’m fairly certain that jailhouse cooks have not heard much about America’s war on obesity. In jail, you tend to get meals with high fat and carbohydrate content, smothered in salt. If you have high blood pressure, these meals are like a death sentence. The only good thing you can say about the food is that you don’t get very much of it. I was locked up in jail three times. The first time was in Arizona, where I first learned that a warrant for my arrest was issued by San Diego County. It took five days for me to see a judge, get bail set, have some very good friends post that bail, and spring me back into the real world. My blood pressure was 128 over 83 when I first arrived at the jail. After five days of eating what I lovingly called salt licks, my departure blood pressure was 150 over 100. In that I was not feeling threatened by my situation (the guys in maximum security in Kingman, Arizona were hella-cool), I attribute that rise in my B.P. to the sodium-heavy diet.

26

My second time inside was just a overnight, when the dumbass judge who handled my arraignment decided to throw me in and make me repost bail (in spite of me being out on $27,000.00 bail from my Arizona stay, he wanted an additional $10,000). Since this was just a turnaround, I never even saw the nurse so I can’t say what my B.P. numbers were for that little vacation. My third time inside was after the trial judge gave me 270 days and imposed immediate custody. On arrival, the nurse took my B.P. and it was 130 over 84 (well within my normal range). Three days and nine salt licks later, I entered the trustee program and was again checked by the nurse. My BP had risen up to 145 over 96. This was high enough to justify a recheck every night for five straight nights. Each night, my numbers rose just a bit, until finally I capped out at 155 over 100 (after an additional eighteen salt licks). I requested a special no-salt diet (which in San Diego means they only put half a pound of salt in your food, instead of the normal 2 pounds). The medical staff made me see a doctor first, who tried to put me on blood pressure medication. I balked. No pills. Just salt free food. The doc looked at me like I had three heads. You sure you don’t want meds? he asked. Apparently, I was the first inmate patient he’d ever seen that specifically refused pills, as opposed to asking for second and third helpings. So they put me on a no salt diet, and I was back down to 130/85 within a few days. If you have (or think you might have) blood pressure issues, I advise you to raise the topic immediately upon your visit to the nurse, just as soon as you go into custody. In the meantime, start eating smaller portions of food, and try to limit your meals to the standard three a day. If you can force yourself to do this, the shock over getting small portions at each meal while locked up will be minimal. You just need to train your body to run on less fuel, that’s all. Since The Man is going to enforce this rule on you in a short while anyway, you might as well get used to it now. What is amazing is how so many people you go in with will actually put on ten, twenty, or 30 pounds while locked up. Some do it by bartering for more food from guys who just naturally eat less (or who are like me and absolutely refused to eat the fake hamburgers). Others just live such a ridiculous lifestyle on the outside that eating is just too low on their priority list to even matter. Drugs usually occupy spots one through ten on the list. Inside, where they have less access to drugs (and notice I did not say “no access” to drugs) they start eating again and start putting on pounds after every meal. If you’re carrying extra weight, your goal between now and the day you go inside should be to drop 10lbs., or 20lbs., or whatever seems right for your situation. Even if you end up being somebody’s bitch, your heart will thank you for losing the extra weight. Sorry. Just kidding.

27

Along those same lines, you should also start a daily regimen of physical calisthenics. This will serve several purposes: One. Help you lose additional weight faster. Two. Improve your cardiovascular system. Three. Help you add muscle mass, which will further enhance your appearance as someone who should just be left the hell alone. You don’t need to turn into a John Candy-like Lean Mean Fighting Machine. Just do situps, pushups, pull ups, squats and some light jogging. Start with a minimum goal for each exercise and add additional reps each day. For instance, I suck it pushups. Always have, always will. After my jury came back guilty, I knew there was a real good chance I was going inside (anyone else besides a lawyer would receive a misdemeanor… I damn near got a bullet). I figured I better start getting into shape, and the very next morning got down on the floor to see how many pushups I could do before my arms gave out. Six. Six fucking pushups were all I could muster. I was stunned. I’d spent the summer working for some friends who owned an auction company, and I had loaded and unloaded countless trucks and storage sheds full of furniture, refrigerators, pianos, etc. I figured my upper body strength was pretty solid. Six pushups. I wanted to cry. Instead, I set a goal. Tomorrow I was going to do seven pushups. The next day, eight. The day after, nine, and so on until I could crank out 50 pushups at a crack. I did the same thing with situps, where I did not suck so badly, but was still in need of serious improvement. I started right after Halloween, and by Christmas, I could drop in give you 50 pushups and 100 situps at a moment’s notice. Once I was inside, I kept up my regimen of 50/100, adding a few extra here and there. It helped that my cellie was also something of a fitness buff (unusual in a crack addict) so we spotted each other during situps, and yelled each other on as we tried to break a personal best in pushups. Unless you spend your day in a wheelchair, there is no reason you can’t do the same, and start toning your body. You’ll look better, you’ll feel better, and you’ll give yourself the

28

maximum chance to get through this experience in one piece. And when you get out, hopefully you’ll turn this into a habit (probably one of the few good ones you have) and keep it up for life. There is one other thing you can do for yourself, which will give you an extra bit of confidence while inside. That is to take a short self defense course. Take a class in person if you can find one, or at least buy a course where you can learn five or six tricks of allow you to stop a potential attack (or survive one) without any real damage to yourself. I had one confrontation while I was locked up, and it happened on the third night I was in jail. I handled it swiftly, inflicting a severe amount of pain of my assailant, and I never even had to stand up. I’ll talk about it in detail a little later. For now just consider how much easier life will be for you if word gets spread around that you are the kind of guy who should not be fucked with for any reason. That was my reputation after this conflict, and I believe it saved me a lot of hassles the rest of the time I was locked up. If you aren’t sure what kind of class I’m talking about, check out these web sites: http://www.jailsd1.com http://www.jailsd2.com (if these links are not “live” simply copy them and paste them into your web browser or type them in, using the entire web address). This is the kind of information you’ll want to know BEFORE you go in. Afterwards will probably be too late to save your life.

29

2. Mental Preparation I don’t want to sound like too much of an anarchist, but I have never had a lot of respect for authority figures. Going to law school, passing the bar, and interacting closely with judges, prosecutors and cops did nothing but entrench my feelings towards them, and we ain’t talking happy thoughts here. I know of judges and deputy DA’s who have molested kids, then gone out of their way to see that others accused of molest do the maximum amount of prison time allowed under the law. I know of one cop who raped several women. He would stop them, write them tickets to get their home addresses, then show up on their doorstep one night and finagle his way into their homes. Several of them filed police reports alleging rape. If you or I did something like that, they’d be piping sunlight down to us for the next 80 or 90 years. He got one year in jail, reduced to time served after 60 days by a sympathetic judge. I see and hear of these things happening, and the bile rises in my throat faster than I can spit it out. Now, I’m at the mercy of these hypocritical dickweeds. 270 days of calling them Sir, pressing my face to the nearest wall whatever one of them walks by, dropping my pants so they can inspect my nether regions for drugs or machine guns or whatever. Needless to say, I’m not happy. However, I “got my mind right” before I went inside. I knew from all the stories I’d heard about what I could expect, and buddy, those stories did not let me down. I don’t know what your background is. Maybe you spent some time in the military, so you have at least some idea of what is in store for you. If not, never fear. I’m here to give you the heads up. You’re about to surrender your freedom to a bunch of guys who seem to enjoy hanging around men who are shackled up. This might be normal behavior for anyone with a taste for gay S&M clubs. It is not normal anywhere else. Regardless, this is their chosen profession, and the law clearly states they can pretty much do whatever the fuck they please to you and get away with it. Knowing that, you need to suppress whatever negative feelings you have towards authority figures in general, and cops specifically, and learn to say “yes sir” and “no sir” automatically. Accept the fact that your life is no longer your own, and in order to get 30

through this ordeal as quickly and as painlessly as possible, you need to be prepared to bow down before them as often as is necessary. Now, I know there are guys out there who completely disagree with that advice. They think the key to successfully doing time is to fuck with the guards every chance they get. These guys tend to spend a lot of time in solitary and in the medical wards. You want to follow in their footsteps, go ahead. Be my guest. When all you’re wearing is paper clothes, eating minimal rations and sleeping on a steel bunk with no blanket or pillow, in an ice cold cell, I’ll be in the trustee tank, watching a DVD and drinking a Coke. Who do you think has a better lifestyle right about now? Don’t fight the fact that the cops are in charge, and you have no power. Accept it, and make the necessary changes in your life that will allow you to exist in this environment with a minimal amount of heartache. What helped me the most was writing. I wrote so many letters that my fingers were all but mangled by the time I got out. I wrote my family several times, my lawyer (who doubles as my best friend) nearly every week, and my girlfriend (now my wife) virtually every day. I would chronicle the funniest and or sickest happenings of the day (or week). I focused almost all my spare energy writing about my fellow inmates, and rarely mentioned any staff members. Since all outgoing mail is read cover to cover by the nosy bastards, it did not seem too prudent to mention how badly I wanted to beat some of their asses. I saved that for this book. I also wrote a screenplay I’d been wrestling with on the outside for a couple of years. My excuse for not putting anything down on paper had always been that I just didn’t have the time. On January 9, 2004, I suddenly had a lot of time. 270 days worth, to be exact. Writing kept me sane, and helped me deal with the fact that I was in an environment where I was considered to be and treated as less than human. What will work for you? I can’t answer that. Sorry. This is one of those calls only you can make. Maybe writing will be what helps you cope. Maybe it will be every spare hour spent working out on the weight pile. I know some guys who slept twelve hours a day. No kidding. Twelve hours. They’d work eight hours, shower, eat, then go to bed, only getting up to eat the other two meals. Some guy spent all their free time doing art work. There are some amazing artists locked up in jails and prisons all over America. Guys who

31

can draw your picture with nothing more than a pencil and make it look like a black and white photograph. Find something that will help you cope, and take you away from this new reality, even if only for a while. Your mental preparation is vitally important, but remember that you have family members who also need to be prepared. If you’re married and have kids, your family is going to be suffering while you’re gone. Even if you leave them with sufficient money to pay all the bills and live comfortably, your absence is going to create a big hole in their lives. Unless you’re a sociopath, you’re going to be missing them just as badly. But you need to understand that once you’re inside, your ability to contact them is going to be limited. Unless you live in the most generous jail on Planet Earth, any phone calls you make are either going to be collect, or with a jail provided calling card. Either way, every call is going to be expensive. When I was in practice, I had dozens of women contact my office, asking for help in getting a message to their husband or boyfriend who was inside. After 30 plus days of collect phone calls, their phone bills exceeded $500.00 and the phone company had blocked their number from accepting collect calls until the bill was paid. Their lines of communication were cut, and they needed my help ferrying messages inside. If you call home every single night, you are putting your family the same situation: putting their ability to maintain a phone in their home in jeopardy. This is where you have to make a decision: are you going to do your time on the inside or on the outside? I’ll be brutally honest with you: guys who do their time on the outside have the hardest time getting through the experience. Doing your time on the outside simply means you devote several hours a day to calling your family: your wife, your girlfriend (or girlfriends), your kids, your parents, your job, the lottery results line, and anyone else who will take your call. You have an overwhelming urge to hear the voices of friends and loved ones, and to stay up to date with the latest news in every single one of their lives. This is not a good coping strategy for being locked up. Every time you get good news, you will immediately, upon hanging up the phone, feel depressed because you were not present to share the happy times that blessed the outsiders. Every time you get bad news, you’ll immediately, upon hanging up the phone, feel depressed because there is a situation out there brewing that somehow directly affects you but over which you have no control, seeing as how you are locked up and all.

32

In spite of the 99.999% chance that deep, serious depression will ensue as soon as they hang up, there will always be a core group of guys who will spend every available minute on the phone, doing their time on the outside. Don’t be one of them. Accept that fact that life is going on without you on the outside. There is literally nothing you can do from the inside that will influence the course of events out there in the real world. You are powerless. Accept it, make your peace with it, and move on with getting your time behind you. As I mentioned earlier, I got bucketed on January 9, 2004. About a month later, I got the news that my mother had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. My dad had died about a year earlier from complications from lung cancer. So getting this news about my mom really shook me up, and I felt the need to call her and talk to her. I knew there was absolutely nothing I could do about the situation while locked up, but I wanted just to hear her voice so I could gauge for myself how bad things were going for her. I managed to score a calling card from the commissary, and made a fifteen minute phone call early one morning. I could tell from the sound of her voice that she was doing OK. I immediately relaxed, and after the call, went back to doing my time on the inside. I only made one other phone call while I was inside, the details of which I will share with you in a later chapter. Do your time on the inside. Focus your time and energy on your job, on any hobbies you develop or bring with you, get lots of sleep, and before you know it, you’ll hear your name being called to “roll up” which is jail-speak for “go home”.

33

3. Your First 24 Hours Inside For virtually every single person who goes to jail the first time, the first 24 hours are the absolute worst! In any city with an average to large population, you’re going to be herded through the booking and classification process with 50 other guys, most of whom could use a bath. You’ll be shoved into a twelve man cell, which is occupied by the same 50 non-bathing inmates. There will be one, maybe two toilets, and enough bench space for fifteen or so people to sit down. The rest will either stand or lie down on the floor. As time goes on, the door will open and more guys will be shoved into the cell, until there is barely enough room to breathe. Access to a telephone is going to be limited, simply because 50 guys all want to use the phone at the same time. At some point, you’re going to be stripped bare-ass naked and surrender your own clothing for a nondescript jail jumpsuit, then trade your name for a number. If you get to eat at all, it will probably be a baloney sandwich (normally referred to as a donkey dick sandwich) which was made anywhere from two hours to two days ago. Your every move and every word is going to be observed by the more predatory members of your group, and if you show any signs of weakness, you could find yourself in the middle of a fight you did nothing to start. You will pray to God to save you a least 100 times, even if you don’t believe God is really out there. If you can just get through this period, the rest of your time will be a piece of cake. So how do you get through this 24 hours of hell?

A. Keep Your Cool. On my first day in Kingman, Arizona, I was in a holding cell with five to eight other guys. Some were just being held for a few hours, to dry out from an alcohol or drug binge, then released. Others were in the process of making bail. So our little group changed from hour to hour, depending on who was going home, and who was being processed for a longer stay. After about twelve hours, this youngster got tossed into our cell. His crime? Shooting a gun off in public. He wasn’t firing at anyone, just shooting it into the air. He called a bail bondsman, and arranged for his release. Now all he had to do was wait.

34

Unfortunately, waiting was not his strong suit. After about three hours, he began to scream at the guards, certain that they were ignoring his bond and keeping him locked up longer than he needed to be. As time went on, he got nastier and nastier with the staff, finally resorting to threats of lawyers and lawsuits and garnishing their wages forever. Unfortunately (for him) he directed his anger towards one deputy who he could see sitting at a table, reading a newspaper. I don’t recall his exact words, but whatever it was he said was enough to get the dep to put down his paper, open the cell door, drag his dumb ass outside, and beat the ever loving shit out of him. Of course, no one saw or heard a thing. Not even us inmates. This guy failed to follow rule number one: Always Keep Your Cool, particularly if the person or persons causing you the problems are the cops who run the jail. They alone have the keys that will let you out, and if you go out of your way to piss them off, they’ll either put you on their pay no mind list, guaranteeing you many extra hours or days in jail time, or worse, pull you out of the cell and beat the ever loving shit out of you. You want to use the phone… No, let me rephrase…Is it absolutely imperative that you use the phone to make contact with someone on the outside, and somebody else is using it for what appears to be a stupid, pointless, waste of time conversation? Keep your cool. They’ll run out of steam eventually, and you can get your turn as soon as they’re done. Don’t hang over them like a vulture in attempt to get them to speed up the conversation and end the call. It won’t work, and you’ll start your stay in jail by pissing somebody off, potentially making your first enemy. Keep your cool. Did the cops throw nine bag lunches into a cell with ten guys, and you ended up with nothing to eat? Keep your cool. Calmly get the dep’s attention the next time he walks by, and politely point out they were a meal short. If he tells you to pound sand, take comfort in the fact that jail food is shitty, and you really aren’t missing all that much anyway. You’ll get another meal in a few hours. In the meantime one or more of your cellmates probably won’t eat everything they found in their bag and may be willing to share with you. Keep your cool. Remember what I said earlier about inmates watching each other, looking for the guys who display their weaknesses? If you keep your cool, you’re not displaying any weakness. If you show a lot of anger at the system, if you yell, scream or (God forbid)

35

cry, you mark yourself as a new fish, and the predators are going to take a much closer look at you as a potential victim. Unless you are directly challenged by another inmate, and have to fight right off the bat, there is nothing else that is going to happen that is worth losing your cool over. Keep your cool.

B. Look For A Friend. Jail is probably the last place on earth you would think of to look for a new friend. Sadly, your old friends down at the yacht club are probably a little too busy to drop by for a drink, so you now have a limited group from which to choose a new friend. Whether you’re young or old, normally your best bet when looking for someone to sit next to and talk with is an older guy. By older, I mean 40 years old or older. There are a lot of benefits to hanging out with the old guys. First, the young guys leave them alone for the most part. Unless you’re a famous prisoner, or have a long criminal background that has brought you into contact with virtually every person in your cell, you’re an unknown quantity to everyone. For all they know, the old guys have been through the system a dozen times before. Thus, they are worthy of respect. If you have a group of youngsters in with a group of old guys, the two groups normally divide the cell between them, and except for some good natured banter, leave each other alone. If you’re an older guy, you’re going to get the benefit of this respect, so don’t piss it away by acting like a pussy and crying about how unfair life is to you. Save that for your memoirs. If you’re a young guy (eighteen to mid thirties) you should still try to hang out with the older guys. You can avoid a lot of the bullshit politicking that goes on with the younger crowd. Gangs are always looking to recruit new members, and the younger you are, the more likely you are to be targeted by a gang as either a potential new member, or a victim. The more time you spend with the old guys, the less time the gangsters will spend sizing you up. If you’re up on current events at all, the older guys are usually a lot more enjoyable to talk with. How many of the shaved head 18 year olds do you think can carry on a decent conversation about the shape of politics in our country? Older guys tend to be better informed on current events, and many of them have been through the system a few times, and can give you a heads up on what to expect in your particular jail. Another benefit the hanging with the older guys that the informal rules governing racial segregation are not as strict. In most jails and prisons, young blacks hang out with young blacks, young whites hang out with young whites, young Hispanics with young

36

Hispanics, and so on. For the older guys, there is still some separation, but no one gets their panties in a twist if an old black guy and an old white guy hang out together. It goes back to the whole “respect your elders” thing I mentioned earlier. By the time you hit 40 or so, you generally have the respect of the youngsters, who will go on about destroying each other’s lives, leaving the older guys alone in the process. So if two oldtimers of different races want to sit by each other during chow, no one really complains. As it turned out during my stay in San Diego, most of my friends were black (I’m white like Casper the Friendly Ghost). I didn’t go into jail looking to make all black friends, it just sort of turned out that way. Quite frankly, the black guys were funnier, better informed on local current events, and did not seem to have the chip on their shoulders that a lot of the white and Hispanic inmates were carrying around. They were more accepting of me as a person, not just as a guy with white skin. How things turn out for you is not for me to guess. If you hook up with an older guy, one who has been through that particular jail once or twice or ten times, he can give you all the information on who you should or should not hang with. Listen to this advice. You might not buy stock based on this guy’s recommendation, but you damn sure better give his survival advice a lot of weight. He’s old, which means he survived and he probably knows what he’s talking about. Now, after digesting all this information, you should pick your new friends exactly the way you would on the outside. Whatever qualities you value in a friend on the outside, look for those same qualities in the people you’re locked up with. They’ll be there, just maybe in smaller doses. If you’ve never been inside a jail before, you probably have some preconceived notions about what the inmates are like. You’ve seen Oz, and The Shawshank Redemption, and a few other movies and TV shows. You’ve seen how inmates are portrayed in these works of fiction. In truth, there are some pretty smart, compassionate, friendly guys who’ve been locked up. Probably deservedly. This does not make them per se bad people. You’ll see what I mean once you’re inside. Find the decent guys. Make friends with them. Your time will go much faster, particular the first 24 hours.

C. Heartchecks. Some guys find themselves facing heart checks within minutes of their arrival in jail. For other guys, it can take days before they get their first heartcheck. Some guys never get one. Pray you fall into this last category.

37

A heart check is a toughness test administered by another inmate to determine if you’re going to be a pussy or a man. Simply put, you’re going to be challenged over something that seems trivial: someone demands that you give them something off your plate (as opposed to asking, which is very common), or a piece of clothing you’re wearing. Maybe that person claims you are sitting in his seat. No matter what it is, tell them to fuck off, and be prepared to fight to back it up. The younger you are, the more likely you are to face a heartcheck. The older you are, the less likely you are to face one, but it is not entirely forbidden. I got my heartcheck on my third night inside. I was still in general population, waiting to be assigned to a permanent bunk in one of the five jails operated by San Diego County. I was in a two story dorm room was 55 other guys, just sleeping and eating and waiting for my fate. There were seven tables, each with eight seats at each table, where we ate all three meals. Three tables were claimed by the black inmates, two by the whites, two by the Hispanics, and one which was an overflow for the guys who just didn’t fit in anywhere else. Old guys, homeless guys and the general crazies all ate at this table. Naturally, that’s where I sat. One of the regulars at the table was a scrawny little black man, probably 55 or 60 years old, who looked like he hadn’t eaten in days. As I was still adjusting to the salt licks, I was eating very little at each meal, so I usually offered him whatever I had left over. He always took it with the grunt, never a thank you or eye contact or anything else. On the third night, aside from the normal slop, we each got a cookie with our dinner. I ate what I could of my meal, gave the rest to the old black guy, and was about to start in on my cookie when a fairly large black guy appeared at our table, next to me, and demand that I give him my cookie. Notice I used the word demanded. This means its heartcheck time. I looked up at him, and told him “Sorry, it’s spoken for”. Then I winked at him. I’m not sure what pissed him off more: the “no” or the wink. He thrust his right hand towards my plate and said “Give me that motherfuckin’ cookie”. I caught his hand as it got close to my plate, grabbed his right thumb in my fist, and twisted that fucker just as hard as I could. I felt and heard a very strong “pop” as I twisted, and all the color drained from his face (no racial pun intended). He fell to the floor, screaming and rolling and holding onto his strangely misshapen thumb, as if it were the crown jewels.

38

After a few minutes of this ruckus, the deps quit downloading porn off the Internet, or whatever it is they do it that desk all day and all night, and came in to investigate. “What’s wrong with him?” one of them asked. I was prepared to cop to breaking or dislocating his thumb in an attempt to keep him away from my food. I never had a chance. My skinny, homeless chow buddy said “He fell down the stairs.” One of the deps told the cookie monster “Get up, you ain’t hurt,” which turned out to be not quite true. After another hour of his crying and complaining, the deps finally took him to medical call. Later I heard the so called doctors diagnosed a broken thumb. The next day, one of the deps took me to the side and asked if I wanted to be a trustee in the downtown jail. Working is a great way to make the time go by faster, so I said yes, and the rest is history. As it turned out, I survived my heartcheck, if that is in fact what it really was. Normally your heartcheck will come from a member of your own race. Since this one was black on white, it was more likely just a predator who made the wrong call when he sized me up and decided to steal my cookie from me. Either way, I was now a man to be reckoned with, if anyone wanted to try and fuck with me some more. No one did. The key to surviving a heart check is to stand up for yourself. The odds are pretty good that you won’t be able to talk your way out of it, and you’re going to have to fight. Just make sure it you do your best to fuck up the other guy real good. Don’t be shy about gouging his eyes out or breaking his fingers or thumbs. It’s your survival that’s at stake, not this dipshit’s. Leave him for dead if you have to. Just don’t give up and walk away. If you do, there will be a target on your back for the rest of your time inside, and anything you buy, steal or get as a gift will end up being taken away from you by a bunch of guys who have no fear of you.

D. Eating and Socializing As I mentioned earlier, in your first 24 hours inside, you’re going to be paraded from one holding cell to the next, until the powers that be figure out where to warehouse you. This usually means your meals are going to be in the holding cell, eaten out of a paper bag. Maybe you’ll luck out and score a hot meal, but don’t count on it. Peanut butter or donkey dick sandwiches are pretty much the only menu items available on your first day inside. Prepare to deal with it. If I did not make this point crystal clear when I was talking about heartchecks, let me do my best to make it crystal clear right now:

39

There is a HUGE difference between somebody “asking” you for some food, and somebody “demanding” that you give them your food. I don’t think a single meal went by where I was not asked by someone to trade something: a cookie for a fruit punch, a sandwich for pasta salad, and entrée for a drink, something like that. Trading food is a common occurrence at the jail table. You can either say yes or say no, and no one will give you any shit about your decision. The trade request usually goes down like this: “Dog you gonna eat that sammich?” “Yeah, dog, sorry.” That’s it. Dog #1 goes on to the next guy and tries to work out something there. Dog #2 eats his sammich. No problem for anyone. Compare that to the dipshit who says “Gimme that motherfuckin’ cookie” and jabs his hand towards your plate. This guy, you just break his thumb and eat the cookie in front of him. If you really want to rub salt in the wound, making “yummy” noises while you eat it. If you have food left over at any meal, do not just throw it away. Show some compassion for your fellow inmates and offer it up to the table. More times than not, someone is going to want to eat it, and will appreciate your willingness to give it away. This good deed could come back in your direction tomorrow, and a lot of the guys who take the extra food from you today, will offer the extra food to you exclusively tomorrow as a way of saying thank you. In spite of the deep fried shit they serve and call food, you’re going to run into days where you just have to gorge yourself, and it helps if you’ve built up a few favors owed to you in the favor bank.

E. P.C. Versus General Population I hope that if you’re reading this book, you’re not charged with any crime that is in any way related to sexual offenses against children. Personally, I have nothing against you if you are. Having represented literally dozens of men accused of child molestation, I realize that this is the one area of the law where more mistakes are made than in any other. Women make the accusation against men to get them out of the house, or to gain an advantage in a divorce case. Rebellious teen girls make the charge against a father or stepfather as retribution for discipline imposed in the home. Then again, sometimes you just like fucking little kids. In truth, it does not matter if you did it or not. Once the word gets out amongst the jail or prison population that you’re a convicted or accused child molester, you can pretty much chart your life expectancy with a stopwatch.

40

Maybe that sounds a little crass, or flip, but it’s the truth. Whatever you’ve heard about the treatment of child molesters behind bars, multiply it by 100, and it’s still not serious enough. This is why God (in the form of the state, which is trying ever so hard to replace and eliminate the concept of God in every way) invented P. C. P. C. stands for protective custody, and if you’re charged with, or convicted of a sex offense, you should seriously consider asking for P. C. the very second you hit the jailhouse door. It will probably be the difference between walking out of jail one day a free man, and rolling out of jail with a tag on your toe. P.C.’s are usually single celled, or placed in a cell with one other person who is charged with something similar. Hopefully your cellie isn’t some sort of jailhouse hypocrite who hates molesters in spite of his being charged with the same crime. Also hopefully you get along with your cellie, because in most PC jail pods, you are locked up in your cell with him 23 hours a day. When I was in San Diego, we were responsible for feeding the PCs and more often than not, we’d slide the trays of food through a slot in the door. There were twelve cells to a pod, two men in each cell. Under the house rules, each one of them was allowed out of the cell for one hour a day. If the cellies got along, they would both get to go out at the same time. After the hour was up, back into the 6ft. by 10ft. cell for another 23 hours. If you’ve never been inside before, this might sell like a pretty good deal, being separated from the rest of the prison population, safely locked up by yourself around the clock. In truth, most people who are in PC hate it with a passion. The boredom of being locked in a room for almost your entire sentence is enough to drive some people crazy. Literally. If you’re a gambler, or a pretty good salesman, you might want to just try your luck in general population. If you can bullshit your way past the few inmates who will make it their business to find out about your life story, you’ll probably do OK in GenPop. Because I’d not only been a lawyer, but a criminal defense lawyer to boot, the bailiff in the courtroom where I was sentenced was kind enough to write on my booking slip “inquire about PC.” When I arrived in central receiving, the desk officer at the booking desk asked in a voice loud enough to be heard for miles around “why do you want PC?” I put on my best “Whatchoo talking bout, Willis?” face and said I didn’t ask for PC. That ended the conversation. For about twenty minutes.

41

Once I was inside the first holding cell, this 30 something gangster makes it a point to ask me in front of everyone in the holding tank “Why’d they offer you PC?” I was forced to think quickly on that one, and told this clown I used to work for some lawyers here in town, and I guess they thought I might need PC from some of their clients. Since the clients hate the fucking lawyers, not me, I didn’t need P.C. This started a general round of “My lawyer really fucked me because…” and within seconds (the normal attention span of the average inmate) I was forgotten as story after story was told of dump trucks and shitty case results. Unless you really believe your life is going to be in jeopardy (and I don’t mean just because you’ve never been inside and are generally fearful of the experience) avoid PC like the fucking plague and tough it out inside GenPop. I think you’ll be a lot happier in the long run.

F. Classification. At some stage during your first 24 hours, you should meet with a classification officer who will take down a brief life history and then decide where in the system you need to be placed. Your past criminal record (I’m assuming little to none in your case), your gang affiliations (again, I’m assuming none), your work history and educational background all add up to a certain score. This gives the classification officer a certain idea as to where you should be placed. If all of the above assumptions are true about you (no prior record, etc.) and you have a good education and work history, you’re going to classify out at the lowest possible level for your crime. Now if you’re convicted of murder, or rape, or any of a number of other serious offenses that require a large amount of prison time, this will override your classification score and land you in a high security prison or jail. But for your average dope fiend, drunk driver, embezzler, or other low level offender, a low classification means a minimum or medium security facility, and a lot more freedom than the poor bastards in maximum security are ever going to get. One tip to remember: if you have any physical ailments, it may be best to keep those to yourself as long as they’re not constantly recurring and/or life threatening. A lot of times your classification is going to be right at the line between minimum security and medium security. If you’re healthy and able to work, this might be enough to push you back over the line into minimum security. If you complain about physical ailments, it might be enough to land you in medium security, where jobs are less plentiful but the prison hospitals are a little more advanced. This is not to say you should ignore or try to hide conditions like high blood pressure. On the contrary, this is serious enough that you need to mention it to the classification officer

42

when he asks if you have any diseases or medical conditions that need treatment. I’ve never heard of high blood pressure disqualifying anyone from a job or a minimum security placement. But if you have a hemorrhoid problem, or occasional bouts with arthritis, you might just keep your mouth shut and play through the pain. The perks and benefits of a minimum security placement will probably be worth the aching joints and the itchy ass.

G. Contact With The Outside World In most major metropolitan areas, the first few holding tanks you’ll visit have what is called a “free phone.” This means you can make local calls free of charge. You may not see another free phone for days or weeks or months, so if you feel the need to talk to someone on the outside, I suggest you make the call right now while it’s free. Once your collect call charges start mounting up, you’ll notice people are a little less thrilled to hear from you (unless you’re only making one call a month). If you’re married, right now your wife is worried sick about you, so it probably wouldn’t hurt to call her and reassure her that everything is going to be OK. Even if you don’t believe it yourself. After you leave this series of holding tanks, you can pretty much kiss the free calls goodbye for good, with one exception. If you enter into the trustee program, or otherwise get a job with someone who has access to a telephone, you’ll occasionally get the chance to make a call at the expense of the state (or county). I managed to get one phone call, very grudgingly offered by a deputy who dragged me out of bed to clean a cell were some psycho smeared shit all over the walls. It’s filthy, disgusting work, and normally this dick would get new trustee inmates out of bed at 3:00 AM to do the cleaning, when noon would work just as well. In my case, he made me go up to his floor and spend a half hour sniffing shit while I cleaned the cell. Then, after all that, he told me he was too busy to take me back to my floor (I guess you have to pay constant attention when you download that much porn!) I asked if I could use a phone and make a call, seeing as how I was going to be stuck there for awhile. Normally the phone they gave us to use was in a locked day room, and all the calls must be local. Since it was 3:30 AM, I think he thought it was funny I would want to call someone and wake them up, so he said sure, use my phone. I’ll be around the corner. So I sat at his desk and made my call. To my girlfriend. Who lived just outside of Tokyo, Japan, where it was 6:00 PM and she had just finished eating dinner.

43

I’ve heard and read that the County of San Diego is pretty fucked up right now, financially, and maybe they just aren’t paying close enough attention to the little details. Like 40 minute phone calls to Japan on county lines. Anyway, I was there for another 63 days, and no one ever came back to ask me if I was the one calling girls around the world on their dime. So thanks, San Diego, from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate being given the chance to call my sweetie on Valentine’s Day. If you get the chance to use a free phone, use it. In all likelihood, in your first 24 hours you will not be getting a visit from anyone you love, since the jail computers will not even acknowledge you are inside until the booking process is complete. This can be 12 to 24 hours in most cases. So use the phone if you get the chance. Just remember your manners, and try not to making any mortal enemies on your first day inside.

H. House Chaplains Most jails and pretty much all prisons have at least one chaplain, if you feel the need for some spiritual guidance or reassurance. Even though these guys subscribe to one particular faith, they do a pretty good job of crossing over in helping out someone of a different faith. Unless they magically appear in the holding cell, the odds are pretty good you won’t see one for the first 24 hours. After your first day, you can request to speak with one of them if you want to, and quite frankly, most of the chaplains I ever came across are fairly good guys. However, do not expect them to send a message for you to anyone on the outside. They can and will accept phone calls from your loved ones, and check in on you at their request, but that door only swings one way. Most jails and prisons prohibit them from being a messenger between inmates and outsiders, due to the obvious security risks In the event of a family tragedy on the outside, a jail chaplain can be a great help in getting you a brief release from custody to attend a funeral. Again, every jail and prison has their own rules concerning these types of release, which run the gamut from liberal to don’t bother asking. The fastest way to figure out your facility’s policy is to simply ask the chaplain. The best case scenario is that nothing happens while you’re locked up, but when the bad breaks keep falling your way….

44

I. Medical Call At some point in the first 24 hours, you will probably be forced to speak with a nurse or some sort of medical technician. This is where they will interview you concerning your current medical status, and you need to decide if you want to spend the rest your time locked up in a medical ward, or roaming semi-free in general population. Their primary concern is that you do not have any communicable diseases such as AIDS, hepatitis, tuberculosis, or an illness of that nature. They probably catch about 75% of them at the front door, which means 25% of the people with these diseases will be roaming around unchecked inside their facility. After the brief (and I do mean brief) question and answer period, the tech will check your blood pressure, take your temperature, and probably offer you a couple of aspirin to help ease the stress related headache you might have. Then she’ll send you back to the holding cell. If you’re in a position where you have a few weeks on the outside before you turn yourself in, I’d advise getting up to date on your shots. Tetanus is the big one, but you might consider gamma globulin shots to protect you against hepatitis. Hep is probably THE biggest disease problem in jails (with tuberculosis running a close second) so check with your doctor to see if a vaccine is available to you to protect yourself in the event of an exposure. If you wait until you’re inside, they’ll pretty much tell you to pound sand unless you step on a rusty shank or otherwise end up exposed to one of the communicable diseases.

J. Change Out, Search, Delousing I’ve saved the worst for last. This is the part where you say goodbye to your own clothes and put on jail garb for the first time. This is also where the S&M loving guards (we called them gay-ards) get their first chance to peer up your ass. Although it’s the first, it will not be the last, but the first time is always the worst. You and anywhere from zero to ten other guys will be called out of the holding cell, told to strip bare-ass naked, put your clothes and shoes into a bag they provide, then stand there while they give you jailed issued clothing. In almost every instance, the guards will require you to turn away from them, bend over, spread your butt cheeks, and cough strongly two or three times. In theory, this will allow them to see if you have anything up your ass for use in the jail later. Items such as knives, shanks, cigarettes (and I doubledog dare you to put one of THOSE between your lips!), lighters, and drugs of every sort imaginable are the usual contraband found up someone’s backside. If the guards happen to be in a mischievous mood, they’ll keep you bent over for several minutes, inviting others into the room to take a look at several men bent over exposing 45

themselves. I know because when I was working the laundry cart, one of the lunkheads asked if I wanted to come in the change out room while the strip search was in progress. I declined, having seen my fill of assholes over my lifetime. In some jails, they typically delouse all new prisoners. This is accomplished by spraying a liquid or powdered chemical designed to kill bugs on contact. Give the number of homeless men who arrive in jail covered in fleas and lice, I really can’t complain about this procedure. But getting hit with delousing spray is one of the most dehumanizing things you will ever have to endure. Basically it’s society’s way of saying “we don’t think you can handle even the most basic task of self cleansing, so we’ll do it for you.” After you’re deemed bug free, you put on your jail clothes, have an ID band snapped around your wrist, and you now belong lock, stock and smoking barrel to the state. So what is are left to do?

K. Get Some Sleep At some point, you’ll be assigned to a bed, somewhere. You may or may not get a pillow. Usually you be given a towel of some sort, to use after you shower. In the event you don’t get a pillow, roll up your towel and make the best of that situation. If you’re given a roll of toilet paper, roll the towel around the T.P. to give your head and neck a little bit more support. Your mattress will probably be made out of some canvas and plastic combination, and will be less than 2 inches thick. It isn’t much, but it is slightly better than sleeping on the floor, or on a metal bunk. Get used to the idea that the next few days are going to be uncomfortable. But let me give some of you at least one ray of light. I’ve had minor back problems most of my adult life. I attribute it to sleeping on a lousy waterbed for many years, then a succession of bad mattresses. Some mornings I would wake up and barely be able to stand due to the lower back pain. My first five nights of sleeping on this thin-ass mattress, using my towel for a pillow, kept me in perpetual pain. By day number three, I was lucky to be able to get out of bed for chow. Then on day five, I noticed something. The back pain had disappeared. I don’t mean lessened a little bit. I mean completely disappeared. After that, I slept like a log every night, and woke each morning feeling refreshed and ready to take on the world. I’m no doctor, but I did speak with a chiropractor a few months ago, and he said it was likely that my spine snapped into alignment for the first time in years, sleeping on the hard bunk and thin mattress.

46

So if you have any back pain issues, there might be a little relief in store for you, courtesy of your jailers. As for now, at the end of your 24 hours, you can either lie awake and beat yourself up over your predicament, or plan the violent, gory deaths of those who put you inside, or whatever it is you think about once the lights go out. Personally, I’d advise getting some sleep. Things are going to remain in some turmoil for the next few days, so you’d better be rested and ready to deal with any problems that come your way. Or, to look at it another way, if you can log eight hours of sleep each night, that’s 1/3 of your sentence spent away from your incarceration. This leaves you with only two thirds of your time remaining to fill with activities designed to make the time pass faster.

47

4. DEALING WITH JAIL STAFF A. The Three Basic Guard Attitudes Like anywhere else in life, in jail you’ll find guards and staff members who have a wide variety of personalities and attitudes when it comes to dealing with inmates. There are three overall categories you can place these people into, and within those three categories an almost unlimited number of subcategories. I’ve never seen or heard of anyone else breaking jail staff into categories and giving them labels, so you’ll just have to live with my own description. My three descriptive categories are Cool, Just Doing My Job, and Sadistic Bastards.

1. Cool Guards Cool guards and staff are generally understanding, sympathetic people, who have no personal ax to grind with you. They realize that every inmate (yes, even you) will be trying to get something past them at some point, but as long as whatever it is does not jeopardize the safety of the institution, the staff or the other inmates, they will just let it slide. Cool guards will share a joke with you, and sometimes even give you one of their Big Macs if you do something that makes their job a little easier. Case in point: I was pushing the laundry carts through the institution, and found myself on the intake floor, where we all got started when we first enter the jail. In a medical holding cell, there was some goofball screaming that he needed a doctor, that he needed his medication. The general consensus among the guards was that he was drunk (he was) and he was driving them apeshit with his yelling and screaming and pounding. After I finished what I was doing on that floor, I was standing by for the cage door to be opened so I could get the hell out of there and go back to the laundry. One of the cool guards walked up to me as the drunk was pounding on the door across from me. The guard kind of smiled, then half laughed, shaking his head. As he fumbled for his keys, I asked if there was a doctor on the floor for this guy to see. There wasn’t. Duh! I asked if he wanted me to be the doctor, as I was wearing a painter’s mask to protect me from the germ-laden dirty clothes, and the mask could be confused with ones that doctors wear when in surgery. He stopped, thought about it for a few seconds, and said “hell, give it a try. I’ll take care of you if you can just get him to shut the fuck up.” I walked up to the cell door, and asked the poor bastard what his problem was. He looked at me kind of funny, as if he knew I wasn’t supposed to be there, but he just

48

wasn’t sure why. “Are you a doctor?” he asked. “More or less,” I responded. “See my mask?” He finally said “I need my medication” and mumbled a bunch of other stuff I couldn’t understand. I’d noticed a bag of peanut M&M’s on a desk nearby, so I asked the cool guard to put three in a paper cup and pass them through the door slot. He laughed and said “you know we’re both screwed if anyone finds out about this.” He fed the drunk his M&M’s. The drunk immediately curled up on a bench in his cell and went to sleep. I told the cool guard not to worry, I’d bill the County’s insurance for my fees. The next day, my boss in the laundry told me I was ordered to report to the intake room. I figured this was the part where someone in charge had found out about what I’d done and I was going to get my ass reamed. Instead, the cool guard was in the change out room with a couple of other cool guards, laughing about what I’d done. He gave me a Big Mac, fries and a Coke, saying I’d given him the best laugh he’d ever had on the job. Normally I try and avoid McDonald’s. But after three months of jail food… IT WAS THE BEST FUCKING HAMBURGER I’D EVER EATEN!!!!!! None of this would have ever happened if the cool guard hadn’t been on duty. Unfortunately, you’ll probably be able to count the cool guards on one hand, with fingers left over. The vast majority of guards follow the category number two.

2. Just Doin’ My Job Guards These guards will just go through the motions. If the rules change and you have to wear your socks on your hands, they’ll stand there until every damn one of you has his sock mittens on. They will not question why they’re forced to make you do something, they’ll just make you do it. The good thing about Just Doin’ My Job guards is that they are 100% predictable. They never deviate from the norm. They never give you a shot at using a free phone if the rules say no. They never let you pretend to be a doctor and hand out fake psych meds. They don’t laugh, they don’t joke, and they don’t spend as much time downloading porn as the other two groups do. They just do their job. Last, and certainly not least (given their overwhelming numbers) are…

49

3. The Sadistic Bastard Guards Another one you can probably figure out on your own. These assholes believe God put them on this earth, and on this job, to make your life miserable. No matter what you did, no matter what your punishment, you got off easy as far as they’re concerned. They’ll go out of their way to make sure you suffer additional punishments and hardships. In their pea-sized brains, I’m sure they feel they are justified, doing God’s work. In reality, they are nothing but sadistic bastards, punks who get hard thinking about fucking with some poor clown who has little or no chance of fighting back. The only advice I can give you is avoid these assholes as much as is humanly possible. If you’re forced to have contact with them, pray that one of your more Neanderthal-like cellmates draws their unfriendly fire, sparing you for now.

B. DON’T BE A KISS-ASS If you want to be universally hated, despised by both inmates and staff, then start kissing guard ass as soon as you get there. You may have been a 100%, “Law and Order Every Time, That’s Us” kind of guy on the streets, but inside, you are nothing but a convict. In the eyes of the staff, you are the same kind of person as the guy who rapes children for fun. A convict. Kissing staff ass is not going to win you any friends on the staff, and will probably make serious enemies out of some of the less stable inmates. One guy I was locked up with went out of his way to learn the names of all the guards, greeting them every time he saw one “Good Morning, Officer Blahblah” and attempting to engage them in conversation. Needless to say, we all tried to avoid this clown like the plague. It was only a matter of time before one of the more gang-oriented inmates took offense to his ass kissing and struck out at him. He survived the beating, but his head kind of had a funny shape toward the back of his left ear. The obvious reason all the inmates hate a kiss-ass is because just about every inmate is trying to run his own prohibited games on the inside, and a kiss-ass is the most likely person to snitch them off. In the trustee tank in San Diego, many of us had access to the tanks where new fish are brought in. If the deputy in charge of the crew cleaning those tanks was less than observant, one or more of the fellas would quickly search the garbage bags, looking for cigarettes, lighters, matches, drugs, paraphernalia, and the like. If anyone found anything, they secreted it upon their person and brought it back to the trustee floor for later consumption, or trade, or whatever. Our floor was raided repeatedly by different shifts of guards, and nearly every time they found some dumbass

50

with cigarettes and a lighter. He would be thrown out of the trustee program and sent back to general population. Even though it was general knowledge that the county had installed smoke detectors in every room, hidden behind ventilation screens, each raid would normally be blamed on whatever kiss-ass happened to be nearby. Of course, this could never be proven, but the inmates don’t exactly adhere to the United States Constitution when assessing guilt and handing out jail house punishments. An equally compelling reason to avoid being a kiss-ass is that you are now a part of “us”…as in “Us versus Them.” It doesn’t matter if you’ve always sided with Law Enforcement while you lived on the outside. You’re living Inside now, and if you keep trying to switch teams and join “them” in the middle of the game, we’ll clock your life expectancy with an hourglass. From a guard perspective, kiss-asses are suspect, because the kiss-ass is still an inmate, and every inmate is trying to get something past the guard that will cause the guard tons of grief if the inmate gets it past the guard and is caught with it later. Plus, in every walk of life, NOBODY LIKES A KISS-ASS!!!!!

C. DON’T LOOK TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE STAFF This goes hand in hand with “don’t be a kiss-ass.” Unless you are about to spend the next 15-20 years locked up in the same institution, you’re not going to have a chance to get to know the staff all that well. So don’t waste your time trying to make friends with them. The same level of distrust I mentioned in the “kiss-ass” section is still present here. Accept the fact that you are an inmate, they are the guards, and try to avoid them as much as you can.

D. NEVER, EVER NAME DROP If, in your former life, you counted police officers, sheriff’s deputies, highway patrol officers, prison guards, crossing guards or security guards as personal friends, do yourself a favor and keep that information to yourself. I can all but guarantee you that if you approach a guard, and “casually” mention that you are good personal friends with “X”, said guard will respond “Yeah? I really hate that motherfucker.” Thus endeth your attempt at name dropping. If you really do have someone in law enforcement you count as a friend, that fact will in all likelihood not do you a bit of good on the inside. You won’t get a better job. You won’t get better food. You won’t get treated any better by the guards.

51

However, you might subject your friend to some not-so-good-natured kidding and ridicule simply for knowing you on the outside. Name dropping is like ass-kissing. Avoid it at all costs.

E. HOW TO TREAT AND/OR REACT AROUND GUARDS. Remember these three words: Respectful But Distant. Some institutions will have a set rule for how you respond to an order or a question from a guard. Much like the military, you respond “yes sir” or “no sir”. In some places, it’s “yes boss” and “no boss”. A few places are more relaxed, and “yes dep” and “no dep” will work (dep is shorthand for Deputy). When you find yourself the subject of some guard’s attention, listen carefully to what you are being told or asked. Answer his questions with as few words as possible, and when you say “yes sir” or “no sir”, try to keep it from sounding too much like “fuck you sir”. Over time, the guards will figure out that you are just trying to do your time as quickly and quietly as possible, and you are low on the list of inmates likely to cause them grief. This alone will win their grudging respect. You will still be an inmate, but you’ll be an inmate the guards would prefer to have work on their work crews. In the event you find yourself in an institution that does not have rules regarding how you address the staff, just listen to how the rest of the inmates respond and you do the same. You don’t want to be labeled a “kiss-ass” for using “sir” so adjust your way of responding to fit your current situation.

F. USE GUARDS AS A LAST RESORT FOR PROBLEM SOLVING By now you should be starting to realize that jails and prisons contain “a world within a world.” The inmate world is a smaller world that exists within the larger world that the guards are a part of. This means that inmate problems are usually resolved by inmates. If there is a squabble between two inmates over just about any issue, they will usually work it out between them without involving staff members. If you do involve the staff, it had better be for something of earthshaking importance, like a legitimate threat against your life. Anything less and you risk being ostracized by the inmates as a snitch and a pussy, and despised by the guards, again basically for being a snitch and a pussy. Guards don’t like getting involved in all the little day to day bullshit involving inmates. It cuts into their porn downloading time, and we just can’t have that.

52

In virtually every lockup, there are going to be guys known as “shotcallers.” These are the inmates who act as police, judge, jury and occasionally executioner among the inmates of their same race. Sometimes there are several shotcallers, depending on how the jail or prison is designed. These are the guys you need to approach if you have a problem. If guard intervention is needed, they can be the ones to approach the staff with the problems, and neither you nor they will be branded a pussy as a result. Finding your shotcaller is easy. Just ask around, if he doesn’t come up to you himself on your first day inside and introduce himself.

53

5. DEALING WITH YOUR FELLOW INMATES A. Racial Issues You may not be aware of this, but there are no racial majorities in jail (barring areas where there are simply no minorities, period). Blacks make up about 15% of the overall population in the U.S., but about 33% of the total prison population. Hispanics are now the second largest ethnic group in the U.S., at 35%, and they are just about equally represented in the prison population, at 33%. Caucasions make up another 33% of the average prison inmate population, and about 50% of the population as a whole in the US. The remaining 1% is everybody else…Asians, American Indians (oops, sorry, Native Americans) etc. In a normal general population yard in an average prison, people of all races will have some degree of interaction, regardless of race. But as a whole, whites tend to associate with whites, blacks with blacks, Hispanics with Hispanics, etc. Where the State truly imposes segregation is where gang activity is high. In the Black communities, Crips hate Bloods and those two groups generally need to remain separate while incarcerated. In Hispanic communities, the Mexican Mafia hates the Nuestra Familia, and these two groups will cut each others throats if the chance arrives, so you rarely find members of both groups in the same instiutution. I haven’t found a similar split in the white community…the breakdown generally runs white gang against black or Hispanic gang. So just about any prison or jail will suffice when placing a white inmate. If you are the kind of person who gets along with people of all races, you might find it a little difficult inside. As I’ve mentioned before, there is some degree of separation between the races, imposed by members of those races themselves. Recently the US Supreme Court ruled an institution could not segregate inmates based upon race. Usually the institutions do not need to bother. The segregation happens naturally out in the yard. My situation was different, because I worked in a tank run by an ex-Sergeant-Major from the Marine Corps, who ruled with an iron fist. His first and most oft-repeated rule was “The ONLY color allowed in the trustee tank is TAN,” tan being the color of the clothing worn by trustees to set them apart from the rest of the inmates in the institution. This meant I could eat at a table with black inmates, play basketball with Hispanic inmates, and kick it in the video room with the white guys, and no one really cared. We had the occasional yahoo on his way to the joint who tried to impose prison segregation rules when the deps weren’t around. That usually lasted about a day before he was found out and shipped off by the deps.

54

If you subscribe to the belief that your particular race is far superior to the others crawling the earth, then baby, you and prison are going to get along just fine. There are plenty of others already locked up that share in your belief system, and if you don’t find them, they’ll find you soon enough. Personally, I’ve never thought that way and don’t really understand the guys who do. But it’s your life and you are free to live it the way you choose. I just can’t give you any advice in how to handle yourself as a part of some racial gang. But don’t worry…you’ll figure it all out on your own soon enough.

B. Class Issues Maybe in the past, a nice afternoon consisted of meeting a couple of friends at the yacht club to sip drinks and watch the sun set through the masts of the club’s sailboats. Unless you’re headed to federal prison camp to join other high dollar white collar criminals, you’re not likely to find many people inside who shared any similar enjoyable experiences. But fear not. You can still maintain some semblance of your old life. You’ll just meet a couple of your new friends in a cell, sip pruno (the most famous of jailhouse alcohol-like concoctions) and watch the cockroaches swirl around the toilet bowl before it flushes them into septic oblivion. You might even enjoy a wager on which roach will last the longest. While racial differences between yourself and other inmates are visually obvious in most cases, Class differences are usually just as easy to spot. Even wearing jail clothes, every time I was locked up some smartass would ask if I was in for tax evasion, or credit card fraud, or something financial. I guess I just looked the part. Maybe it was the way I chewed with my mouth closed. I don’t know. But after a few days, even I could easily spot the guys who were middle class on the outside, and those who existed on a somewhat lower level. I found myself gravitating towards those of a similar class background, simply because we all had similar interests and experiences, and it gave us a foundation to use while building friendships. This is not to say I avoided anyone who was of a lower station. Quite the opposite. Several of the friends I made on the inside were your basic dirt-poor junkies. One of my best friends, Dre, was a gravedigger on the outside. Dug graves all day, smoked blunts all night, and was one of the smartest and funniest guys I met inside. You might take some shit (good natured or otherwise) from guys who call you Richie Rich, or Mr. Banker, or some stupid shit like that. Usually it’s good natured. Sometimes, based on your perceived wealth, one of the guys with nothing will approach you and ask for a loan, or, more likely, ask you to buy them something in commissary.

55

In the very beginning, I was torn between just telling everybody who asked “no” and my usual nature, which was to try and help everybody out by giving them whatever they needed. I quickly realized that if word got out I was an easy touch, every swinging dick in the institution, including the guards, were going to be coming around day and night asking to “borrow” something, and I’d be left with nothing by the end of each week. I quickly adapted to the idea of trading, which I’ll discuss in detail when I talk about the commissary. It kept the requests down to a minimum, and when I did loan something out, I always got something better back in return (the jailhouse version of interest). If you remember nothing else from this chapter, remember this: If you come from any kind of decent financial background (and by decent I mean you actually have a bank account with at least $3 in it), do not lord it over the majority of guys who have nothing. If you have it, drop the Thurston Howell III imitation. If you were the head of a major corporation who is going off to do time for some type of real or imagined stock fraud, try and spend some quality time with one of your gardeners, to get used to associating with the, ahem, lower class. There are a hell of a lot more of them than there are of you, my friend, and they’re breeding. They are going to be your cellies, your work crew members, your lunch/brunch mates, and your sole source of companionship while you are locked up. Learn to make friends across class lines.

C. Dealing With Your Cellie At the very end of the remake of “Ocean’s 11” George Clooney walks out of prison wearing the same tuxedo he was arrested in. Brad Pitt comments, “I hope you were the groom.” Living with your cellie is a little like being married. I said a LITTLE like being married. I’ll talk about more than a little in the next chapter. But you are now living in a very confined space with another person, not of your choosing. Just as there are all kinds of people on this great planet of ours, there are all kinds of cellmates. Big ones, small ones, loud ones, quiet ones, sane ones, stone cold crazy ones. Just hope you get one that compliments your own lifestyle. I was lucky. My cellie was named Fish (short for Fisher) and he was a total card. He was doing a year for selling crack to an undercover officer, and had plans to blow off probation and return to Washington D.C. just as soon as he gained his release. He was also into exercise, and as I noted earlier, we used to spot for each other, and nag each other on when the other was on the verge of quitting for the day. Since he worked the graveyard shift in the Kitchen, and I worked the day shift in the laundry, we were

56

rarely in the cell together except at night, just before we’d both turn in, and on Sundays, which we both had off from work. One habit Fish had, which was annoying at first, but sort of grew on me after a while, was to talk in graphic detail about all the women he had known, biblically speaking. The first few times I tried to ignore him as he spoke, since I think he was doing it for his own benefit more than to educate me. After a while, I found I could go to sleep easier if Fish told me one of his Bedtime Pussy Stories. He was always happy to oblige, and I would be out like a light within minutes. Who you end up celling with is almost completely beyond your control. If you end up with someone you absolutely cannot live with, either due to a severe personality clash, or different hygiene practices (you have some, he has none), check with your shotcaller for the rules on how to change cells. If you are not in a situation where you have a shotcaller, talk to one of the cool guards and ask him. I know one of the guys on my laundry crew changed cellies after two weeks of no sleep. His cellie’s snoring was audible from across the pod, even with their door closed. I can’t imagine what it was like to try and sleep in the same room with him. One of the first things Fish and I did after I moved in was to establish some simple house rules that allowed us to peacefully co-exist. We each had a plastic box where we stored our personal effects, commissary goods and the like. I told him up front that if he ever needed anything that I had, he had my permission to take it out of my box, as long as he told me about it later. He gave me the same rights to his stuff. Over time, he needed an occasional aspirin and I usually ran out of paper before commissary day, so our system worked like a charm. We also agreed that since we usually were limited to using the toilets in our cell (there were no “public” toilets except one each near the facility kitchen and the laundry room) if either of us needed to use the toilet for more than a quick piss, he merely needed to ask the other person to vacate the room for a few minutes and he could close the door and crap in peace. This worked well for us, since we had an open door policy in San Diego which allowed us free run of the pods when we were not at work. If you are locked up in a facility where you and your cellie are locked down in your cell for hours or days at a time, you won’t have the chance to crap alone and in peace. So do the next best thing. Wait until your cellie is asleep (and he should do the same for you). This cuts down on the embarrassment factor of having someone stare at you while you sit on the john, and also reduces the likelihood he’ll complain about the smell. While we’re on the subject of the smell, as soon as you get to your cell, figure out what the time lapse is between flushes. We had a 10 minute delay, which meant if you gave a courtesy flush, you had to wait ten minutes before you could flush again. If you are doing prolific business down there, ten minutes can and will seem like an eternity to both

57

you and your cellie. So if you have to deal with flush delays, try and time your courtesy flush for the end of your main business cycle. I’ve always been as regular as a calendar…for some reason I only “go” once every three or four days. Of course, when it’s time, It Is Time! I managed to get my system timed to the point where I could use the bathroom next to the laundry, which had a solid door and a lock. It was almost like home…we even had a couple of magazines in there. Sometimes, though, you find yourself back in the room with your cellie, and you have to do what you have to do. Try not to think about it too much. After all, everybody does it, even the guy sleeping on the bunk three feet from your ass. He’ll be in the same position before too long, so just do what you have to do and quit worrying about it.

D. Shower Time There are basically two types of showers in a jail or prison: Single stalls like you might have at home, and group stalls like you had in high school gym class. In either event, use the damn things as often as you can. One of the very first things you’re going to notice when you walk (or are dragged) inside a jail is the smell. It’s that sour, rotten, sweaty gym smell. It will never get any better while you are locked up, but you can keep it from getting worse by showering every day (or at least every day that you are given access to the shower room). On non-shower days, use soap and a rag in your cell to get the vital parts clean. Just because others seem to go weeks at a time without water hitting their skin doesn’t mean you should too. If you have any issues with undressing in front of other men to take a shower, I’d suggest you join a gym and start showering there every day to help you get over this shyness. After a while, sheer necessity will force you into the shower room, so you might as well embrace the horror and start showering from the very beginning.

E. Commissary Commissary day is the day nearly every inmates lives for, its arrival preceded by as much anticipation as Christmas. And everyone already knows what Santa is bringing them. The commissary is nothing more than a store which sells to the inmates those little perks and doodads that make life in jail and prison a little more bearable. Soap, toothpaste, aspirin, candy bars, dry soups, sodas (or more likely soda coupons), paper, envelopes, stamps, etc. All the little things you need to maintain a very basic lifestyle. Maybe it was just me, but it seems I always got to jail just in time to miss the deadline for submitting a commissary request. That meant I had to wait one full week to submit my shopping list, and another three or four days before my goods were delivered.

58

Thankfully I am blessed with an unending supply of patience, and I managed to navigate the ten day delay in commissary without using The Store. The Store is how one or more inmates will describe their own entrepreneurial efforts. They will gladly give you a candy bar today, as long as you agree to pay back The Store with two candy bars when your commissary comes in. Borrow three, pay back five. If you need a soda coupon, you pay a 100% tax, borrowing one, paying back two; borrow two, pay back four, etc. You don’t want to get into debt with The Store if you can avoid it. Some guys are almost eternally paying off the store and falling farther behind each week in what they can buy and keep. Don’t be one of them. Soda coupons were like gold in San Diego. Some guys were such caffeine junkies that they needed 3 or 4 sodas a day just to stay leveled off. If they blew through their coupon stash too soon, they would start making 2 for 1, 3 for 1 and even 4 for 1 deals with anyone who had extra coupons. One jerkoff found his way to my cell and offered 2 for 1, which I politely declined. When he got to 5 for 1, I finally caved and gave him a coupon, reminding him that he owed me five come commissary day. Of course, commissary day comes and goes, and he’s nowhere to be found (which is damned hard to do in a jail, but he managed for two days to completely avoid me). I finally caught up with him, expecting and receiving a bullshit story about how the commissary messed up his order, blah blah blah. On the street I’d blow it off and not worry about it. Inside, that would be a sign of weakness, so I had to take an aggressive approach with him. I ended up with two large bags of cookies as interest for one more week of waiting for my 5 soda coupons. The next week, he was waiting by my door to pay me when I got in from the laundry. I didn’t need to threaten violence to get paid back. I simply explained that he broke his deal with me, and if we did not work out a resolution right this minute, I’d spend the next 10 minutes telling everyone in the pod that he broke his word to me. He’d never get to do another deal as long as he stayed in the pod. Since he was scheduled to be here for another couple of months, this would have been a nightmare for him, as he was always borrowing something from someone. Inside, your word is all you have. Break it, and you’re screwed.

59

The night that follows commissary day is usually the most active, as guys are enjoying their sugar and caffeine highs (for a lot of them, they only have enough cash to get one soda and one candy bar, and they shoot their wad immediately!) To keep yourself stocked with essentials, go all out your first couple of commissary days, and buy as much as you can to build up a stockpile. Then, you can buy less as time goes on, replacing only what you’ve used during the week. Hopefully you have the finances worked out with someone on the outside who will send you a few bucks every now and then to keep your inmate account funded. If not, start getting it worked out now. Nothing is more depressing than having to beg poverty packs from the deps because you can’t afford to buy a proper toothbrush and toothpaste. It also helps to keep a supply of medicine on hand in case a cold or flu starts to circulate through the institution. As I worked in the laundry, I was exposed to virtually every bug that came into the place, courtesy of the dirty clothes. I learned from miserable experience that you’ll want as much cold medicine as they’ll let you keep stashed someplace safe in your room, along with a handful of Advil or Aspirin. If I was severely limited in funds, these two items are the first ones I would buy. You don’t think about it on the outside, because if you get sick, you just run to the nearest drugstore and stock up on supplies. That’s difficult to pull off when you’re locked up. So at your first opportunity, buy all the medical supplies you can afford. Since most states have banned smoking in jails and prisons, Top Ramen Soups have become the currency that fuels the commerce between inmates. Everything gets done based on the number of soups you want to pay. Gambling especially runs on soups. Buy as many of those as you can afford and you’ll be able to engage in trade, gambling or whatever right from the start.

F. Gambling In Custody Ask anyone in upper management at a jail or prison (the warden, the commander, whoever) and they will tell you that gambling is illegal in jail and they don’t allow it in their institution. Then cruise out to the guard desks anytime during football season, March Madness or in the days leading up to the Kentucky Derby, and count all the betting sheets lying around in plain sight. The truth is that gambling is one of the favorite pastimes of convicts and guards alike. Since cash is difficult to keep while locked up, sodas, soups and candy bars become the currency at risk in each wager. In some places, gambling is strictly controlled by certain groups (gangs). In most others, it is a free form exercise in chaos. You can bet with whomever you like, on whatever happens to be the game of the moment, and you do your own payoffs and collecting between the two of you.

60

What amazed me was the complete lack of sophistication exhibited by most of the guys I was locked up with. As I mentioned earlier, I went inside on January 9, 2004. Three weeks later, New England faced Carolina in the Super Bowl. I really hadn’t followed the season all too closely, given that my trial was ongoing, but I knew enough to know that New England was a solid team, and Carolina seemed damned lucky to be where they were. I had absolutely no intention of gambling on the game. I didn’t even plan to watch it. But as game day crept closer, the amazing lack of gambling sophistication on the part of my pod mates forced me to take action. New England was a seven point favorite in the game. There were at least 20 guys who were self-proclaimed life-long, die-hard Carolina fans (including one doofus who could not name the coach or starting quarterback). They were aggressively looking for bets on the game, and since I was one of the new guys on the pod, they kept showing up at my house. I guess I didn’t look like the gambling type. I once paid for a whole year of college off a day at the track. I think I know what I’m doing. What surprised me was how devious I suddenly became. Once I decided to start making these bets, I would engage the guys in conversation. Most of them went like this: (ME) “So you really think Carolina is going to win?” (THEM) “Shit yeah man, they blah blah blah (talking about how strong the Panthers were when compared to New England)” (ME) “So how do you want to do this, since I’m likely to lose. Give me 3 soups to 1 if New England wins?” (THEM) “Huh?” (that quizzical, “the lights just went out” look). (ME) “You put up three soups to my one soup. I win, I get the three. You win, you get the one. It’s only fair since you have such a stronger team.” (THEM) (After giving it a few seconds thought) “Okay dog, you’re on!” (ME) “Great. Now, how many points are you going to give me?” I shit you not…Half these guys were giving me anywhere from 4 to 10 points, the other half were making straight up bets (no points) but giving me 2-1, 3-1 and even 5-1 odds. And remember, New England was favored by 7 points. I don’t recall the final score of the game, but New England won (by 3 points, I believe) and Fish and I were awash in soups for the rest of the time I was inside. On the day I left, I gave him the remaining 20 or so soups I had left in one of my bags. The nice thing was everybody paid me off within one week. Not a single person tried to welch on his bet. On the outside, I have a guy who still owes me $100 from a Raider/Charger game from 1998. Given the choice, I’d rather bet with the guys inside.

61

If you get involved with gambling, be very, very careful. I never bet with anyone unless I had the soups (or the money to buy the soups) already in my possession. Like borrowing from The Store, you don’t want to get a reputation as a non-payer. Your ability to do business with your fellow inmates will be zeroed out, and you might just find you have an ass beating waiting around the corner for you. If you do decide to gamble, and you find the pool of players to be less than intelligent when it comes to structuring bets, don’t feel bad about wading in and taking all their money (or soups). If you cause them to learn to never gamble again, you’ve taught them a powerful lesson, one that will hold them in good stead for the remainder of their lives. The soups you take off of them will be their payment for that lesson.

G. Fighting I’ve mentioned this before, but I wanted to bring it up one more time to emphasize a point. I was lucky in that I was only accosted once, and took care of it quickly and painlessly (for me). You might be just as lucky. Then again, you might piss off some biker who is coming down off a meth binge and is looking to start some shit with someone. I’ve seen guys like this fight in jail, and they only know one style: Fight to the death. Now, I’m not saying anyone actually died (they never share that information with us) but I saw more than a couple of guys hauled out of the institution on a stretcher, blood pouring from various wounds and looking like they wouldn’t last much longer. If you find yourself in one of these fights, remember:

THERE ARE NO RULES! Poking the eyes, breaking the fingers, biting, scratching, knees to the groin…these are all acceptable tactics in a jailhouse fight. You have to assume the asshole who is coming after you wants to kill you, and the only way to prevent it is to kill him (or seriously disable him) first. Again, I’m not advocating or advising that you kill ANYONE: I’m just saying don’t expect to bitch-slap your way out of it. The other guy is going to use every dirty tactic he knows to gain an advantage on you…be prepared to do the same.

62

That’s why I recommend you take a short self-defense class, or order a book and tape set off the internet to learn how to disable someone fast. I’ve personally reviewed the materials found on the following sites and found them to be informative: http://www.jailsd1.com http://www.jailsd2.com (if the links are not “live” simply copy and paste them into your web browser, or type the address into your browser). Again, if you follow the advice I’ve given earlier, keeping your cool when dealing with inmates and staff, and hanging out with the older guys, you cut your chances of landing in a duel to the death down to almost nothing. But you never know what a new day will bring, and you need to keep your guard up at all times.

63

6. AVOIDING SEXUAL ASSAULT Herman the Accountant found himself in jail on a DUI. After he was booked, the cops threw him into a cell with Ramon, the biggest man Herman had ever seen. After a few minutes, Ramon asked Herman “Do you want to be the husband or the wife?” Herman’s mind started whirring. “Oh my God,” he thought. “I’ve heard about these kinds of things happening, but I never thought they would happen to me. Oh, what am I going to do? That man is too big for me to fight, I’d never be able to beat him. I guess I’ll just have to make the best of a bad situation.” “I am the Husband” Herman declared. “Good” said Ramon. “Now get over here and suck your wife’s dick!” My second all-time favorite prison joke. If you think it’s crass to make fun of a serious situation like prison sexual assaults, well, blow me.

---------------------------------------

A. It Happens, But Not As Often As You Might Think If I was a gambling man (and I am!), I’d be willing to wager that you turned to this chapter first, before reading anything else. Let’s face it…homosexual assault tops the list of worries that everyone has about going to prison. Everyone except maybe homosexuals. I can’t say for certain on that one. Sexual assaults happen. Not as often as people might think, but they do occur. One thing that really rocked my world was the presence of a very openly, feminine to the point of swishy, gay man who was in our trustee tank. He actually was treated pretty well by the guys. I never saw anybody try to assault him, and he seemed to have a group of (allegedly straight) friends he hung out with. There were also unsubstantiated rumors that he was more than just friends with a couple of the guys, and he did seem to spend a lot of time in their cells. My personal belief that a guy like that would get shredded to bits inside were based on TV and movie anecdotes. It turns out TV let me down…in real life this guy got along fine. It helps me bring up a point, though. There are plenty of guys willing to give it away for free inside, so anyone who needs some sort of 2nd or 3rd party sexual release can find it from a willing partner, and they do not need to engage in forced sexual assault. Of course, the chase is half the fun. Just like heterosexual rape on the streets, homosexual rape inside prison is more about the exercise of one’s power over another than it is about sexual gratification.

64

So the key to successfully maintaining your anal virginity is to avoid those people who seek to exercise their power over you. I know, it’s easier said than done. But get yourself into some kind of decent shape, and if you face a heartcheck, beat the living hell out of whoever is calling you out, and you should have no problems.

2. Who Is The Most Likely Target Of Sexual Assault? Since most assaults are about power, not sex, generally the assailants will target weak appearing loners. Guys that shy away from the crowd, and give the appearance that they are not strong enough to put up much of a fight.

3. How To Avoid An Assault Since the inmate sexual predators normally go after weak loners, hook up with a couple of friends as soon as you can. There is always safety in numbers. This is not to say that your new found friends will back you up in the event of an assault, but your constant presence with others will deter all but the most desperate, depraved or completely crazy assailants. I’ve never heard of this kind of assault taking place on the yard in broad daylight (as opposed to normal fights, or outright hits, which are quick and difficult to pin on any one person when 3,000 guys all wearing blue shirts are standing around the crime scene). Sexual assault takes at least a little time, and normally your average assailant wants his privacy. So avoid hanging out in areas of the facility where you cannot be seen by staff. There are damned few of those to be found in the first place, but guys who crave a little private time will eventually find a couple of spots where they can sit or stand and just get away from everybody for a few minutes. Unfortunately, the sexual predators know about those spots as well, and patrol them like treasured fishing holes.

4. Defending Yourself From Sexual Assault Like any other fight in jail, assume that this one is to the death and act accordingly. Gouge your fingers into your assailant’s eyes, and repeatedly stomp his balls. If you are grabbed from behind and cannot get to the eyes or the twins, stomp down just as hard as you can on the instep of his foot. A broken foot will slow down all but the craziest of assailants. Again, if grabbed from behind and you cannot get to any vital spots, try thrusting your head backwards to make contact with his head, hopefully his nose. If he is taller than you, try to push up so that you connect the top of your head with his chin. You get bonus points if he’s one of those freaks that sticks his tongue out when he’s working hard. A

65

severed tongue (or even a severely bitten one) will take the fight out of just about everyone. If at this point you gain the advantage, continue to beat the holy fuck out of him until the guards drag you off. Do not let up, or stop entirely, unless it’s obvious he is dead. Don’t worry about the consequences (prosecutions for murder, etc.). Take care of the here and now, and send this message out to anyone else in the institution who is thinking about trying to tear off a piece: Try it and die! In my practice, I handled about 50 cases filed by the California Department of Corrections against inmates, for crimes ranging from possession of drugs and weapons to assaults on guards and other inmates. The truth is that juries do not care what happens behind bars, and seem to realize their tax dollars are being wasted on these prosecutions. If you kill a sexual assailant, and the DA in the county where your prison is located is stupid enough to pick up the case for prosecution, just raise the Defending Myself From Sexual Assault defense, and you’re 99% of the way home free. Female jurors live in fear of rape every day of their life, so they can relate and sympathize. Male jurors live in fear of homosexual rape in the event they ever have to go to prison, and they all tell themselves and their friends that if anyone ever tried to do that to them they would kill the son of a bitch. So they can’t really blame you for doing exactly what they’ve promised to do in the same situation, can they? So they are also automatic “Not Guilty” votes. I’m sure some dickhead DA has done it somewhere, but I cannot recall ever hearing of a case they prosecuted where the defendant killed his rapist assailant. Hell, if a woman on the street shoots and kills her rapist assailant, the NRA sends her a plaque. Don’t worry about future consequences. Do what you have to do to protect yourself now and in the future. The piece of shit you’re wiping out is not worthy of a single shed tear. Just make sure you handle it right now. If you are victimized by an assailant, and try for some payback at a later date, you’re looking at trouble. It’s just like football…the guy who throws the second punch is ALWAYS the one to get flagged. So don’t try and sneak into his cell one night and cut his throat while he sleeps. Take him down now and end it right here.

66

7. WORKING ON THE INSIDE Earlier I mentioned that there were two ways to go about doing your time: On the Inside or On the Outside. Along those same lines, you can either choose to work (in areas where they actually give you a choice) or you can be a lazy bastard and sit in your cell all day. As a trustee, I earned the princely sum of $.50 per day for my 6-10 hours a day spent in the laundry. Sure, on the outside you can make that much in a few minutes just by picking up aluminum cans and bottles, but we’re not talking about being on the outs. Inside, you either work for The Man or you don’t work. And The Man pays $.50 a day. Many of the non-working inmates gave us a ton of shit, making jokes at our expense like “Enjoy that $.50 you earn today, nigger!” (ironic, in that it was usually the black inmates calling the white trustees ‘nigger’). My attitude was “Laugh all you want, motherfucker. My day speeds by and I’m that much closer to going home. Oh, and don’t expect to get any clean Underoos for the next month or so. Asshole!” For me, working was a way to get home faster. I figured if I worked 8 hours a day and slept 8 hours a day, meals took up another couple of hours in total. That left 6 hours a day where I wasn’t busy or otherwise occupied. Those six hours passed a lot faster than the 16 hours those other dumb bastards spent sitting in their cells, staring at the same 4 walls. Unless you are headed to a prison that specializes in a certain industry, such as furniture making or clothing manufacturing, you will find two basic jobs in the institution: Laundry and Kitchen. Everybody in the joint needs to eat and wear clean underwear once in a while, and nearly every jail or prison will handle their own cleaning and food prep. What you have to do is decide which job you’d rather aim for, and then hope you have some say in the matter. If you work in a kitchen, you have to be generally disease free (no tuberculosis or hepatitis). In the laundry, you have to be able to lift 40-50 bundles or push 100+ pound carts. There are benefits and drawbacks to working in both jobs. The obvious benefits of working in the kitchen is that you have access to a lot of food, and most places allow their kitchen workers to eat pretty well. It may be the same food that’s being served to all the inmates, but it’s hotter, fresher and in greater supply when you’re in the kitchen.

67

If you manage to rack up some seniority, you might even land a job in SDR, which stands for Staff Dining Room. Most of the jails and prisons serve meals to the staff that work in the institution, and I can guaran-damn-tee you they aren’t eating the slop being served to the convicts. SDR cooks and servers usually get to eat their meals in the same dining room, so if the staff is eating Cheeseburgers for lunch, so are the SDR workers. Staff eating steaks? SDR workers are too. If food is your number one priority, you’re going to want a kitchen job, at least initially. You might start out as a dishwasher, but with the constant turnover, you’ll rise quickly to the point you’ll score the occasional steak or cheeseburger. The downside to working in the kitchen is that it is hot, sweaty work, which amazingly enough does not allow you to sweat off the extra calories you’re going to ingest. Nearly everybody in our pod who worked in the kitchen gained weight. Fish was probably the only one who maintained his intake weight, but he was a workout freak. Everybody else got off work from the kitchen, grabbed a coke and a candy bar and headed for the video room. Fish would do 100 situps and pushups. So if weight loss is your goal, avoid the kitchen or develop some true discipline and avoid pigging out while on duty. If you are unfamiliar with the word discipline, you might just want to work in the laundry. Laundry work is no different that doing your laundry at home. You’re just doing it for yourself and about a thousand other guys. That means constant washing, drying and folding. At the end of your shift, the dirty laundry carts will start coming down for your next shift, so you won’t lack for things to do the next day. The upside of working in the laundry was that our institution was always having to introduce fresh socks and underwear into the inventory, due to loss and damage to their existing stock. As a laundry worker (and within a month, the laundry lead, or inmate boss) my fellow laundry cave dwellers and I got first crack at the new stuff. That meant I only had to wear somebody else’s drawers for the first two-three weeks inside (before I was assigned to the laundry crew). This was important to me…more so than scoring the occasional cheeseburger. I got to wear underwear so new that most of the pairs still had that little “Inspected By” tag floating around inside them somewhere. The downside to working in the laundry is that you are exposed to just about every noxious bug, disease, emission and smell that a human being can create. Some guys definitely need to go back to potty training school and learn how to wipe their asses after going #2. We found all kinds of interesting things in the laundry carts, most of them blood or shit related. We wore masks and gloves, but even that isn’t enough to protect you 100% of the time.

68

If I ever have to do it again, I’m still going back to the laundry. It’s a personal preference that is related to my inability to say “No” to extra food when it is offered. I dropped 15 pounds while I was inside, thanks to exercise, limiting my food intake to what was on my plate plus the occasional Top Ramen soup, and the strenuous work in the laundry. You might find yourself in an institution that has several other job opportunities available to you. All I can advise you is to either: (1) apply for a job you already know well, so that your learning curve isn’t steep and your aptitude will help you advance to crew chief or lead man quickly, or (2) ask to be assigned to a job you find interesting. High interest in the field where you are working will help make the day go by faster, even if you are completely lost when you first start working.

69

8. MAKING YOUR TIME PASS QUICKLY It should be pretty obvious by now that I feel the key to making your time go by quickly is to stay busy. There are plenty of extra-curricular activities that occur regularly that will help fill up the odd hour or two.

A. Develop Your Own Calendar Fish gave me a pretty good piece of advice on our first day together as cellies. He told me to develop my own calendar system. What he meant was schedule events (or use previously scheduled events) through the week to give me something to look forward to. If each day or two there was something going on that I enjoyed, it would make the days, weeks and months pass by faster. I built my calendar around Commissary and Church related activities. Starting with Sunday, there were worship services in the multi-purpose room in the afternoon. Also, commissary order forms were due by 10 p.m. on Sunday night. Monday was the first day of work in the laundry after having Saturday and Sunday off, so we always had three days worth of laundry stacked up and we were busy as we could possibly be. On the normal Monday, I would get back to my cell around 3-3:30 p.m., shower quickly, eat dinner at 4 p.m., write a quick letter to my girl, then crash by 6 or 6:30 p.m., I was so dog tired from the Monday work schedule. Tuesday was Christmas…commissary was delivered on Tuesday afternoon while I was at work, so I would come back to the pod to find my bag(s) waiting for me. Wednesday was Bible study with Chaplain Ben. This guy was one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. He was about 70 years old, and a very devout Christian. He knew a lot about the Bible, but more importantly, he knew a lot about people. He stated right from the beginning, his job was not to judge, he was just here to teach and counsel. I had some great conversations with him, and his class was one I looked forward to every week. Thursday was my day to work on my screenplay. I’d been kicking this idea around for a couple of years, but never set aside time to work on it. By limiting myself to writing only one day a week, I gave myself only a few hours to get a week’s worth of ideas down on paper. I always seemed to run out of time before I did things to write about. Friday was the last day of the workweek, and was the day we would deliver clothes to the medical ward. It was kickback easy work, and a sort of reward for killing ourselves on Mondays. One of the laundry staff workers would walk with us and keep the deputies off our asses while we did our job. In the real world, we would probably have to finish this job in a half hour. We managed to stretch it out into a two or three hour extravaganza and an early release from the job to go home. Friday was also the day we had to scrub our cells spotless in anticipation of an early Saturday morning inspection. Our retired

70

Sergeant-Major leader would do a white glove test in each cell, and anyone whose pad wasn’t up to his standards risked expulsion from the Trustee program. Saturday was the day I’d spend in the video room, watching the latest blockbuster releases. If the movies sucked, I’d write letters or just hang with some of the fellas and shoot the shit, waiting for… Sunday, when we had church in the afternoons and Commissary orders due by 10 p.m. And so the world turned. Set up your own calendar so that your week will pass quickly. Don’t tell yourself you have to spend 120 days in jail. Instead, think of it as 17 commissary days. I promise you that 17 commissary days will pass by much faster than 120 days.

B. Develop Hobbies If you’ve ever had an interest in writing, or drawing, now is the time to start. You can burn hours at a time practicing your craft, and wonder where the time is going, it goes by so fast. Other hobbies might be a little bit harder to work on, since most require some sort of tools. As we all know from watching Shawshank Redemption, the institutions will frown on you hoarding rock hammers, exact-o knives, shotgun shell reloading equipment, or just about anything else that could either be used as a weapon or used to assist you in an escape from the institution. If you have a boatload of time in front of you (an actual 3 or more years) look into taking classes by mail. You can get a degree if you want one, or get certified in a variety of areas without ever leaving your cell. Some schools offer this training free to inmates, so check around for a program that will dovetail with your interests. Don’t forget to check with your counselor to make sure this kind of material will be allowed inside the walls of the prison. As long as it doesn’t involve weapons, drugs or pornography, you should be okay.

C. Letters to Loved Ones If you just can’t get interested in developing a hobby, and don’t want to write for enjoyment, just spend your time writing letters home. Your family will be thrilled to hear that you are doing well (at least I hope they’ll be thrilled) and you’ll find that you can spend hours on a two or three page letter, editing in or out the more unpleasant or unusual occurrences in your day.

71

D. Conjugal Visits If your institution allows it (and we’re only talking about state or federal prisons, not local jails) after a certain amount of time, as long as you’ve been a good boy you can score a conjugal visit. In California, these used to be 3 days long, spent in a trailer off to the side of the institution. I think only the guys who were married when they arrived at the institution qualified for conjugal visits, but ask your attorney to check into it for you before you are sentenced. More than one judge has sentenced some poor bastard to state prison, and then presided over his marriage 5 minutes later. You might just need to be one of those poor bastards if you want to have at least a little heterosexual contact while you’re locked up.

72

IV. CONCLUSION There’s just not much more to say about surviving the jail or prison experience. If I had to boil it all down to a few words, I’d have to say “Use your common sense, always be on the alert for a threat to your safety, and pray. A lot.” Everything else will work itself out as it normally does on the outside. Hopefully you’ll hire a sharp attorney that will keep you from needing the advice in this book. But if you find yourself on the receiving end of a jail or prison term, just know that no matter how bleak things look, it is not the end of the world. Unless you’re doing a life term with no parole, one day you will walk the streets again as a free man. You can pick up your life where you left off and put the experience behind you. And when you do hit the streets again, you’re going to notice a couple of things are different. One thing is that you’re probably going to find that you are at peace with yourself. There is something liberating about incarceration as a punishment. It’s like a karmic balancing of the books. No matter what you’ve done wrong in your life, this state-sponsored “time out” evens things up, and you can forgive yourself for anything and everything you ever did wrong. It is impossible to explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced it just how powerful this feeling can be. It’s almost like a reward for doing time. So look forward to it. Secondly, and maybe even more importantly, doing time will help you overcome a lot of ridiculous fears that we all carry around with us. So many people are concerned about what others think about them, or that their boss is going to yell at them. Stupid shit like that. Once you’ve spent a few months (or years) locked up with 300 pound certified psychos with hair triggers, it’s hard to get too upset by what people in the real world think about you or say to you. You come to realize what is important (you, your friends and family, and your freedom) and what is not (virtually everything else). Just think of it as another bonus to being an ex-con. So that’s it. Good luck and stay safe.

73