Attorneys depend on having clients, and criminal defense lawyers specifically need, well, criminals. There will always be plenty of the latter to go around. Some made an escalating series of bad choices, and now aren’t able to extricate themselves from the criminal life. Some may even have discovered that they liked it. That’s fine! People get their thrills in different ways. But, once in a while, an attorney comes across someone who still has some choices left to make. That might be you. And those choices don’t have to be shitty ones.
It’s in both our best interests for you to stay out of jail, but if you wind up on the inside, it helps to be prepared. Forewarned, forearmed. So let’s talk about what’s going on in there that you might not know about. I’m no expert, but I’ve certainly known a few who were, and—surprise! I’ve learned that it’s both not quite as bad as you might imagine and much, much worse than you’ve heard. This isn’t me shaking manacles in your face, barking commands in some Scared Straight scenario; this is an attempt to make my job and your life a little easier.
If there’s one thing that everyone seems to know about prison, it’s that if you’re new, you might as well be the last showgirl on the Titanic for the amount of lap-dance requests you are about to receive—some more forceful than others. And while you may still be nursing resentment that you weren’t ever crowned Prom King or Queen, I’ve got some good news: you may not be any more popular in lockup than you were in high school. The fact is, particularly for the anxious male client, there may be worse things to worry about behind bars than nonconsensual guy-on-guy action.
Yes, it does happen. There are Deliverance-style rednecks and other sexually motivated psychos galore behind bars, no doubt about it, and they’ve been known to turn other prisoners into their cinder-block concubines. There are coalitions on the outside dedicated to fighting this aspect of prison life, and bless ’em, I hope they win the battle.
But the truth is, it’s not a given that it will happen to you. Or that it will ever happen, until you’re in the mood to try something new with a consenting partner. This might be the rare comfort I can offer: if you’re a freshman in adult detention, you might want to worry less about being sexually victimized and more about getting beaten up, killed outright, or falling in with a group on the inside who make your rough crowd on the outside look like a bunch of Presbyterian preschoolers. No one wants to go in for a ninety-day stretch (brilliantly negotiated down from a few years by your well-dressed and golden-tongued attorney), only to have a drug possession charge turn ninety days into thirty-six months. Why would you do that to your hardworking and accomplished legal counsel?
Most of the time, just about everyone behind bars is simply trying to survive until they see the sunlight again. They’re trying to do that with as little fuss as possible so they can get back to doing mattress push-ups with the assenting ass of their choice. Some of the things that can cause fuss follow.
Phone use is a big deal when legally you are only allowed to use whatever the facility makes available. Of course prisoners can get cell phones smuggled in, but who wants to use a flip phone that’s been marinating in Jerry’s sweetest-smelling orifice? Also, getting caught using one is only going to add time to your sentence, since they are considered contraband pretty much everywhere, much like drugs or alcohol.
Individual protocols vary from state to state and facility to facility, but prisoners who need those phones to touch base with family (or their charming and concerned legal counsel) tell me a few basic principles govern prison phone use. It’s good for your neck if you know this beforehand, and good for my karma to help a neck or two:
• Using the phone is a privilege in lockup. No real constitutional protections apply, unless you need to call your attorney. It can be snatched away faster than a belly-button ring in an MRI machine if you don’t play nice.
• Some places require inmates to submit a list of people they’re most likely to call. That means Mom, Dad, Uncle Ernie, Auntie Jim, Bob your pastor. Maybe don’t include the last ten guys who (allegedly) purchased hydrocodone from you.
• Many facilities limit phone time. You might get a mere fifteen minutes to make a collect call. Talk fast and plan ahead.
• If you’re lucky, you may end up someplace where phone use isn’t time restricted. At least, not officially—it will still be time restricted in practice, because that phone is a big-ass deal to everyone, and if you hog it, truckloads of woe unto you. There are shanks being made from layers of hardened paper just waiting to get stuck in the kidneys of an inmate who’s gabbing the night away like a teenager whose parents let her install a private line in her bedroom.
• Your conversation can be monitored. Assume it will be monitored. Talk accordingly, and don’t assume they won’t spot a coded conversation. If you want to go that route, work out the code before you need it, and make sure it’s specific to you and the person with whom you’ll need it—who may even be your attorney, you never know. I may be a fairly well-rounded Renaissance man, but even I will need a weekend to brush up on my Navajo before we unleash the Marines on Iwo Jima, capisce?
We haven’t even touched on the booming prison phone call racket. Forget dimes—folks are sometimes charged as much as $14 a minute just for the privilege of talking to an incarcerated loved one. The Federal Communications Commission has been working to change that, but it gives you some idea of just how bad it sucks for people’s bank accounts to simply check up on their mom’s health or their kids’ grades once they’re behind bars.
All this to say: you have to be careful and respectful when sharing that phone with two hundred other people who are all some level of pissed-off that they’re biding time in the slammer. Another reason to avoid incarceration, then—no one wants to get stabbed or their jaw broken over five minutes on a phone that already smells like the last guy’s morning slug of toilet wine.
Cells are cramped, bare spaces purposefully devoid of light and life. Begonias don’t even like them, and they’re suckers for dark, cozy spots. True, many minimum security facilities have more open plans now, which come with their own problems, but no matter where you land, you and the rest of the local convicts are stuck in a box together. There is no leeway for bad roommates. Forget college, where that might have gotten you a passive-aggressive Post-it note pasted to your mirror—now it could get you killed.
Here are a few suggestions of how to avoid pissing off your bunkmate:
• Being messy is an easy way to get in trouble with your assigned cohabitant. Think about your personal habits. A charming desire to conserve water by not flushing at home can become a shank of contention between you and a psychopath nicknamed Mickey Everest in your prison cell.
• Not paying much attention to who owns what stuff is a dangerous dalliance. I’m not even talking stealing another inmate’s property, which is a whole other level of risky business; I’m talking about using the wrong comb. Sure, you and your girlfriend might be lackadaisical about handing that big brush back and forth in the comfort of your own rent-by-the-week motel, but the Belo Brigada gang member occupying the top bunk while awaiting trial for assault with a deadly weapon might have a different idea about sharing personal property.