[randomacct8162]

I spent 3 years in US prisons for drug charges picked up when I was an addict and did a 90-day stint in solitary for breaking up a fight between two acquaintances.

AMA.

I'll start with: Yes, "fishing" is one of the first things you learn. It's not just for solitary, you use it to get stuff under other people doors when you're not out of your cells on a regular unit too, or when you don't want guards to suspect something.

Another interesting thing fact -- where I was at, in solitary you could trade your 1-hour of your cell a day for an extra tray of food at either lunch or dinner. Because the guards had to let each person in the solitary block out, one-at-a-time, for an hour, they were lazy and would let you forfeit your one hour out to shower/make a paid phone call/walk around the cell block for extra food. Most people took the extra tray.

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Edit: While this is on the front page, want to raise a bit of awareness about US criminal "justice system" and prisons:

I saw things like this regularly:

https://live-production.wcms.abc-cdn.net.au/c567d688cc89f084...

Guards would beat the shit out of you, strip you mostly naked, strap you to a restraint chair and cover your head with a hood, and then wheel you into a back room somewhere and "accidentally forget" about you for +8 hours until you pissed yourself, and then they'd come and laugh at you.

Lots of things I can't unsee from being in there.

[syki]

Thank you for sharing your experience and bringing these things to light. As Dostoevsky said, you can judge a society by how well it treats its prisoners. We are not a free people when we live under the threat of being out into a prison system as barbaric as the one we have.

[randomacct8162]

I did have one positive interaction with a guard that stood out to me from my time in there

I was being transported to a hospital for a medical procedure, and I was talking to the guard who taking me, to pass the time. I asked him why on earth he would want to be a prison guard -- after all, they are in there with us for 10 hour shifts, and prisons are some of the most bleak/depressing places on earth. That has to take a toll on their mental wellbeing too.

He said that he originally was a regular police officer, but after seeing how much corruption there was in the police force and the things that happened, he felt like a hypocrite, so he said the better alternative was for him to be a guard.

That conversation has stuck with me for a long time now.

[matheusmoreira]

Holy shit I didn't know that. Those guards belong in jail themselves, what they did is torture. Prison exists to remove from society people who are incompatible with it, nothing more and even that must be constantly questioned and re-evaluated. Nobody deserves to have their dignity stripped away like that.

[kindatrue]

Once you fall into Prison Conditions Twitters, it's pretty eye opening.

Like the guy who was boiled to death with hot water for funsies:

https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/florida-wont-charge-priso...

Or where rat poison is regularly fed:

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/22-rikers-island-prisoners-sic...

[Akronymus]

It also exists to make people compatible with society again. Or at least should be.

[oh_sigh]

You're assuming the accounting in the article is correct. Maybe it isn't:

> “Nobody can condone someone being thrown into a hot shower and killed,” Rundle said. “We read the same thing everyone else did, but it wasn't until we really investigated that we learned that is not what happened.”

https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/katherine-fernandez-rundl...

[jopsen]

> Those guards belong in jail themselves...

The guards are just the product of a system/culture.

[tokai]

Do solitary confinement help in correcting illegal/bad/wrong behaviour among prisoners in your opinion?

Seems to me that it can only breed resentment and detachment.

[randomacct8162]

No, not at all.

The thing I think most law-abiding/normal people don't understand about the types of people in prisons is that they are almost exclusively habitual offenders.

Even in the US, which is heavily punitive instead of rehabilitative, you have to have run-ins with the law a number of times before you are sentenced to serve time, rather than probation or a halfway-house etc.

From my experiences, ~90% of people I saw during my time in jail and prison were coming in and out, constantly being arrested. There's no desire on their part to change, they're a lost cause.

For the tiny handful of people that genuinely do want to have a normal life and not go back to prison, our justice system is awful. No, solitary is not good for that.

You need supportive + rehabilitative programs. They won't solve everything, but for the small number of people who want to get out of the system, they need an honest-to-god out and chance at living.

[kingcharles]

LOL. No. I did time in solitary. It literally makes everyone worse.

Most people are in solitary for fighting or disobeying instructions. Putting them in solitary does not change their behavior.

One thing - I was scared of solitary before I went there the first time. After the first time you realize there is nothing more (legally) the authorities can do to you once you're in solitary. You're in jail, in jail. Jail is boring as fuck. Solitary is super boring. But it's still jail. When you go there the second time you are prepared for everything and know how to run the system.

A lot of people also end up doing a long time in there because they misbehave in solitary, which is expected. You do it because (i) you're pissed off; (ii) there is nothing more they can do to you; (iii) it's fun to be finally be able to tell a certain guard that he is a piece of shit and his wife is ugly.

[bag_boy]

Can you summarize the experience in thirds? For example, what was the first 30 days like versus the last 30?

[randomacct8162]

The first two weeks were very difficult. You have to sort of mentally come to peace with the fact that you're shut in this tiny room and you can't leave. It feels very claustrophobic and if you're the type that has anxiety disorders you will probably have to ward off panic attacks.

After the first two weeks, time started to slowly speed up, and the days all sort of blurred together. Thankfully I was able to get a newspaper every day, and a book every now and then, and so I just read every word of the newspaper (even the ads) for something to do, and slept a lot.

I think I handled it better than a lot of people would have, as I'm sort of introverted by nature. There's research on solitary confinement permanently harming mental health, but I think I got lucky on that one.

[WhitneyLand]

What did/do you do for a living, tech related? How did it affect your career to have a felony drug charge?

[randomacct8162]

I was on computers a lot as a kid and sort of taught myself programming (very poorly) in my early years.

When I caught this charge, I had just turned 18. It really ruined my life.

Currently, I work in tech. For a very long time I was barely making ends meet, working in a fast food restaurant for minimum wage while trying to interview to get a developer job.

I went through 8 interview processes, and received offers from all but one. Each one of them was rescinded when HR learned that I had a felony, as a matter of company policy.

It was really heartbreaking and a lot of times, it made me want to give up on life and just stop trying. I kept interviewing and going to events/networking, and eventually found a very low-paying job at a local place and sort of slowly worked my way back up from there.

If anyone here has some degree of power at a company and wants to make a difference in the world, convince your company to hire felons with non-violent/non-finance related offenses.