August 12, 2010 • 43 mins
Most people have a basic understanding of how prisons work, but it's often heavily influenced by fiction. What's it really like behind those bars? In this episode, Josh and Chuck reveal the practices, controversies and harsh realities of prison life.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clark with me as always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant
as if you're surprised. Uh, and that makes this stuff
you should know, right, Chuck, Yes, we are here, Josh,
(00:22):
and uh can we talk about prisons? Now? We can
talk about prisons. Remember in the Presidential Pardons episode, I
was talking about how people have been calling for President
Obama to reduced to basically issue a blanket pardon for
people who are convicted under the mandatory minimums for crack
where there's a huge disparity, and I said it was
like five to one. It's actually it was I think, um,
(00:43):
a hundred and eighty to one disparity. Right, boy got
that one wrong, did well? He did it like pretty
much as we were recording that he signed this law.
Congress was passing this law that reduced the mandatory minimum
and basically, in a effect, overturned the sentences of first
time offenders who are convicted and we're given these five
(01:05):
years and anybody who was convicted under the old mandatory
minimum laws. So there's gonna be a lot of people
coming out of prison looking for crack. Well, that's one
argument that's not very fair to say. No, it's not.
But I mean, isn't that kind of the the way
that Americans and probably people in general view prisoners. It's like,
you did something wrong, so you deserve to be where
(01:25):
you are. But that's without having any real concept of
what prison is like. I mean, I know I don't
want to be in prison. Have you ever seen the
movie An Innocent Man? Remember we talked about that Tom Selleck,
very scary scene. That was it for me. I was like,
I don't ever want to go to prison ever. Um.
(01:45):
But that's about all I knew about it until we
started researching for this very robust podcast on how prison works.
So Chuck, um, I guess Apparently when this article was
written by Grabanowski, it was I think two thousand five
ish or that was the latest stats he had, and
it said he said that there were like more than
(02:06):
two million people in prison, right, and it's actually decreased. Yeah,
I've got one point six million at the end of
oh nine. But when I look at these stats there,
they're all kinds of stats. Um. You know, one in
thirty one adults is in the correction system, but that
includes jail, prison, probation, and supervision. So they narrowed that
(02:26):
down to only in prison. One and every one hundred
Americans is in prison. I know. And that crazy. Did
you see what fair state topped the list for the
most number of adults in prison? That's right, Georgia, Georgia
one in thirteen people, one in thirteen adults, and Georgia's
in the correctional system. That's crazy. Yeah, we live in
a state of criminals. Either that or some like a
(02:49):
real police state, one of the two. Uh yeah, I'm
not gonna comment on that, said, Chuck, we should probably
calm down. Let's settle down here. Let's talk about prison.
Prisons a deterrent, it the punishment, and it's hopefully there's
increasingly it's becoming a place of reform and rehabilitation. We'll
talk about that a little bit um. But in the US,
(03:11):
there's pretty much three three types of security levels for prison, right, yeah,
with one extra little added measure that we'll talk about.
It's a big extra though. Yeah, you got a minimum,
you got medium, and you've got of course everyone's favorite
maximum security prisons and uh minimums security prison were we're
(03:32):
mainly going to cover maximum because that's really the most interesting.
Even though I think they said like only or in max,
is that right? Well, according to the two thousand five stats,
but um, minimum is more like like a college campus
that kind of thing. It's like that weekend that you
did orientation at the college you eventually went to. I
would think that's like minimum security prison, right, uh, And
(03:55):
that's definitely non violent offenders with pretty clean criminal records,
or may be you've served time in a medium and
you were really good and they were like, yeah, let's
bump this dude down to maximum a minimum. Yeah, right, right,
then you've got medium, and that's the one that actually
you you would see most um on like television shows
or something, people think that's maximum, But when you see
(04:17):
prisoners able to like move around and play cards and
stuff like that, that's generally medium from what I understand. Right. Yeah,
they have like dorm room style accommodations a lot of
times with you know, eight or ten guys to a room.
Um and like you said, the little social day rooms
where they hang out and trade cigarettes and like on oz. Yeah,
exactly do horrific things to one. We'll get to that too. Uh.
(04:39):
And then of course the granddaddy of them all is
the maximum security prison. These are the violent offenders, guys
that have escaped or tried to escape. We're gonna say
guys a lot. Yes, I think less than ten percent
of the prison population is female. So it's not like
we're not trying to give the ladies their due. We
know you can do awful things as well, so props
(04:59):
to you, but we're gonna say dudes a lot. Well,
there's and then there's a subcategory that it was pretty rare. Um.
That came about in nine three at the maximum security
prison in um Marion, Illinois I think not Juliet Marian
right um. Two guards were murdered in two separate incidents
(05:20):
on the same day and the prison went into lockdown,
which bad coincidence. Is that what they called it, and
that's what I call it. The prison went into lockdown,
which is where you're in your cell all day, you
can't move around, you can't do anything, you have no
freedom of movement. Um. And it remained in that state
ever since. So it basically gave birth to the super
max prison, right uh. And since then a lot of
(05:44):
prisons have been opened as super max prisons during a
state of lockdown, And if it sounds a bit familiar,
basically the entire prison is a series of solitary confinements
there the whole. Yeah, they call it officially, it's called
Security Housing Unit and s h U, but everyone calls
it the whole, just like in the movies. And as
far as prisons go, solitary confinement and then especially supermax
(06:07):
is extremely controversial, right. Um. Solitary confinement originally was created
in eighteen thirty by a warden and a prison in
Pennsylvania with the lofty goal of giving a convict nothing
but time to contemplate what he'd done, the bad thing
that he'd done. I think anything that was supposed in
(06:28):
eighteen thirty is a good way to punish people. You
might want to review that notion again here. And so, yeah,
they basically found out that actually these are they don't
sit around and think about all the bad they've done.
They kind of go nuts, and not just kind of
go nuts, They go clinically insane as anybody would, right,
or they go in sort of insane and they really
(06:48):
go off the deep ends. Right. Because prison has also
and still remains used to um, how is the mentally
ill at times, not as much or as overtly as before,
but still you find the insane in prisons, right. Um.
The other problem with a super max facility, besides the
fact that it amounts to torture, psychological or otherwise, is that, um,
(07:11):
these things, these places are reserved for the worst of
the worst, supposedly, and in any given state there's a
couple maybe of the worst of the worst. But a
super max prison may have a couple hundred cells. Yeah,
you gotta fill the cells somehow, so you have relatively
minor offenses or convicts, um going into super max prisons,
(07:34):
the killing themselves in a really horrible way. Yeah, this
is a big build up in the nineties. I think
they said by the end of the decade and of
the nineties that um, thirty different states had a super
max prison. Well, and you said that each state only
has a handful of dudes that even qualify. So, like
you said, they get put in there, they kind of
go through a zoocosis of sorts, like weird behavior like
(07:57):
the bears walking in circles. Um, except way way worse, way,
way worse. This one guy in Wisconsin, he was a
sixteen year old car thief. Another guy, twenty year old
David Tracy, hanged himself in a Virginia supermax and he
was nineteen and he had been there for two and
a half years for selling drugs. No, he'd been there
for a year and he had a two and a
half year sentence and he still hung himself. He couldn't
(08:18):
even make it a year, Kim halfway into a two
and a half year sentence because he was immediately put
in solitary confinement. Um, and then it gets worse. Apparently,
UM people have um been known to swallow razor blades.
One guy uh In in Indiana super max prison choked
himself to death with a washcloth, and another guy, twenty
(08:38):
one year old mentally ill prisoner in that same prison
set himself on fire and later died from those wounds. Yeah.
The good news, though, my friend, is that UM, a
lot of supermaxes have been downgraded since then, Like the
current trend is to downgrade your supermax to regular max.
So they're kind of getting the message a little bit
(08:59):
that we'd really don't need that to this many super
max presents. Yeah, apparently the nineties were bad. Yeah, but
there's only one federal supermax only one, which one a
d X in Florence, Colorado. A d X Florence. But
like you said, it's mostly on the state level. That's
for like the really really bad tax evaders. I imagine
(09:20):
a d X is not the kind of place you
want to take a tour. I wouldn't think that the
single federal supermax is not the kind of place you
want to be. It's a chuck, You buddy, have just
(09:58):
been popped, say, growing marijuana indoors, You're going to prison.
Let's come to terms with that, Okay, okay. Um, there's
a couple of ways that you actually get to prison, right, yeah,
and there as follows. You can take a taxi, which
apparently is more routine than we would imagine. I had
(10:19):
no idea. Um, you can be dropped off by a
friend or family member. That's what I would choose, as
in I think that's what Edward Norton. I'd have my
mom take me. Do you drop me off at prison? Right? Well?
And um, you can also take the prison bus. Right
It's called the diesel to Diesel tour because they'll you know,
it's a prison bus. It's not like some luxury greyhound uh,
(10:41):
bus liner. You know how nice as greyhounds are. Oh yeah,
they're nice. It's not like that, you know that it's
kind of cramped and nasty and smelly and it sounds
like a a locker room on wheels. Well not just that.
They you go take yourself to the sheriff's department and, um,
you know, curse your family member for not being like, really,
couldn't just take me the rest of the way to
(11:02):
the prison. Um. So you get to the sheriff's department
and you basically just wait there for the prison bus
to come pick you up. And then you know, you
stop at sheriff's department, after Sheriff's department, after Sheriff's department.
That's the insulting part. Yeah, You're like, all right, can
I go to prison? Can I just start this please?
And they're like, well, we gotta make six stops from
the way. Just hold on and the bus is going
to break down in exactly a minute. We're gonna go
(11:23):
pick up your future boyfriend first, so chuck. You um,
finally get to prison, right, thank god, those cookies that
your mom gave you have been taken away from you.
I mean just immediately you didn't even get to eat one.
They're chowing down on those, the guards are. And you
have a new moniker. You have a new name, a
new catch all name that describes you as a newly
(11:47):
inducted prisoner. You're a fish. Yeah, yeah, just like in
the movies. You know a lot of this. I thought,
that's just like in the movies. And it is just
like in the movies because they know a lot about prison.
So why would you make a prison movie that was
completely unrealistic right when you can make the real deal
and it's very compelling. Yeah, and we'll talk about movies too,
But yes, you are a fish, Josh. You're all your
(12:08):
stuff is taken and cataloged, hopefully kept. We'll get to
that later as well. Some of it might be lost
along the way. Uh. You are allowed to bring in
like your reading glasses and maybe a few books. No cookies,
no cookies, you're legal papers if you you know, were
into that. And so you're you're processed, right, and you're
actually processed often in full view of other cons in
(12:30):
the fish tank. And they call it, yeah, they call
it the fish tank because all the guys who are
already in prison can sit there and watch right. Um,
but they keep you segregated for about thirty days or more.
You had no idea what was that long? I didn't either.
I thought they allowsed you. They sprayed you at the
fire hose, gave you an orange jumpsuit and threw you
in there. That's what I imagine. But yeah, no, for
(12:50):
thirty days you're basically segregated. I imagine what the other
fellas on the diesel tour you know, and um, you
are assigned a job most likely, but you're about fish
tank like you're on full display. Like for thirty days,
dudes are sizing you up. Well, Like in Shaw Shank
when they took bets on who was going to be
the first gut, first fish to break down and cry
(13:13):
that first night, it was that fat guy broke down
and cry, and then he got beaten and bad things
happen to him. I always confused that. In the Green Mile,
I didn't like that one. No, Sean Shank was definitely better,
but I often confused scenes they were shot almost exactly
the same. Yeah, I agreed. So, uh, once you get
(13:33):
out of your fish tank, you get your cell assignment,
you may get your job right and again for about
ten cents an hour. That's what you're paid. You should
I read the letter real quick. There's actually a site
on the web called prison talk dot com, and it's
not as hot as you would think now, but you
can go to forums there and read x cons and
(13:54):
maybe even some current cons if you have internet access
and like a minimum security talk about things on these
is in forms. So I found a letter of I
was digging around about jobs, and this one guy said
the worst job he had was being a dorm janitor.
He got paid forty cents a day. This is not
by the hour. Forty cents a day, five days a week.
There were four dorms total, about sixty guys in each,
(14:17):
two bathrooms in each. You don't want to have a
salaried prison job as a convict. I'm not sure if
that hit home. Sixty guys sharing two bathrooms and this
guy was in charge of cleaning that on a daily basis.
I do appreciate you repeating that. So he swept off
in he said he kept the dorm rooms clean. You've
never seen a battleground of chaos until you've seen a
bathroom after thirty guys take a shower, mud dirt, torn, tissue,
(14:42):
blue State soap, so I guess they get SOAPA signed
to them and never really thought about that. So anyway,
tobacco spit in the in the hangout room, garbage um
cigarette butts from roll ups. Basically, this dude had to
clean that stuff up for forty cents a day and
he said that was the worst job you ever had
in for his all right, and he didn't even mention
(15:02):
the fecal matter. Well, I think that's implicit. Well I
just made an explicit check. Yes, So that is one
example of a prison job that you can get um
and then you're off to your room, which I would
encourage everyone now to walk off eight ft by six
ft wherever they are and get a good look at
how large that is. And that's about the size of
(15:22):
your prison cell. That's close to what we're at right now. Yeah,
that's small, and that's a little claustrophobic. Usually, well it depends.
The Most prison cells are designed for one guy, and
then as prisons have grown increasingly overcrowded, they'll go and
like bolt a bunk to another bunk to the wall,
(15:45):
and then while I you have a cell for two,
and then sometimes there's three. Whatever usually if it's designed
to house more than um one or two people that
it's a dorm and it can accommodate about eight guys
per cell. Right yeah, I mean we could do a
whole podcast on overcrowding and the issues there. That's like
a very deep problem, but we'll just mention it and
(16:05):
say it stinks. I'm beat literally and otherwise. Right, um,
so chuck the You've got the general population cellblocks, right,
which are all of the cell blocks aside from the
fish tank and maximum security, which is also known as
the whole right, and you've basically did you watch OZ
(16:27):
a little bit? I think from what I understand that
that's really accurate. I'm sure it is. So there's like
a centrally located guard and like loose sight or whatever.
They're like, you can't get through this, you know, operating
the all the cell blocked doors and like letting people
in and out, and they have a three and sixty
degree view right well, and each one I thought this
is interesting is fully each wing is fully staffed in
(16:50):
case you need to lock down that wing. You've got
all the dudes there, you need to take care of it,
and it can be sealed off from the rest of
the prison because apparently, um, the riot mob mentality can
spread like wildfire among the president population. Yes, yeah, so um,
and you would think, you know, people try to escape, which,
(17:10):
by the way, there's a a double check. There's a
stuff you missed in history class podcast about Alcatraz and
the Great Escape. They Escape from Alcatraz, great movie. So
if you want to learn more about that one, you
can check that out, all right, if you're so inclined. Um,
But to make sure that no one has escaped at
any given point in time, they do counts through about
(17:32):
the same time every day, probably the same time every day.
They just do a head count where you have to
line up and they say, okay, everybody's here. Then at
night they walk around and count you while you're sleeping,
right yeah. And then not only are you there, but
you where you need to be. So if they say, well, Josh,
you're in Chuck cell again, you know where you need
to be, so they'll beat you down and take you
(17:53):
to your own cell. Right, I'll feel like I need
to be here, don't you hear our podcast? The Chuck
is my partner. I wonder what the good fellas uh
that had to be minimum or was that just a
sweetheart deal? That was a sweetheart to remember when they
were all in the same room, like cooking steaks. Yeah,
the the one guy could slice the garlic so thin
it was liquefying the oil so great. So Chuck, let's say, Um,
(18:16):
you've become acclimated. You're no longer fish you. Um, you've
shanked your first guy. Um, and you you're settled in
for a nickel right, shank of verb? Yeah, it's shank
is a verb, and and down and shiv is also
another name for a shank, right, which is a homemade knife. Yes, okay,
I just want to get that clear. I don't know
(18:38):
that it is clear. Well, a shiv and a shank,
I know, can both be nouns for the knife. But
I've also heard that you can shank someone and you
can show someone you can. I think they're both nouns
and verbs very loosen prison for the same one. They're
very understanding. Yes, with the vocabulary. Um, so you settled
in and you are living your life in prison behind bars,
(19:01):
you know. Um, it's it's I would imagine, fairly horrible.
But there are bright and shining moments and those basically
consist of the trip to the commissary, right, yeah, and
I don't I didn't know this, they don't. You don't
see this a lot in movies. All you see is
the black market stuff. But there is actually a commissary
where you can you have an account where you your
(19:24):
little prison money goes into your account. They obviously don't
give you cash, that wouldn't be a good idea. And uh,
you go to the commissary and say, hey, I like, um,
whatever is approved on the list, you know, like a
pack of smokes and uh, People magazine and they're like,
well that's you know, three and a half dollars, So
go work for a month people from January? Yeah, who
(19:46):
sexiest man alive? And actually they debit each Each prisoner
has an ID card that is linked to basically their
prison work account. That's when they say their their debited
credits or given credits, and then it's debited from their
account when you buy stuff from the commissary. I learned
about that from Snoop Dogg. Really, so that's the fancy
(20:10):
modern prisons have it all electronically hooked up, which makes sense.
But um, like we said, there's also a black market
which you have seen in every prison movie ever, there's
dudes trading cigarettes for favors or for protection, or for
better books or better people magazines or whatever. And there's
also visits from out of doors. Yeah right, sure, you
(20:34):
get the bad stuff in a lot of times. Again,
good fellas, You remember Karen snuck in like those huge
bagged pills. I mean just like like in her purse
or in her bra or something. Yeah, they clearly didn't
check her. Again, I think that they got special treatment
and chuck. Um. One of the things that I would
imagine goes for a pretty high price, you know, maybe
(20:57):
a dozen cigarettes or so. Um is prison wine, right, Yeah,
which prison wine? Pruno? Have you ever seen the site
where the guy eats nasty things, Steve, Steve, don't eat it.
I think it's called um. It is really funny and
I saw this years ago. This guy made Pruno prison
wine in his house and it's made with like fruits.
(21:20):
It's sort of like a Sangree type of thing. Then
you put like moldy bread in a sock and it's
like soaking all together in a bag till it ferments,
and it's imagine pretty disgusting. Steve said it wasn't that bad.
He drank it. He did a white and a red.
He said the white smelled like wrecked um, but he
said it tasted just like alcohol. And he said the
(21:41):
red actually wasn't that bad at all. He said, he
said it tasted wine like and got him drunk, which
is which is the deal? And uh so that that
was the deal with Pruno. Wow. I wouldn't recommend trying
in this at home, by the way, No, but that's
the whole point. I mean, you're not at home, you're
in prison, and you want to get drunk, so you
(22:03):
make pruno. Yeah, unless someone wants to. Like you said,
with visitation, you can sneak things in if you're you know,
on the download, you're really not supposed to do that
way you're not supposed to. You get searched. And um,
and yes we are talking about visitation as well, now right.
I didn't realize that, UM, visiting hours are basically like
(22:23):
business hours. I thought it was like one day a
month and everybody came at the same time on the
same day. But that makes zero sense. UM. Prisoners are
assigned a set number of visits per month, and I
think the maximum number of visits you can get per
month is for the most exemplary prisoner on the planet. Yeah,
I would imagine that that's something that they take away
(22:44):
pretty pretty routinely if you, you know, are being disciplined, yes, Josh.
And you also have to have a list when you
go in of who you say can and can't visit you.
And if you're not on that list, you can eventually visit,
but it's gonna take a long time and a lot
of paperworking tape, yes, right, yeah, And I think you
have unlimited visits from investigators, your lawyer and that's about it, right, Yeah,
(23:08):
but they still keep track of all that and your
search coming in the prisoner and the and the visitor
both searched coming in and out. I don't know if
it's full body cavity. It probably depends on the max
level or your crime. I think kind of follows you
around in prison, like what you did, what are you're
convicted of? Like if you're convicted for smuggling things in
your butt, check you a little more careful. And of course,
(23:30):
now since we're talking about um, oh, and during visitation,
like just regular visitation, right, um at a minimum security
Remember this is just like college orientation weekend. Um, it
looks like a waiting room. Um. And then in maximum security,
visitation is like through that bulletproof class on the phone. Yeah,
it's pretty accurate. And then there's a different kind of
(23:53):
visitation that I think everybody likes to think about, at
least thinks about whenever they hear prison. And that is
kind of goal visitation, right, Yeah, it's it's one of
the two ways that you can have sex in prison. Right.
This is far more the um, the I guess more
governmentally defended way of having sex in prison. UM. Conjugal
(24:16):
visits Actually, we're UM originated in nineteen eighteen in Mississippi
at a state prison in Mississippi, where they remain in effect.
But originally they were created as a reward for hard
work on the chain gangs and stuff right, well, and
to incentivize them to work harder to write um. And
it worked really really well. UM. Nowadays that's not used
(24:38):
quite as UM overtly as an incentive or reward. UM.
It is a reward for for good behavior or you
have to be like, you know, the one who can
get as many visits a month as one possibly can
level of good behavior prisoner. But UM. It's generally defended
in two ways. One is a basic human right, like
(24:59):
you have a right to have sex even if you're incarcerated,
just like you have a right to food and water
and being kept clean, sure, right um. And then the
other way, and this this appears to be much more
legitimate in the eyes of the correction system. It's a
way to maintain the family bonds throughout a stint in prisons.
Right sweet. And that's what it's even officially called as
(25:20):
the Extended Family Program, right, So it's not just about sex.
Like you can have your whole family come over and barbecue.
In some states it's UM. In Canada, I think they
have there there. I guess visitation areas look like apartments
have barbecues. There's such wisses you can have. You can
(25:40):
have up to three UM family members at a time visit.
Or you can just have your wife and it has
to be your wife and you have to have been
married before, because that's the whole point they want. They
don't want you to turn into even more of a
deviant than you were going in. They want you to
keep talking to your wife and keep you know, loving
(26:01):
your kids mean love by your kids. And to make
that the transition back out into the normal world that
much easier, right, Right, So, if you're one of those
serial killers and you have one of those weirdos that
writes you and you're marry and then you marry them,
they can't come and visit you and have sex, right right, No, Okay? Now, Um,
if you're gay, however, and you have a domestic partner
and you are in Mexico City, Brazil, or California, you
(26:26):
are entitled to conjugal visits as well, which is pretty
significant in California because in two thousand seven you could
have a conjugal visit if you were gay, but you
couldn't get married if you were gay, thanks to Proposition eight,
which was just overturned. Yeah yesterday. It's not over yet.
(26:46):
The proposition night was overturned yesterday. Yeah. So that's the
that's the skinny and conjugal visits not not quite as
again like arrested development, I don't think, yeah, and they
don't use it a whole lot anymore. They say it's
pretty uncommon. There's only six states, right, yeah, but um,
the one thing I thought was funny though, that one
of the rules for the visiting um person is the
(27:09):
dress appropriately and they said on the list of rules
was no transparent clothing or bare middriffs, strapless attire, or
anything with obscene or offensive language. So your wife can't
get all dolled up in her baby doll lingerie. I
don't know. I think they're like, can't you just put
a trench coat on? Like everybody else? You know, have
(27:30):
you not seen the movies exactly? And I think the
mix that's it's a mixed bag on whether or not
experts agree or they just agree and disagree, whether or
not it actually serves a really good purpose. Well, yeah,
and the studies on it have have shown mixed results
about whether or not it prevents recitativism. Yeah, that's one
bone head word. That's why s game a little bit
(27:54):
that you should know, should know. But Josh Clark, so Chuck,
(28:20):
you mentioned there's another way to have sex in prison,
and this is one of the reasons I don't want
to go to prison, because actually there's two more ways.
Oh yeah, Well, you can have consensual sex with another
man if you're in there, which doesn't necessarily mean you're homosexual.
A lot of guys just there's nothing wrong with that, like,
I just do that because they're in there. And uh,
there's also rape that happens in prison. That's the reason
(28:42):
I don't want to go to prison, just one reason. Uh.
In two thousand seven, Josh, we have a statistic from
the Bureau of Justice says four point five percent of
state and federal prisoners reported being raped in the past year.
And that is UM seventy thousand prisoners in a year.
We're sexually abused by either guards or other inmates. See,
(29:03):
that's all over the place, because there's other I've seen
other numbers. UM one one two thousand four study found
that zero point zero zero five percent even reported being
raped while they were incarcerated, and then a lot of
those were probably you know, untrue. Well that's the deal,
is reported. That's the key. Like rape goes unreported a lot,
(29:25):
just period, but it definitely goes unreported in prison because
you don't want to be a snitch. Well sure, but no,
I think these are people who have been let out already.
Oh okay, yeah. But then in two thousand three, the
year before UM, Congress created the Prison Rape Elimination Actors.
You know about that UM and the number they used
(29:46):
was thirteen pent and estimated of prisoners are raped during
their incarceration and their goal is zero. Well, yeah, and
they're like, you have to have a zero tolerance policy
on UM inmate two inmate rape UM and guard to
inmate or employee to inmate. Sure, rape that kind of
thing too, because it's not just inmates raping one another.
(30:09):
Guards at correctional facilities have been known to um be
a little heavy handed and possibly psychotic themselves. Yeah. And
I can say this because my cousin was a prison
guard for a little while, a corrections officer. Cousin Wolfe.
Was he high school grad? Well he had to be. Yeah,
but you don't have to go to college to be
a corrections officer, No, you don't. You just have to
(30:30):
know how to shoot a shotgun. But to be the
warden you do. Yes, okay, Josh. Let's say you're in
prison and you commit a an offense or you're caught
raping somebody. Under the new zero tolerance policy, Well, if
you're caught raping someone or murdering someone, you would actually
go to trial for real, guess. But if you're caught
doing something a little less offensive, um, you can go
(30:52):
to the whole. They can um remove your good behavior time,
transfer you to to a scarier prison, or like you said, uh,
limit your visiting hours that I'm sure that's a good
way to dig back at a prisoner. So you can't
get visits, um, and you get demerits called shots, and
they log those to your little file. Yeah, and they
(31:14):
take those into consideration when you're up for parole hearing
or you're up to maybe get more visitations if if
they're any time, they're looking at your behavior. Yeah, Um,
they'll look at the shots and they follow you around.
You don't want any shots. And that's official punishment. Is
there's also unofficial punishment meted out by guards, right, Yeah.
(31:34):
I would rather have the official punishment, I think, because
just like in the movies, the guards can shake you down.
They can quote unquote, um investigate what you have in
your room, when what they're really doing is like destroying
the things that you've grown to depend on to keep
you saying, I know, have you ever seen Birdman of Alcatraz? Yeah,
it's awful, and they take his birds away I know well,
(31:56):
and then uh escape from Alcatraz. They took away the
one eyes paints the old dude that painted. That was
like the only thing he loved and they took away
his canvas in his paints. Some jerk warden. It's always
a jerk warden. Well, yeah, except Brewbaker. We'll talk about
that too. Uh. And guards can also beat you down,
and if nobody sees it and no one reports it,
(32:16):
then it's just what happens. Well, I think it's I
think that's officially sanctioned. I don't think that they have
to get permission to beat you down. If I permiss, say, hey,
this guy is getting a little ordinary, so I'm gonna
break a river or too. But what I'm saying is
I think they have a pretty wide berth as to
what sanctions the beating and Grabmanowski put it, I'd like
to I'd like to quote him here. It is not
uncommon for guards to fire shotguns at prisoners whenever they
(32:39):
see any commotion. Didn't understand that one, and I double checked,
and it says at prisoners, not just fire shotguns like
up in the air something. It's just like, hey, there's
you guys are scuffling. Kaboom. Yeah, I don't know about
that one. Yeah, this is indoors uh so like we said, Um,
snitches are not you don't want to be a snitch
(32:59):
in prison, And um, it's very much that mentality that
you see in the movies where keep it quiet, don't
rat on anyone, because if you do, then I mean,
who knows what's going to happen. Uh, well, I can
tell you it's gonna happen. You're likely to be shanked
or shipped, which is the same thing, or raped and
shaw shank. Yeah. Remember Andy's problem there with the with
the sisters. Yeah, but he got back. That was one
(33:22):
of the great redemption scenes of all time. I think
the whole movie with great Oh no, I'm sorry, I
was thinking of the Green Mile. Sorry, but the funny
thing is is, and it's not funny to the guards,
but they're way way more prisoners than guards. And every
once in a while in history we've had these big
uprisings where the prisoners have actually taken control of the prison. Yeah,
(33:44):
if you work at a prison, you don't want to
hear the word attica sounded out by like enchant form
by one or even more one or two prisoners. Is
that what they use now? Is that the signal? Well,
I mean like that that means that there's violent unrest
right around the corner. I thought that was a signal.
Now was like attica, I don't know if it's a signal.
(34:07):
Is more like a call to arms, you know, And
all of a sudden there's toilet paper on fire and
guys are coming at you and it's just not good. Yeah,
that didn't work out too well. No, it was one right,
And apparently Atteka Prison in upstate New York was really
really deplorable as far as its treatment of the prisoners went,
(34:28):
which is really saying something because their prisoners to begin with,
and to have like the prisoners even know like you
can't do this, Um, that's pretty bad. So they took
a couple of guards hostage, rioted, um held them, and
demanded for better treatment. And the State of New York
was like, okay, all right, we hear you, and we're
(34:48):
going to storm the prison. And I think thirty three
people died. Uh no, thirty nine guards. Yeah, thirty nine
guards and prisoners died. And that was in Many one. Um.
And then there's one in New Mexico, right, Yeah. The
New Mexico State pen uh near Santa Fe was another uprising,
(35:09):
and that was where thirty three inmates were killed and
no guards were killed, but seven of them were captured
and beaten pretty severely, right, and apparently some of the
inmates that were killed died from torture. Really just pleasant.
I mean, think about it, Chuck. It's bad enough to
go to prison, but one of the aspects of prison
is that there's an end of your sentence, right, there's
a light at the end of the tunnel if you
(35:30):
can make it. Dying in prison is about as bad
as it gets, especially dying of torture in prison. Would
say it's pretty bad. So Josh, let's say you don't die.
Let's see you serve your time and you do get out.
What what what goes on there? Well, you would be
like nine of all prison inmates get out. Yeah, which
(35:53):
is one of the reasons why you want those family
bonds in there, because you want to keep people on
the up and up rather than Prison represents a real
double edged sword. Either it reforms people or it makes
them worse, and a lot of that depends on how
a prisoners treated and the options get into them in prison. Um.
(36:13):
One of the big trends now is education as part
of rehabilitation. So I think every single state prison in
the US UM offers a G. E. D course, and
some of them require it for parole, which is good. Yeah. Right.
There's also a vocational course, is that kind of thing? Right? Yes,
But once again, like in shaw Shank, you can take
that course and pass the test, but if you have
(36:35):
a jerk warden, you still might get shot. You know,
we should have done at the beginning of this podcast.
We should have just said, everybody, go watch Shawshank Redemption.
Everybody'll see you next week. Everyone loves that movie. Can
we talk about the movies? Now? Are we there? Not quite? Okay? Um, Chuck.
There's a lot of people out there who don't think
that prisoners should just be left to rot, that they
(36:59):
they're there should be prison reform, that there shouldn't be
any rape, that that Congress shouldn't have had to have
passed the law requiring zero tolerance on prison rape. Um.
And there's actually been a prison reform movement going around
since I think, uh, possibly earlier than that, I don't know. Yeah,
(37:20):
the Quakers are huge on prison reform as well. Uh.
And again, you want prison reform, you want your prisoners
treated in a way where there is the potential for
rehabilitation um because of recitativism, right, well, yeah, I mean
that's why they pay them to work these jobs, because
they want to give them some semblance of normal life
(37:43):
so when they get out they can say, oh, well,
I held a job in prison for the first time
in my life. Maybe they were like a drug dealer,
what have you. Right, well, think about it. Recitativism. The
highest rate is among property offenses, and that is a
crime of the poor, breaking into someone's house and stealing
of stuff. Yeah, that's what you do when you're poor. Yeah,
(38:03):
and that's got the highest rate of recentativism. So it
would seem like some sort of education or occupational program
wouldn't help deter that. Well. Yeah. But the other stat though,
that kind of makes me feel weird, is that I
think sixty seven of people who commit crimes to go
back into prison it's an entirely different crime that they commit.
Oh yeah, which was like that was really discouraging. I
(38:25):
would think maybe if the guy just can't not steal TVs,
he gets out and steal TVs, you would think, so
at least go back to what he knows. But yeah,
that's a little staggering. It is that would shut any
Quaker up? And what what is the rate? I saw?
I can't get like the most recent stat but it
looks like between fifty and six somewhere in there from
(38:46):
year to year for recidivism rates. Yeah, though in two
and ninety four it was sixty seven point five, right.
I think it's gone down since then. Yeah, And and
that's surprising because the incarceration rates have gone down too,
which is totally bucking a trend. I think, um, they're
going down. That's what you said. Remember in two thousand
five that these stats are based on, it was two
(39:08):
million and changed to I'm sorry, it was two million, Um,
one ninety three thousand prisoners in the US. You said
it was less than two million in two thousand nine. Yeah,
but I think that's people that are currently incarcerated. But
that doesn't necessarily mean more people aren't being incarcerated on
a daily basis, because I think that's true because the
(39:30):
mandatory minimums. I think more people than ever are being incarcerated.
So maybe that was people that had left. I don't know. Well,
whatever it was, there was a two hundred seventy increase
between two thousand. That's huge, and we spent I think
fifty one billion dollars to incarceerate people in prison in jail,
whereas um, I think that comes out to twenty nine
(39:52):
thousand per per year. And remember a bail podcast. Uh
it costs d and fifty doll was per in mate
per year for probation. How much rather than twenty nine
thousand dollars. But these minor offenses throwing these guys, especially
like the car thief that was in a super max
that was sixteen. Let me come on non violent offenses.
(40:16):
You can rehabilitate that kids with some work. Alright, So, Chuck,
I think it is movie time, don't you think so? Yes,
Josh movies. I made a list of my favorites. Feel
free to chime in. Shawshank Redemption that's number one for me,
The Green Mile, and that's not mine. I've got Escape
from Alcatraz because I saw that when I was a kid,
(40:37):
and it's still like an awesome movie, Papion classic with
the Dustin Hoffman with the glasses, with the glasses and
and Steve McQueen, right, it was in the Great Escape
to also a great person movie. H cool hand Luke
was probably the funniest one of the lot, the longest yard. Actually,
that might have been the funniest one. I never saw
either of them. Really, You're nuts. Bad Boys Classic with
(41:02):
Will Smion and the Sean Penn went about the juv detention.
That's when Sean Penn was like, you know, nineteen years
old and he was in juvenile detention and then he
he filled a pillow case up with a soda cans
and just annihilated this dude one night. Yeah, that's called
a slock. By the way, Now that's when it's in
a sock. Okay, I imagine this is me. It's called slaice.
(41:27):
UM American History X. That was pretty brutal. Yeah, that
was very brutal. Brew Baker, did you see that one.
That's where Robert Redford went in undercover as a prisoner
to sniff out how awful the prison was because he
was going to be the next warden. You're talking about
the natural And then most depressing, definitely Midnight Express for me,
(41:51):
the Turkish prison one. Yeah, Midnight Run was pretty depressing.
And um Animal Factory is the one I'm gonna say
is the most realistic. I have not seen that one.
That's the one that Steve Bushimmy directed and Um Edward
for long and I think William dafoees in it. It's
really good. And it's called Animal Factories, so you have
(42:12):
a pretty good idea that it's realistic. I saw a
Taxi to the Dark Side last night, and it's not.
It's about the US's policies on torture and how he
implemented him post nine eleven. But there's a lot of
prison stuff in it, like Abu Grave and Bogram and
stuff like that. It's pretty disturbing. Yeah, we didn't get
into I mean, there's so much about prisons that we
didn't get into here. We could do like three more
(42:34):
podcasts if we wanted to, and if it seemed like
we danced around something. Oh, I don't know. Capital Punishment, Yeah,
I didn't go there. That's coming. I can't wait to
do that one. It's gonna be sweeping. There's gonna be
top hats and like people doing like the can can
and stuff at the beginning. It's going to be enormous. Yeah,
I think we have the rockets lined up for that
list we do in prison Garbent. Yes, So Chuck's telling
(42:58):
me he's given me the Double Ink, which means there
is no listener mail. It was too long and too
full of goodness. You know what that means. That means
we just haven't gotten any listener mail. So we want
to hear from you. Just type some stuff out that
we would find interesting. Spanking on the bottom maybe yeah,
talc it first and uh send it to stuff podcast
(43:22):
at how stuff works dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works
dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clark with me as always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant
as if you're surprised. Uh, and that makes this stuff
you should know, right, Chuck, Yes, we are here, Josh,
(00:22):
and uh can we talk about prisons? Now? We can
talk about prisons. Remember in the Presidential Pardons episode, I
was talking about how people have been calling for President
Obama to reduced to basically issue a blanket pardon for
people who are convicted under the mandatory minimums for crack
where there's a huge disparity, and I said it was
like five to one. It's actually it was I think, um,
(00:43):
a hundred and eighty to one disparity. Right, boy got
that one wrong, did well? He did it like pretty
much as we were recording that he signed this law.
Congress was passing this law that reduced the mandatory minimum
and basically, in a effect, overturned the sentences of first
time offenders who are convicted and we're given these five
(01:05):
years and anybody who was convicted under the old mandatory
minimum laws. So there's gonna be a lot of people
coming out of prison looking for crack. Well, that's one
argument that's not very fair to say. No, it's not.
But I mean, isn't that kind of the the way
that Americans and probably people in general view prisoners. It's like,
you did something wrong, so you deserve to be where
(01:25):
you are. But that's without having any real concept of
what prison is like. I mean, I know I don't
want to be in prison. Have you ever seen the
movie An Innocent Man? Remember we talked about that Tom Selleck,
very scary scene. That was it for me. I was like,
I don't ever want to go to prison ever. Um.
(01:45):
But that's about all I knew about it until we
started researching for this very robust podcast on how prison works.
So Chuck, um, I guess Apparently when this article was
written by Grabanowski, it was I think two thousand five
ish or that was the latest stats he had, and
it said he said that there were like more than
(02:06):
two million people in prison, right, and it's actually decreased. Yeah,
I've got one point six million at the end of
oh nine. But when I look at these stats there,
they're all kinds of stats. Um. You know, one in
thirty one adults is in the correction system, but that
includes jail, prison, probation, and supervision. So they narrowed that
(02:26):
down to only in prison. One and every one hundred
Americans is in prison. I know. And that crazy. Did
you see what fair state topped the list for the
most number of adults in prison? That's right, Georgia, Georgia
one in thirteen people, one in thirteen adults, and Georgia's
in the correctional system. That's crazy. Yeah, we live in
a state of criminals. Either that or some like a
(02:49):
real police state, one of the two. Uh yeah, I'm
not gonna comment on that, said, Chuck, we should probably
calm down. Let's settle down here. Let's talk about prison.
Prisons a deterrent, it the punishment, and it's hopefully there's
increasingly it's becoming a place of reform and rehabilitation. We'll
talk about that a little bit um. But in the US,
(03:11):
there's pretty much three three types of security levels for prison, right, yeah,
with one extra little added measure that we'll talk about.
It's a big extra though. Yeah, you got a minimum,
you got medium, and you've got of course everyone's favorite
maximum security prisons and uh minimums security prison were we're
(03:32):
mainly going to cover maximum because that's really the most interesting.
Even though I think they said like only or in max,
is that right? Well, according to the two thousand five stats,
but um, minimum is more like like a college campus
that kind of thing. It's like that weekend that you
did orientation at the college you eventually went to. I
would think that's like minimum security prison, right, uh, And
(03:55):
that's definitely non violent offenders with pretty clean criminal records,
or may be you've served time in a medium and
you were really good and they were like, yeah, let's
bump this dude down to maximum a minimum. Yeah, right, right,
then you've got medium, and that's the one that actually
you you would see most um on like television shows
or something, people think that's maximum, But when you see
(04:17):
prisoners able to like move around and play cards and
stuff like that, that's generally medium from what I understand. Right. Yeah,
they have like dorm room style accommodations a lot of
times with you know, eight or ten guys to a room.
Um and like you said, the little social day rooms
where they hang out and trade cigarettes and like on oz. Yeah,
exactly do horrific things to one. We'll get to that too. Uh.
(04:39):
And then of course the granddaddy of them all is
the maximum security prison. These are the violent offenders, guys
that have escaped or tried to escape. We're gonna say
guys a lot. Yes, I think less than ten percent
of the prison population is female. So it's not like
we're not trying to give the ladies their due. We
know you can do awful things as well, so props
(04:59):
to you, but we're gonna say dudes a lot. Well,
there's and then there's a subcategory that it was pretty rare. Um.
That came about in nine three at the maximum security
prison in um Marion, Illinois I think not Juliet Marian
right um. Two guards were murdered in two separate incidents
(05:20):
on the same day and the prison went into lockdown,
which bad coincidence. Is that what they called it, and
that's what I call it. The prison went into lockdown,
which is where you're in your cell all day, you
can't move around, you can't do anything, you have no
freedom of movement. Um. And it remained in that state
ever since. So it basically gave birth to the super
max prison, right uh. And since then a lot of
(05:44):
prisons have been opened as super max prisons during a
state of lockdown, And if it sounds a bit familiar,
basically the entire prison is a series of solitary confinements
there the whole. Yeah, they call it officially, it's called
Security Housing Unit and s h U, but everyone calls
it the whole, just like in the movies. And as
far as prisons go, solitary confinement and then especially supermax
(06:07):
is extremely controversial, right. Um. Solitary confinement originally was created
in eighteen thirty by a warden and a prison in
Pennsylvania with the lofty goal of giving a convict nothing
but time to contemplate what he'd done, the bad thing
that he'd done. I think anything that was supposed in
(06:28):
eighteen thirty is a good way to punish people. You
might want to review that notion again here. And so, yeah,
they basically found out that actually these are they don't
sit around and think about all the bad they've done.
They kind of go nuts, and not just kind of
go nuts, They go clinically insane as anybody would, right,
or they go in sort of insane and they really
(06:48):
go off the deep ends. Right. Because prison has also
and still remains used to um, how is the mentally
ill at times, not as much or as overtly as before,
but still you find the insane in prisons, right. Um.
The other problem with a super max facility, besides the
fact that it amounts to torture, psychological or otherwise, is that, um,
(07:11):
these things, these places are reserved for the worst of
the worst, supposedly, and in any given state there's a
couple maybe of the worst of the worst. But a
super max prison may have a couple hundred cells. Yeah,
you gotta fill the cells somehow, so you have relatively
minor offenses or convicts, um going into super max prisons,
(07:34):
the killing themselves in a really horrible way. Yeah, this
is a big build up in the nineties. I think
they said by the end of the decade and of
the nineties that um, thirty different states had a super
max prison. Well, and you said that each state only
has a handful of dudes that even qualify. So, like
you said, they get put in there, they kind of
go through a zoocosis of sorts, like weird behavior like
(07:57):
the bears walking in circles. Um, except way way worse, way,
way worse. This one guy in Wisconsin, he was a
sixteen year old car thief. Another guy, twenty year old
David Tracy, hanged himself in a Virginia supermax and he
was nineteen and he had been there for two and
a half years for selling drugs. No, he'd been there
for a year and he had a two and a
half year sentence and he still hung himself. He couldn't
(08:18):
even make it a year, Kim halfway into a two
and a half year sentence because he was immediately put
in solitary confinement. Um, and then it gets worse. Apparently,
UM people have um been known to swallow razor blades.
One guy uh In in Indiana super max prison choked
himself to death with a washcloth, and another guy, twenty
(08:38):
one year old mentally ill prisoner in that same prison
set himself on fire and later died from those wounds. Yeah.
The good news, though, my friend, is that UM, a
lot of supermaxes have been downgraded since then, Like the
current trend is to downgrade your supermax to regular max.
So they're kind of getting the message a little bit
(08:59):
that we'd really don't need that to this many super
max presents. Yeah, apparently the nineties were bad. Yeah, but
there's only one federal supermax only one, which one a
d X in Florence, Colorado. A d X Florence. But
like you said, it's mostly on the state level. That's
for like the really really bad tax evaders. I imagine
(09:20):
a d X is not the kind of place you
want to take a tour. I wouldn't think that the
single federal supermax is not the kind of place you
want to be. It's a chuck, You buddy, have just
(09:58):
been popped, say, growing marijuana indoors, You're going to prison.
Let's come to terms with that, Okay, okay. Um, there's
a couple of ways that you actually get to prison, right, yeah,
and there as follows. You can take a taxi, which
apparently is more routine than we would imagine. I had
(10:19):
no idea. Um, you can be dropped off by a
friend or family member. That's what I would choose, as
in I think that's what Edward Norton. I'd have my
mom take me. Do you drop me off at prison? Right? Well?
And um, you can also take the prison bus. Right
It's called the diesel to Diesel tour because they'll you know,
it's a prison bus. It's not like some luxury greyhound uh,
(10:41):
bus liner. You know how nice as greyhounds are. Oh yeah,
they're nice. It's not like that, you know that it's
kind of cramped and nasty and smelly and it sounds
like a a locker room on wheels. Well not just that.
They you go take yourself to the sheriff's department and, um,
you know, curse your family member for not being like, really,
couldn't just take me the rest of the way to
(11:02):
the prison. Um. So you get to the sheriff's department
and you basically just wait there for the prison bus
to come pick you up. And then you know, you
stop at sheriff's department, after Sheriff's department, after Sheriff's department.
That's the insulting part. Yeah, You're like, all right, can
I go to prison? Can I just start this please?
And they're like, well, we gotta make six stops from
the way. Just hold on and the bus is going
to break down in exactly a minute. We're gonna go
(11:23):
pick up your future boyfriend first, so chuck. You um,
finally get to prison, right, thank god, those cookies that
your mom gave you have been taken away from you.
I mean just immediately you didn't even get to eat one.
They're chowing down on those, the guards are. And you
have a new moniker. You have a new name, a
new catch all name that describes you as a newly
(11:47):
inducted prisoner. You're a fish. Yeah, yeah, just like in
the movies. You know a lot of this. I thought,
that's just like in the movies. And it is just
like in the movies because they know a lot about prison.
So why would you make a prison movie that was
completely unrealistic right when you can make the real deal
and it's very compelling. Yeah, and we'll talk about movies too,
But yes, you are a fish, Josh. You're all your
(12:08):
stuff is taken and cataloged, hopefully kept. We'll get to
that later as well. Some of it might be lost
along the way. Uh. You are allowed to bring in
like your reading glasses and maybe a few books. No cookies,
no cookies, you're legal papers if you you know, were
into that. And so you're you're processed, right, and you're
actually processed often in full view of other cons in
(12:30):
the fish tank. And they call it, yeah, they call
it the fish tank because all the guys who are
already in prison can sit there and watch right. Um,
but they keep you segregated for about thirty days or more.
You had no idea what was that long? I didn't either.
I thought they allowsed you. They sprayed you at the
fire hose, gave you an orange jumpsuit and threw you
in there. That's what I imagine. But yeah, no, for
(12:50):
thirty days you're basically segregated. I imagine what the other
fellas on the diesel tour you know, and um, you
are assigned a job most likely, but you're about fish
tank like you're on full display. Like for thirty days,
dudes are sizing you up. Well, Like in Shaw Shank
when they took bets on who was going to be
the first gut, first fish to break down and cry
(13:13):
that first night, it was that fat guy broke down
and cry, and then he got beaten and bad things
happen to him. I always confused that. In the Green Mile,
I didn't like that one. No, Sean Shank was definitely better,
but I often confused scenes they were shot almost exactly
the same. Yeah, I agreed. So, uh, once you get
(13:33):
out of your fish tank, you get your cell assignment,
you may get your job right and again for about
ten cents an hour. That's what you're paid. You should
I read the letter real quick. There's actually a site
on the web called prison talk dot com, and it's
not as hot as you would think now, but you
can go to forums there and read x cons and
(13:54):
maybe even some current cons if you have internet access
and like a minimum security talk about things on these
is in forms. So I found a letter of I
was digging around about jobs, and this one guy said
the worst job he had was being a dorm janitor.
He got paid forty cents a day. This is not
by the hour. Forty cents a day, five days a week.
There were four dorms total, about sixty guys in each,
(14:17):
two bathrooms in each. You don't want to have a
salaried prison job as a convict. I'm not sure if
that hit home. Sixty guys sharing two bathrooms and this
guy was in charge of cleaning that on a daily basis.
I do appreciate you repeating that. So he swept off
in he said he kept the dorm rooms clean. You've
never seen a battleground of chaos until you've seen a
bathroom after thirty guys take a shower, mud dirt, torn, tissue,
(14:42):
blue State soap, so I guess they get SOAPA signed
to them and never really thought about that. So anyway,
tobacco spit in the in the hangout room, garbage um
cigarette butts from roll ups. Basically, this dude had to
clean that stuff up for forty cents a day and
he said that was the worst job you ever had
in for his all right, and he didn't even mention
(15:02):
the fecal matter. Well, I think that's implicit. Well I
just made an explicit check. Yes, So that is one
example of a prison job that you can get um
and then you're off to your room, which I would
encourage everyone now to walk off eight ft by six
ft wherever they are and get a good look at
how large that is. And that's about the size of
(15:22):
your prison cell. That's close to what we're at right now. Yeah,
that's small, and that's a little claustrophobic. Usually, well it depends.
The Most prison cells are designed for one guy, and
then as prisons have grown increasingly overcrowded, they'll go and
like bolt a bunk to another bunk to the wall,
(15:45):
and then while I you have a cell for two,
and then sometimes there's three. Whatever usually if it's designed
to house more than um one or two people that
it's a dorm and it can accommodate about eight guys
per cell. Right yeah, I mean we could do a
whole podcast on overcrowding and the issues there. That's like
a very deep problem, but we'll just mention it and
(16:05):
say it stinks. I'm beat literally and otherwise. Right, um,
so chuck the You've got the general population cellblocks, right,
which are all of the cell blocks aside from the
fish tank and maximum security, which is also known as
the whole right, and you've basically did you watch OZ
(16:27):
a little bit? I think from what I understand that
that's really accurate. I'm sure it is. So there's like
a centrally located guard and like loose sight or whatever.
They're like, you can't get through this, you know, operating
the all the cell blocked doors and like letting people
in and out, and they have a three and sixty
degree view right well, and each one I thought this
is interesting is fully each wing is fully staffed in
(16:50):
case you need to lock down that wing. You've got
all the dudes there, you need to take care of it,
and it can be sealed off from the rest of
the prison because apparently, um, the riot mob mentality can
spread like wildfire among the president population. Yes, yeah, so um,
and you would think, you know, people try to escape, which,
(17:10):
by the way, there's a a double check. There's a
stuff you missed in history class podcast about Alcatraz and
the Great Escape. They Escape from Alcatraz, great movie. So
if you want to learn more about that one, you
can check that out, all right, if you're so inclined. Um,
But to make sure that no one has escaped at
any given point in time, they do counts through about
(17:32):
the same time every day, probably the same time every day.
They just do a head count where you have to
line up and they say, okay, everybody's here. Then at
night they walk around and count you while you're sleeping,
right yeah. And then not only are you there, but
you where you need to be. So if they say, well, Josh,
you're in Chuck cell again, you know where you need
to be, so they'll beat you down and take you
(17:53):
to your own cell. Right, I'll feel like I need
to be here, don't you hear our podcast? The Chuck
is my partner. I wonder what the good fellas uh
that had to be minimum or was that just a
sweetheart deal? That was a sweetheart to remember when they
were all in the same room, like cooking steaks. Yeah,
the the one guy could slice the garlic so thin
it was liquefying the oil so great. So Chuck, let's say, Um,
(18:16):
you've become acclimated. You're no longer fish you. Um, you've
shanked your first guy. Um, and you you're settled in
for a nickel right, shank of verb? Yeah, it's shank
is a verb, and and down and shiv is also
another name for a shank, right, which is a homemade knife. Yes, okay,
I just want to get that clear. I don't know
(18:38):
that it is clear. Well, a shiv and a shank,
I know, can both be nouns for the knife. But
I've also heard that you can shank someone and you
can show someone you can. I think they're both nouns
and verbs very loosen prison for the same one. They're
very understanding. Yes, with the vocabulary. Um, so you settled
in and you are living your life in prison behind bars,
(19:01):
you know. Um, it's it's I would imagine, fairly horrible.
But there are bright and shining moments and those basically
consist of the trip to the commissary, right, yeah, and
I don't I didn't know this, they don't. You don't
see this a lot in movies. All you see is
the black market stuff. But there is actually a commissary
where you can you have an account where you your
(19:24):
little prison money goes into your account. They obviously don't
give you cash, that wouldn't be a good idea. And uh,
you go to the commissary and say, hey, I like, um,
whatever is approved on the list, you know, like a
pack of smokes and uh, People magazine and they're like,
well that's you know, three and a half dollars, So
go work for a month people from January? Yeah, who
(19:46):
sexiest man alive? And actually they debit each Each prisoner
has an ID card that is linked to basically their
prison work account. That's when they say their their debited
credits or given credits, and then it's debited from their
account when you buy stuff from the commissary. I learned
about that from Snoop Dogg. Really, so that's the fancy
(20:10):
modern prisons have it all electronically hooked up, which makes sense.
But um, like we said, there's also a black market
which you have seen in every prison movie ever, there's
dudes trading cigarettes for favors or for protection, or for
better books or better people magazines or whatever. And there's
also visits from out of doors. Yeah right, sure, you
(20:34):
get the bad stuff in a lot of times. Again,
good fellas, You remember Karen snuck in like those huge
bagged pills. I mean just like like in her purse
or in her bra or something. Yeah, they clearly didn't
check her. Again, I think that they got special treatment
and chuck. Um. One of the things that I would
imagine goes for a pretty high price, you know, maybe
(20:57):
a dozen cigarettes or so. Um is prison wine, right, Yeah,
which prison wine? Pruno? Have you ever seen the site
where the guy eats nasty things, Steve, Steve, don't eat it.
I think it's called um. It is really funny and
I saw this years ago. This guy made Pruno prison
wine in his house and it's made with like fruits.
(21:20):
It's sort of like a Sangree type of thing. Then
you put like moldy bread in a sock and it's
like soaking all together in a bag till it ferments,
and it's imagine pretty disgusting. Steve said it wasn't that bad.
He drank it. He did a white and a red.
He said the white smelled like wrecked um, but he
said it tasted just like alcohol. And he said the
(21:41):
red actually wasn't that bad at all. He said, he
said it tasted wine like and got him drunk, which
is which is the deal? And uh so that that
was the deal with Pruno. Wow. I wouldn't recommend trying
in this at home, by the way, No, but that's
the whole point. I mean, you're not at home, you're
in prison, and you want to get drunk, so you
(22:03):
make pruno. Yeah, unless someone wants to. Like you said,
with visitation, you can sneak things in if you're you know,
on the download, you're really not supposed to do that
way you're not supposed to. You get searched. And um,
and yes we are talking about visitation as well, now right.
I didn't realize that, UM, visiting hours are basically like
(22:23):
business hours. I thought it was like one day a
month and everybody came at the same time on the
same day. But that makes zero sense. UM. Prisoners are
assigned a set number of visits per month, and I
think the maximum number of visits you can get per
month is for the most exemplary prisoner on the planet. Yeah,
I would imagine that that's something that they take away
(22:44):
pretty pretty routinely if you, you know, are being disciplined, yes, Josh.
And you also have to have a list when you
go in of who you say can and can't visit you.
And if you're not on that list, you can eventually visit,
but it's gonna take a long time and a lot
of paperworking tape, yes, right, yeah, And I think you
have unlimited visits from investigators, your lawyer and that's about it, right, Yeah,
(23:08):
but they still keep track of all that and your
search coming in the prisoner and the and the visitor
both searched coming in and out. I don't know if
it's full body cavity. It probably depends on the max
level or your crime. I think kind of follows you
around in prison, like what you did, what are you're
convicted of? Like if you're convicted for smuggling things in
your butt, check you a little more careful. And of course,
(23:30):
now since we're talking about um, oh, and during visitation,
like just regular visitation, right, um at a minimum security
Remember this is just like college orientation weekend. Um, it
looks like a waiting room. Um. And then in maximum security,
visitation is like through that bulletproof class on the phone. Yeah,
it's pretty accurate. And then there's a different kind of
(23:53):
visitation that I think everybody likes to think about, at
least thinks about whenever they hear prison. And that is
kind of goal visitation, right, Yeah, it's it's one of
the two ways that you can have sex in prison. Right.
This is far more the um, the I guess more
governmentally defended way of having sex in prison. UM. Conjugal
(24:16):
visits Actually, we're UM originated in nineteen eighteen in Mississippi
at a state prison in Mississippi, where they remain in effect.
But originally they were created as a reward for hard
work on the chain gangs and stuff right, well, and
to incentivize them to work harder to write um. And
it worked really really well. UM. Nowadays that's not used
(24:38):
quite as UM overtly as an incentive or reward. UM.
It is a reward for for good behavior or you
have to be like, you know, the one who can
get as many visits a month as one possibly can
level of good behavior prisoner. But UM. It's generally defended
in two ways. One is a basic human right, like
(24:59):
you have a right to have sex even if you're incarcerated,
just like you have a right to food and water
and being kept clean, sure, right um. And then the
other way, and this this appears to be much more
legitimate in the eyes of the correction system. It's a
way to maintain the family bonds throughout a stint in prisons.
Right sweet. And that's what it's even officially called as
(25:20):
the Extended Family Program, right, So it's not just about sex.
Like you can have your whole family come over and barbecue.
In some states it's UM. In Canada, I think they
have there there. I guess visitation areas look like apartments
have barbecues. There's such wisses you can have. You can
(25:40):
have up to three UM family members at a time visit.
Or you can just have your wife and it has
to be your wife and you have to have been
married before, because that's the whole point they want. They
don't want you to turn into even more of a
deviant than you were going in. They want you to
keep talking to your wife and keep you know, loving
(26:01):
your kids mean love by your kids. And to make
that the transition back out into the normal world that
much easier, right, Right, So, if you're one of those
serial killers and you have one of those weirdos that
writes you and you're marry and then you marry them,
they can't come and visit you and have sex, right right, No, Okay? Now, Um,
if you're gay, however, and you have a domestic partner
and you are in Mexico City, Brazil, or California, you
(26:26):
are entitled to conjugal visits as well, which is pretty
significant in California because in two thousand seven you could
have a conjugal visit if you were gay, but you
couldn't get married if you were gay, thanks to Proposition eight,
which was just overturned. Yeah yesterday. It's not over yet.
(26:46):
The proposition night was overturned yesterday. Yeah. So that's the
that's the skinny and conjugal visits not not quite as
again like arrested development, I don't think, yeah, and they
don't use it a whole lot anymore. They say it's
pretty uncommon. There's only six states, right, yeah, but um,
the one thing I thought was funny though, that one
of the rules for the visiting um person is the
(27:09):
dress appropriately and they said on the list of rules
was no transparent clothing or bare middriffs, strapless attire, or
anything with obscene or offensive language. So your wife can't
get all dolled up in her baby doll lingerie. I
don't know. I think they're like, can't you just put
a trench coat on? Like everybody else? You know, have
(27:30):
you not seen the movies exactly? And I think the
mix that's it's a mixed bag on whether or not
experts agree or they just agree and disagree, whether or
not it actually serves a really good purpose. Well, yeah,
and the studies on it have have shown mixed results
about whether or not it prevents recitativism. Yeah, that's one
bone head word. That's why s game a little bit
(27:54):
that you should know, should know. But Josh Clark, so Chuck,
(28:20):
you mentioned there's another way to have sex in prison,
and this is one of the reasons I don't want
to go to prison, because actually there's two more ways.
Oh yeah, Well, you can have consensual sex with another
man if you're in there, which doesn't necessarily mean you're homosexual.
A lot of guys just there's nothing wrong with that, like,
I just do that because they're in there. And uh,
there's also rape that happens in prison. That's the reason
(28:42):
I don't want to go to prison, just one reason. Uh.
In two thousand seven, Josh, we have a statistic from
the Bureau of Justice says four point five percent of
state and federal prisoners reported being raped in the past year.
And that is UM seventy thousand prisoners in a year.
We're sexually abused by either guards or other inmates. See,
(29:03):
that's all over the place, because there's other I've seen
other numbers. UM one one two thousand four study found
that zero point zero zero five percent even reported being
raped while they were incarcerated, and then a lot of
those were probably you know, untrue. Well that's the deal,
is reported. That's the key. Like rape goes unreported a lot,
(29:25):
just period, but it definitely goes unreported in prison because
you don't want to be a snitch. Well sure, but no,
I think these are people who have been let out already.
Oh okay, yeah. But then in two thousand three, the
year before UM, Congress created the Prison Rape Elimination Actors.
You know about that UM and the number they used
(29:46):
was thirteen pent and estimated of prisoners are raped during
their incarceration and their goal is zero. Well, yeah, and
they're like, you have to have a zero tolerance policy
on UM inmate two inmate rape UM and guard to
inmate or employee to inmate. Sure, rape that kind of
thing too, because it's not just inmates raping one another.
(30:09):
Guards at correctional facilities have been known to um be
a little heavy handed and possibly psychotic themselves. Yeah. And
I can say this because my cousin was a prison
guard for a little while, a corrections officer. Cousin Wolfe.
Was he high school grad? Well he had to be. Yeah,
but you don't have to go to college to be
a corrections officer, No, you don't. You just have to
(30:30):
know how to shoot a shotgun. But to be the
warden you do. Yes, okay, Josh. Let's say you're in
prison and you commit a an offense or you're caught
raping somebody. Under the new zero tolerance policy, Well, if
you're caught raping someone or murdering someone, you would actually
go to trial for real, guess. But if you're caught
doing something a little less offensive, um, you can go
(30:52):
to the whole. They can um remove your good behavior time,
transfer you to to a scarier prison, or like you said, uh,
limit your visiting hours that I'm sure that's a good
way to dig back at a prisoner. So you can't
get visits, um, and you get demerits called shots, and
they log those to your little file. Yeah, and they
(31:14):
take those into consideration when you're up for parole hearing
or you're up to maybe get more visitations if if
they're any time, they're looking at your behavior. Yeah, Um,
they'll look at the shots and they follow you around.
You don't want any shots. And that's official punishment. Is
there's also unofficial punishment meted out by guards, right, Yeah.
(31:34):
I would rather have the official punishment, I think, because
just like in the movies, the guards can shake you down.
They can quote unquote, um investigate what you have in
your room, when what they're really doing is like destroying
the things that you've grown to depend on to keep
you saying, I know, have you ever seen Birdman of Alcatraz? Yeah,
it's awful, and they take his birds away I know well,
(31:56):
and then uh escape from Alcatraz. They took away the
one eyes paints the old dude that painted. That was
like the only thing he loved and they took away
his canvas in his paints. Some jerk warden. It's always
a jerk warden. Well, yeah, except Brewbaker. We'll talk about
that too. Uh. And guards can also beat you down,
and if nobody sees it and no one reports it,
(32:16):
then it's just what happens. Well, I think it's I
think that's officially sanctioned. I don't think that they have
to get permission to beat you down. If I permiss, say, hey,
this guy is getting a little ordinary, so I'm gonna
break a river or too. But what I'm saying is
I think they have a pretty wide berth as to
what sanctions the beating and Grabmanowski put it, I'd like
to I'd like to quote him here. It is not
uncommon for guards to fire shotguns at prisoners whenever they
(32:39):
see any commotion. Didn't understand that one, and I double checked,
and it says at prisoners, not just fire shotguns like
up in the air something. It's just like, hey, there's
you guys are scuffling. Kaboom. Yeah, I don't know about
that one. Yeah, this is indoors uh so like we said, Um,
snitches are not you don't want to be a snitch
(32:59):
in prison, And um, it's very much that mentality that
you see in the movies where keep it quiet, don't
rat on anyone, because if you do, then I mean,
who knows what's going to happen. Uh, well, I can
tell you it's gonna happen. You're likely to be shanked
or shipped, which is the same thing, or raped and
shaw shank. Yeah. Remember Andy's problem there with the with
the sisters. Yeah, but he got back. That was one
(33:22):
of the great redemption scenes of all time. I think
the whole movie with great Oh no, I'm sorry, I
was thinking of the Green Mile. Sorry, but the funny
thing is is, and it's not funny to the guards,
but they're way way more prisoners than guards. And every
once in a while in history we've had these big
uprisings where the prisoners have actually taken control of the prison. Yeah,
(33:44):
if you work at a prison, you don't want to
hear the word attica sounded out by like enchant form
by one or even more one or two prisoners. Is
that what they use now? Is that the signal? Well,
I mean like that that means that there's violent unrest
right around the corner. I thought that was a signal.
Now was like attica, I don't know if it's a signal.
(34:07):
Is more like a call to arms, you know, And
all of a sudden there's toilet paper on fire and
guys are coming at you and it's just not good. Yeah,
that didn't work out too well. No, it was one right,
And apparently Atteka Prison in upstate New York was really
really deplorable as far as its treatment of the prisoners went,
(34:28):
which is really saying something because their prisoners to begin with,
and to have like the prisoners even know like you
can't do this, Um, that's pretty bad. So they took
a couple of guards hostage, rioted, um held them, and
demanded for better treatment. And the State of New York
was like, okay, all right, we hear you, and we're
(34:48):
going to storm the prison. And I think thirty three
people died. Uh no, thirty nine guards. Yeah, thirty nine
guards and prisoners died. And that was in Many one. Um.
And then there's one in New Mexico, right, Yeah. The
New Mexico State pen uh near Santa Fe was another uprising,
(35:09):
and that was where thirty three inmates were killed and
no guards were killed, but seven of them were captured
and beaten pretty severely, right, and apparently some of the
inmates that were killed died from torture. Really just pleasant.
I mean, think about it, Chuck. It's bad enough to
go to prison, but one of the aspects of prison
is that there's an end of your sentence, right, there's
a light at the end of the tunnel if you
(35:30):
can make it. Dying in prison is about as bad
as it gets, especially dying of torture in prison. Would
say it's pretty bad. So Josh, let's say you don't die.
Let's see you serve your time and you do get out.
What what what goes on there? Well, you would be
like nine of all prison inmates get out. Yeah, which
(35:53):
is one of the reasons why you want those family
bonds in there, because you want to keep people on
the up and up rather than Prison represents a real
double edged sword. Either it reforms people or it makes
them worse, and a lot of that depends on how
a prisoners treated and the options get into them in prison. Um.
(36:13):
One of the big trends now is education as part
of rehabilitation. So I think every single state prison in
the US UM offers a G. E. D course, and
some of them require it for parole, which is good. Yeah. Right.
There's also a vocational course, is that kind of thing? Right? Yes,
But once again, like in shaw Shank, you can take
that course and pass the test, but if you have
(36:35):
a jerk warden, you still might get shot. You know,
we should have done at the beginning of this podcast.
We should have just said, everybody, go watch Shawshank Redemption.
Everybody'll see you next week. Everyone loves that movie. Can
we talk about the movies? Now? Are we there? Not quite? Okay? Um, Chuck.
There's a lot of people out there who don't think
that prisoners should just be left to rot, that they
(36:59):
they're there should be prison reform, that there shouldn't be
any rape, that that Congress shouldn't have had to have
passed the law requiring zero tolerance on prison rape. Um.
And there's actually been a prison reform movement going around
since I think, uh, possibly earlier than that, I don't know. Yeah,
(37:20):
the Quakers are huge on prison reform as well. Uh.
And again, you want prison reform, you want your prisoners
treated in a way where there is the potential for
rehabilitation um because of recitativism, right, well, yeah, I mean
that's why they pay them to work these jobs, because
they want to give them some semblance of normal life
(37:43):
so when they get out they can say, oh, well,
I held a job in prison for the first time
in my life. Maybe they were like a drug dealer,
what have you. Right, well, think about it. Recitativism. The
highest rate is among property offenses, and that is a
crime of the poor, breaking into someone's house and stealing
of stuff. Yeah, that's what you do when you're poor. Yeah,
(38:03):
and that's got the highest rate of recentativism. So it
would seem like some sort of education or occupational program
wouldn't help deter that. Well. Yeah. But the other stat though,
that kind of makes me feel weird, is that I
think sixty seven of people who commit crimes to go
back into prison it's an entirely different crime that they commit.
Oh yeah, which was like that was really discouraging. I
(38:25):
would think maybe if the guy just can't not steal TVs,
he gets out and steal TVs, you would think, so
at least go back to what he knows. But yeah,
that's a little staggering. It is that would shut any
Quaker up? And what what is the rate? I saw?
I can't get like the most recent stat but it
looks like between fifty and six somewhere in there from
(38:46):
year to year for recidivism rates. Yeah, though in two
and ninety four it was sixty seven point five, right.
I think it's gone down since then. Yeah, And and
that's surprising because the incarceration rates have gone down too,
which is totally bucking a trend. I think, um, they're
going down. That's what you said. Remember in two thousand
five that these stats are based on, it was two
(39:08):
million and changed to I'm sorry, it was two million, Um,
one ninety three thousand prisoners in the US. You said
it was less than two million in two thousand nine. Yeah,
but I think that's people that are currently incarcerated. But
that doesn't necessarily mean more people aren't being incarcerated on
a daily basis, because I think that's true because the
(39:30):
mandatory minimums. I think more people than ever are being incarcerated.
So maybe that was people that had left. I don't know. Well,
whatever it was, there was a two hundred seventy increase
between two thousand. That's huge, and we spent I think
fifty one billion dollars to incarceerate people in prison in jail,
whereas um, I think that comes out to twenty nine
(39:52):
thousand per per year. And remember a bail podcast. Uh
it costs d and fifty doll was per in mate
per year for probation. How much rather than twenty nine
thousand dollars. But these minor offenses throwing these guys, especially
like the car thief that was in a super max
that was sixteen. Let me come on non violent offenses.
(40:16):
You can rehabilitate that kids with some work. Alright, So, Chuck,
I think it is movie time, don't you think so? Yes,
Josh movies. I made a list of my favorites. Feel
free to chime in. Shawshank Redemption that's number one for me,
The Green Mile, and that's not mine. I've got Escape
from Alcatraz because I saw that when I was a kid,
(40:37):
and it's still like an awesome movie, Papion classic with
the Dustin Hoffman with the glasses, with the glasses and
and Steve McQueen, right, it was in the Great Escape
to also a great person movie. H cool hand Luke
was probably the funniest one of the lot, the longest yard. Actually,
that might have been the funniest one. I never saw
either of them. Really, You're nuts. Bad Boys Classic with
(41:02):
Will Smion and the Sean Penn went about the juv detention.
That's when Sean Penn was like, you know, nineteen years
old and he was in juvenile detention and then he
he filled a pillow case up with a soda cans
and just annihilated this dude one night. Yeah, that's called
a slock. By the way, Now that's when it's in
a sock. Okay, I imagine this is me. It's called slaice.
(41:27):
UM American History X. That was pretty brutal. Yeah, that
was very brutal. Brew Baker, did you see that one.
That's where Robert Redford went in undercover as a prisoner
to sniff out how awful the prison was because he
was going to be the next warden. You're talking about
the natural And then most depressing, definitely Midnight Express for me,
(41:51):
the Turkish prison one. Yeah, Midnight Run was pretty depressing.
And um Animal Factory is the one I'm gonna say
is the most realistic. I have not seen that one.
That's the one that Steve Bushimmy directed and Um Edward
for long and I think William dafoees in it. It's
really good. And it's called Animal Factories, so you have
(42:12):
a pretty good idea that it's realistic. I saw a
Taxi to the Dark Side last night, and it's not.
It's about the US's policies on torture and how he
implemented him post nine eleven. But there's a lot of
prison stuff in it, like Abu Grave and Bogram and
stuff like that. It's pretty disturbing. Yeah, we didn't get
into I mean, there's so much about prisons that we
didn't get into here. We could do like three more
(42:34):
podcasts if we wanted to, and if it seemed like
we danced around something. Oh, I don't know. Capital Punishment, Yeah,
I didn't go there. That's coming. I can't wait to
do that one. It's gonna be sweeping. There's gonna be
top hats and like people doing like the can can
and stuff at the beginning. It's going to be enormous. Yeah,
I think we have the rockets lined up for that
list we do in prison Garbent. Yes, So Chuck's telling
(42:58):
me he's given me the Double Ink, which means there
is no listener mail. It was too long and too
full of goodness. You know what that means. That means
we just haven't gotten any listener mail. So we want
to hear from you. Just type some stuff out that
we would find interesting. Spanking on the bottom maybe yeah,
talc it first and uh send it to stuff podcast
(43:22):
at how stuff works dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works
dot com.
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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