[Lady Sidhe]

Originally posted by marichiko


Now here I disagree with you, Sid. I've been in jail like I said in another thread. I was too poor to buy car insurance, drove my car, anyhow and got caught. Mandatory 30 days in jail, so off I went and paid my debt to society.

The free medical care consisted of an aspirin 3 days after you'd sent a "kite" (formal written request) to the deputy in charge of your floor. People had all kinds of SERIOUS conditions that they got no medical care for. I watched an epileptic go into seizures twice, for example, and nothing was done for her. A woman with MS was deprived of her medication, on and on.

Prisoners who had no lawyer (were acting in their own behalf) could go to the law library for two hours every other week. No one else was allowed NEAR the law library.

The three meals a day were scant and what there was was inedible. The firm that had the private contract of providing "food" to the prisoners was later found to be bilking the state out of thousands of dollars by shorting on prisoners portions among other things. I lost 15 pounds in 3 weeks. The inmates who had money were the ones who ate. They ordered weekly supplies of ramen from the prison commisary and paid with their own money.

The free clothes consisted of a thin set of short sleeved shirts and cotton trousers, no underware, no sweators, although it was Feburary and freezing cold. You felt the cold even more because you were always hungry.

There was no gym, no exercise facilities. If you tried walking around the ward to get exercise and a guard noticed you doing this, you would be ordered back to your pallet (most of us slept on pallets on the floor - bunks in the cells were reserved for a few "elite prisoners due to overcrowding).

The single TV was controlled by the guards and it was allowed to be on maybe a total of 4 hours a day, less if the ward was on "lock down" which seemed to be most of the time.


Maybe if I keep posting this experience enough, you'll actually read it one of these times, Sid. This is a true experience of someone who has actually been there - not some fairy tale made up by a newscaster who wouldn't know his ass from a hole in the ground and got the "for press only" royal tour by the warden which just so happened to not go by anything where the real prison conditions could be seen.

They told me that we women prisoners were "coddled" compared to the men. I shudder to think what conditions on their side were like.

Hey, I've been there too, remember?