Inmate J.L. Bird had never heard of the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS), let alone be a part of the system’s mobile inventory. And he didn’t care if he never heard of it again…ever.

He’d been traveling with JPATS for three days and already he was sick of it, and of the U.S. Marshals who watched his every move, including bathroom breaks. He was weary of flying a zig-zagged pattern across the U.S., landing at what seemed like every remote airfield in the country to either drop off or pick up inmates. Then came the never-ending, end of the day van rides to county jails, the holdover facilities located in hick towns that were surely too small and too backward to be considered even for the filming of Deliverance. In fact, Bird was quite sure that most of their holdover locations were in towns with names recognized only by loyal viewers of Hee Haw—places like Bumpass and Doodlum, Va., and Talking Rock, Ga., the little honey hole in Pickens County nestled between Ellijay and Jasper.

Bird did learn that in exchange for holding federal prisoners, the federal government paid the county sheriff $70 per day per federal inmate held. And that’s a pretty sweet deal for merely furnishing a blanket on a concrete floor, a couple of boiled eggs, and maybe a dry sandwich made from stale bread and greenish-tan bologna.

He also learned that deputy sheriff’s didn’t give a rat’s patootie about federal prisoners, and that they pretty-much ignored him and the others. In fact, many of them mistreated the federal prisoners, forcing them to sleep on the floor in dirty, unused cells. Bird and his crew were the last to be fed, receiving leftovers, and they were the last to see soap and water. Therefore, they often went several days without bathing, deodorant, or brushing their teeth. And that really made for a sweet-smelling ride in the back of hot vans, and airplanes that recycled the cabin air.

But, after several unpleasant layovers in county jails, the JPATS jet finally touched down at Will Rogers airport in Oklahoma City. A real airport with real people scurrying about, tending to whatever duties are assigned to airport workers. Bird was ecstatic. He was overjoyed at the thought of seeing honest-to-God people other than the unwashed pack he’d been traveling with for the past several days.

FTC Oklahoma. The jetway is pictured at the top of the image.

The JPATS jet taxied to the far west corner of the airport, though, and pulled alongside a private jetway leading to a brick building that stood alone on the airport property—the Federal Transport Center.

The FTC Oklahoma City is the hub for JPATS air transport. It’s the facility where nearly all federal inmates are housed until they’re assigned to a permanent prison. It’s also where prisoners are housed while in transit to new prisons, court, etc. Bird finally learned that he was on his way to a hearing at the federal court in Richmond, Va.

“Absolutely no talking!” shouted the marshal who’d stepped inside from the jetway. He rubbed his stubby fingers across his buzzcut. “Not a sound unless one of us asks you a question. You’ll stand perfectly still until a marshal or other officer gives you a command. Do not, and I repeat, do not let your ankle chains mar the floors in the hallway. Okay, let’s go. Single file. In the jetway, now!”

Unfortunately, for Bird, he’d see not a single civilian. The jetway led directly into the prison facility. However, he was pleasantly surprised at how clean and fresh it was inside. The floors were highly polished and there wasn’t a single blemish on the stark white walls. Overheard fluorescent fixtures lit the long hallway like a night game in Fenway Park.

Bird and his fellow travelers made their way along the wall (following a red line painted on the floor) until they reached three BOP officers who were busy removing handcuffs, waist chains, and leg irons. Bird was elated when the set of leg irons were removed from his ankles. Wearing the steel cuffs daily for a week had rubbed the thin skin there until it was raw and sore.

Next for the prisoners came a brief orientation, a chat with a psychologist, a quick consult with a counselor, and then to their assigned housing units. Bird met his unit officer who assigned him to a cell. Again, Bird was pleased to find a spotless cell, complete with a soft mattress, soft pillow, a large window, and a real door. No bars!

Bird was also pleased to learn that he could shower whenever he liked and as many times as he liked. And, the facility provided the inmates with soap, shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, and more. And, within minutes, kitchen workers delivered a hot meal to the unit for those who’d been traveling all day. The food was absolutely delicious. Real bone-in chicken. Not the unidentifiable ground goop he’d been used to eating back at the prison.

The unit was quiet. The inmates seemed pleasant (he’d discovered that he’d been assigned to a low security unit). And the guard was a guy who addressed the inmates either by their last names or by calling them “sir.” As in, “Thank you, sir.” “Sir, when you get a minute would you please stop by my desk.” And the prisoners did the same in return. There was no shortage of respect.

It was late in the day when the JPATS jet touched down in Oklahoma, so it wasn’t long before the sun set. Bird noticed that as soon as it was dark outside, all the cells/rooms on his side of the unit went dark. Not a single light on in either of them. The cells across the dayroom, opposite his, were all brightly lit. He also noticed that most of the inmates had suddenly disappeared into the darkened cells. Curious, he asked one of the few remaining prisoners, a slack-jawed, flamboyantly gay guy who’d somehow managed to paint his fingernails fire engine red, about the strange occurrence.

“”It’s showtime,” he said. “Not my cup of tea, though…if you know what I mean.” He winked at Bird, but Bird didn’t have a clue what he meant, and his confused expression prompted the prison sweetie to say, “Go have a look. You’ll see.”

So Bird opened the door to his cell and found a gaggle of prisoners gathered at the narrow window, looking across to the next wing. Bird quickly saw the attraction. The next unit over, with windows perfectly aligned with those in Bird’s unit, was the unit that housed female prisoners. Bird also noticed that while the lights were off on his side of the unit, the rooms across the way were brightly lit.

And standing, sitting, dancing, jiggling, wiggling, or gyrating in each window, was a totally nude female prisoner who was working hard to entertain the male population of the transfer center.

It was indeed showtime in Oklahoma, a long-standing tradition, and each cell had its own private, live peep show that lasted until lights out at 10pm.

Bird slept better that night than he had in a long, long time. And he went to sleep feeling a little dirty, even though he’d showered three times in as many hours.

*Of course, inmate J.L. Bird is an imaginary prisoner, however, his journey is one of thousands that take place each and every work day of every week. JPATS is indeed a very busy operation. Oh, the peep shows are also very real…

Next, Bird goes to court.

 

Life behind the bars and miles of looping razor wire of our country’s prisons and jails is not an easy existence. Not only do the inmates have to deal with the emotional stresses associated with being away from their families and homes, they have to adjust to living inside a six-by-nine concrete box. Sometimes, they even share that claustrophobic enclosure with one or two other prisoners.

Tensions can run high as the men and women in these institutions struggle to survive.  Sometimes, they find themselves fighting for their very lives. To assist them in their efforts to stay alive, inmates make weapons out of whatever materials they can find.

Prisoners are quite creative it comes to making their weapons. They’ve used material such as, toothbrushes, metal of any kind, rocks, glass, wire, newspaper, plastic, nails and screws, ping-pong balls filled with lighter fluid, bars of soap, padlocks, and even human feces.

A weapon made from a nail and electrical tape.

 

 

A large spike wrapped with tape and string.

Three nails and a piece of steel make for a nice punching/stabbing weapon.

A shank made from a piece of plastic. Tape is wrapped around the handle.

Stabbing, cutting, puncturing, and striking weapons.

Inmates often fill toothpaste tubes with feces and urine. Then they squirt the foul mixture on passing guards, or other enemies. This is known as sliming.

 

Close your eyes and imagine you’re in the filthiest public restroom you’ve ever visited. Take a deep breath while conjuring up a stench that lingers in places where only roaches and vermin dare to trod. Combine those odors with the scent of dirty sweat socks, t-shirts and underwear, cooked popcorn, urine, and steaming chicken-flavored Top Ramen noodles.

Picture living or working where every breath is similar to what I’ve described above. Never a single mouthful of fresh air. Could you drink water from a sink that was used to wash the feet of a man who just finished working on a roadside work gang for eight hours in ninety-degree heat—a sink positioned two feet above a toilet that’s used several times a day by three people, but is only capable of being flushed twice in eight hours?

How about sleeping in a six-by-nine room with two other large men who haven’t bathed in several days during the hottest time of the year. There’s no ventilation. No windows to open. How about sleeping on the floor with nothing between you and the grimy concrete surface but an itchy, wool blanket? Roaches, rats, and mice darting from gaps between rusted plumbing and cracked cinder blocks. Dried blood and vomit are the only splashes of color on drab walls. HGTV it ain’t.

What I’ve just described is jailing. Serving time. Marking the calendar. Doing time.

Of course, conditions are better in some facilities than others, but many are just like I’ve described in the paragraphs above. Some are worse. Much worse.

The photos below were taken in one of the cleanest jails I’ve ever seen. It’s also a very well-run operation. The staff is well-trained, and for the most part, the prisoners seemed to be in good spirits considering their circumstances.

A brief tour of a county jail:

Deputy sheriffs  monitor and control inmate activities and movement from inside a master control room. All doors are operated electronically by the officer seated at the control desk.

Female dormitory

Some prison dormitories house over one-hundred prisoners in a single room. Many times, a single officer is assigned to supervise the activities of one or more dorm rooms. Only non-violent inmates are assigned to dorm-style incarceration. In many federal prisons, dormitory-style housing is quite common, especially in the low-security facilities and prison camps.

Each inmate is responsible for keeping her personal space clean. Cleaning the overall dormitory is a shared task.

A very happy prisoner. I asked why the big smile. Her reply was, “Things could be worse. At least I’m alive and healthy.”

The silver, metallic cable you see on the right is a telephone cord. This jail features a phone in each dorm. Inmates are allowed to make collect calls during approved times of the day only. The phones are switched off from the control booth during the “off” times.

Jail Library

Books are often donated by local community groups, families of inmates, and even the prisoners themselves.

Cell block

In the photograph below, a deputy sheriff makes his rounds inside a cell block. He’s actually inside a day room that’s normally occupied by several inmates (they were made to go inside their cells while I was inside the day room). The area outside the windows to the left is the common area hallway that’s outside the locked cell areas. The doors to the deputy’s right and straight ahead are inmate cell doors. Each morning those doors are opened, allowing all inmates into the day room where they play cards, watch TV, eat their meals, and socialize. They return to their cells at night.

Inmates are not allowed in their cells during the day. Sleeping or lounging on their beds during the day is not permitted. Having all the inmates in the day room also allows the deputies to see their every movement. The only exception to the rule is when an inmate is sick. However, the illness must be verified by a jail nurse or doctor.

Looking out

An inmate’s view through the window in his cell door out into the hallway. Many dreams and fantasies of life on the outside begin at this very spot. The door across the hall is that of another inmate’s cell. The checkered grate at the top of the picture is the only source of ventilation in the cell. It’s also a means for the jail staff to communicate with the prisoner. Jail doors are heavily insulated to retard fires and noise.

Just as I clicked off this shot, a group of deputies ran past to quell a disturbance in an area I’d just left. The problem—an inmate was having an anxiety attack from being in such tight quarters. He’d become quite violent and was tossing things around. His troubles reminded me of how much I appreciate the little things—trees, flowers, family, home-cooked meals, wine, and flushing my own darn toilet whenever I want.

Inmates who commit violations of jail rules, or exhibit violent behavior, are sometimes placed in segregation/isolation. That section of the jail is often called the SHU (Special Housing Unit) or The Hole.

 Overcrowding is a huge problem in jails and prisons. This jail was forced to hang metal beds from the hallway walls when their cells reached capacity—three men in each two-man cell.

Another answer to overcrowding is to convert the jail parking garage to living space. By bringing in shipping containers (like those you see on cargo ships and the backs of tractor-trailers) and converting them to individual housing units, this jail was able to safely increase it’s capacity by 100 inmates. A chain-link fence circles the mini-compound.

Each module is a self-contained unit equipped with air conditioning. A deputy sheriff monitors the parking garage jail from a small booth positioned outside the fence. Cameras are placed throughout the module areas.

Inside, the modules are narrow, but adequate. Bunk beds for ten prisoners, storage lockers, and a shared writing desk made from a single piece of lumber.

The space between two modules serves as the recreation yard. Remember, just a few months before I snapped these photos, this space was a parking garage for the jail staff and visitors.

Visiting Room

Prisoners are brought to these small rooms where they “visit” with family members seated on the opposite side of the window. The family’s room is a mirror image of the inmate’s visiting room. The view below is from the inmate’s side of the glass.

*By the way, prison and jail are not synonymous. They’re entirely different animals. But that’s a topic for another blog.

 

There’s a party tonight and it’s the hottest event of the year. There’ll be Reggae music for dancing in the private club, pot smoking, swimming pools filled with women in bikinis, all the seafood you can eat, a pool hall, and for those who like to gamble…non-stop cockfighting. Yep, this is prison life in Venezuela. Sounds tough, huh?

Sure, gun-toting officers stand guard around the perimeter of the facility, and they even search visitors before they enter. But once those visitors make it inside…It’s Party Time!

Prisoners control everything inside the San Antonio prison on Margarita Island. In fact, many of the inmates are armed, carrying automatic weapons as a means of keeping the peace. Of course, those firearms are also used to guard the boss of the prisoner’s operation, Teofilo Rodriguez, a convicted drug trafficker. And it’s no coincidence that drugs, lots of them, are sold directly from inside the prison. In fact, it’s not uncommon for people to come to the prison to pick up their “product.” After all, the soldiers standing guard over the place only search people entering the prison, not leaving.

Rodriguez, aka “The Rabbit”, definitely rules the roost. There’s a mural of him on a prison wall, several Playboy Bunny-type logos (“The Rabbit”) adorn other walls, and he even employs a personal security team. He’s living the good life.

Children enjoy one of the prison’s four pools

The non-stop prison party often includes inviting rap groups from the outside to perform for the prisoners and their guests. There’s a food stand that sells snacks, four swimming pools—children of the inmates often spend their time in the pool while parents barbeque meat poolside while drinking liquor—conjugal visits, satellite TV, and more.

The perks of this prison are not paid for by the government. Instead, inmates have paid for everything. With drug money, no doubt.

Yes, this prison has everything. Well, almost everything. The one thing they don’t have is escapes. Who’d want to leave?

*NY Times photos

 

 

Sure, prison inmates have done wrong. They’ve chosen to break the law and to go against the grain of society. Many of them have done things that are simply too reprehensible for words. There’s no doubt that each of them should be punished. But there are men and women in prisons and jails throughout the country who, while serving their time (which is the prescribed punishment for their crimes), claim abuse at the hands of the officers who stand watch over them.

Prison is not a nice place, not by any means. It’s a dangerous place in a world all its own. That world behind the bars, the looping miles of razor wire, and thick concrete is reminiscent of the Mad Max  movies where society has been stripped of all things civil, leaving citizens to fend for themselves using whatever means is available. In fact, some prison life brings to mind the old film Escape From New York where an entire geographical section of New York (Manhattan) is walled off for use as a prison, the most dangerous prison in the world. There are no guards. Food is air dropped in every so often, and the prisoners there, too, exist through whatever means available. It’s all very primitive, and abuse is rampant. But could a place like that exist in our present-day culture?

Well, according to an article in the Omaha World Herald, prison guards at the Nebraska State Prison have been making a sport of beating up inmates and then posting details of their deeds on Facebook. Corrections Officer Caleb Bartels wrote on his FB page, “”When you work in a prison a good day is getting to smash an inmate’s face into the ground. … for me today was a VERY good day,” Derek Dickey, one of Bartels coworkers replied, “”very satisfying isnt it!!!”

While abusing people is definitely not the policy of any corrections facility or law enforcement agency anywhere, it’s obvious this type behavior does occur. The question is why? What do people get out of physically abusing and torturing another human being, even if that person is an inmate in a prison? Does that make it right?

Many of the inmates in jails and prisons are the same people who once lived in normal neighborhoods alongside normal, everyday people. They worked in the same jobs, their kids went to the same schools, and they went to the same meetings and shopped in the same stores as everyone else in the community. The difference between the arrested lawbreakers and many other people – they got caught cheating on their taxes, or smoking marijuana. Of course, I’m not speaking of violent criminals. They’re not the normal neighbors by any means. But what about the criminals who had a substance abuse or other mental health issue that totally clouded their judgment. Again, sure they did wrong, but does that give prison guards the right to beat them and abuse them for entertainment? And what does it say about the abusers who enjoy this behavior so much that they shout it to the world? What’s fun about beating people and slamming their faces into the ground?

What are your thoughts? Should the corrections officers involved in the Facebook posting be disciplined? Fired? Hailed as heroes for giving the lowlifes what they deserve?

The local paper reports that the three officers involved were suspended pending an investigations. However, prison officials caution the public about the possibility of counterfeit posting on sites such as Facebook. They’re sort of standing by the guards for now, it seems.

– Last year, a Nebraska State Trooper was dismissed after it was learned he was a member of the KKK and had shared his support for the group’s beliefs on the Ku Klux Klan website. The state Supreme Court upheld the trooper’s dismissal.