Where Prisoners Use Drugs and Guards Don’t Care

Arnold describes his first day in a new prison where drugs are consumed freely — and the guards don’t care.

I’m moving to another prison. Another inmate and I are shackled to each other and we’re both handcuffed at the wrists, while riding the “blue bird,” an overcrowded prisoner transport bus, when he looks at me and says he has to take a shit. The bus is packed so tightly with inmates and their belongings that you have to warn others whenever you are going to move or stretch out because you can’t do so without everyone working in unison.

So there I am: standing in the aisle of a moving transport vehicle and practically holding a stranger’s hand while he sits and defecates into a metal box situated behind the last and worst seat at the back of the bus, I know not who is more humiliated: me or him.

Arriving at the prison, we are herded to 8-Building and placed in J-Pod 1-Section. A pod with 24 cells that houses 48 inmates. Having decided to unpack my belongings later, I place them within my assigned cell and have a seat at a day room table.

It isn’t an hour before another inmate walks in and asks us what unit we are from. “Partridge,” I reply.

He says, “O.K. Well, y’all want to mess around?” and places a ziplock bag a quarter full of what looks to be a crystalized substance on the table.

I ask, “What is that?”

Prior to this, I have never seen methamphetamine before, and he informs us he has plenty. I am in disbelief! Not because I had just seen an ounce of meth in prison, but because he casually sets the bag on the table and starts to make lines, offering them to us for free as if we are invisible to the three cameras and guards in the elevated picket.

I look at the cameras, then towards the officers picket, then back at him, and simply say, “I’m good,” and slowly get up and walk away.

But where am I to go? I tell an officer we need a broom to clean with. The place looks like the aftermath of an indoor war zone with burnt black walls, ceilings, trash and rotten food sprawled in disarray. You should see the look on our faces. This place isn’t even prepared to house us, as there aren’t any T.V.’s yet available.

He comes back minutes later and hands me a broom, telling me to clean two and three sections afterward and then to go sweep up K-Pod. I’m completely dumbfounded by his statement. For the past eight years, it was against the rules for me to go to different sections or to another building because I was classified as a G-3 inmate. G-3’s are those who have just recently been sentenced to 50 years or more and are considered an escape/security risk and so made to sit in one spot for our first 10 years, without a job and little movement, before seeing any other part of the prison outside the church and infirmary.

Suddenly being given access to the building, I immediately set off to work, seeing more of the prison this day than I did in eight years on Partridge, as both units are built alike, yet somehow are two completely different worlds. I make it to K-Pod where the G-5’s are housed (high-security inmates) who spend 23 hours a day in a cell.

It’s after 11 p.m., and only two dayroom lights are working, casting a peculiar mixture of shadow and darkness throughout the pod. I begin to sweep the day room with the push broom and suddenly freeze. I see movement within the shadows—inmates! Aren’t these guys supposed to be locked up? I feel like I’m in the zombie apocalypse movie Resident Evil. I look to the second and third floor tiers and see the cherry from the pull of cigarettes and whatever else being smoked in the distant darkness. There’s a nauseating smell of tobacco, weed, and what I assume to be PCP and K-2 in the air. Someone walks behind me and disappears before I can catch a face. There’s a man laid out on the stairwell who appears unconscious, with a wick made from toilet paper and hair grease burning beside him.

Arnold Barnes III #01633044
Telford Unit
P.O. Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400

The post Where Prisoners Use Drugs and Guards Don’t Care first appeared on Prison Writers.