Lesson 4: Stripped and Humiliated
- Edward D. Sargent
- Jul 8
- 3 min read
They’ll give you a number, and take away your name.
The next time you listen to songs that encourage you to "act dumb“ or "wild out," I want you to think about the consequences and ramifications that I discuss in this lesson.
In prison, the first thing they will do to you is strip you mentally by replacing your name with a prison ID number. No matter how hard you try, you will never forget that number. You will have to recite it and write it next to your name daily. Your family and friends will have to write your ID number on the envelopes when they send you mail.
This is not the only process prisons use that degrades you. You will be forced to strip off all of your clothes and get butt naked in front of guards and fellow prisoners. Male and female prisoners will be separated, but all prisoners undergo the exact same embarrassing process.
Once you’re naked, guards will order you to squat and cough. Then they will order you to bend over and spread your buttocks. A guard will then look at your rear end to make sure you are not hiding any drugs or contraband in there.
This is not funny!
THIS IS REAL PRISON LIFE!
So, listen, the next time you hear a gangsta glorifying prison and bragging that it’s real cool to get locked up, ask him (or her) whether he felt like he was cool when he had to squat and bend over while people looked up his butt. If he says he never had to do that, then he’s either never been to prison, or he’s lying.
A Hard Life
As I stated earlier, in Texas State Reformatory and other “farm prisons,” inmates eat some of the food that they pick, including beans almost daily. A lot of beans. Can you imagine what it smells like in a closed cell or dormitory with people who’ve eaten a bunch of beans?
Prison offers no privacy. When you shower or use the toilet, you will be watched. Sometimes, you will have to sit on a toilet close to a fellow prisoner and smell his crap while he smells yours. You will also hear each other’s bodily functions.
Gross, right?
Indeed, it is.
In some two-person cells, a toilet is situated near the bunkbed. Whenever one cellmate takes a funky crap, all the other cell mate can do is stand at the cell bars and try to breathe the air outside of the cell.
If you are imprisoned, you may try mentally escaping by getting high, but for your information, the majority of drugs smuggled into prison are stashed inside a visitor’s butt.
Another well-known practice is to hide drugs under a male’s testicles or inside the vagina of a female. Guards will have the males lift their testicles, but they may not see the drugs.
So, if you do not mind using drugs that have been up someone’s butt, beneath someone’s testicles or in woman’s vagina, then I guess you will get high and chill, right?
WRONG! Not so fast, my friend.
You see, randomly and without warning, at two or three o'clock in the morning, guards will rush into your cell or dormitory, wake you up and order you to take a drug test or undergo a strip search. They will be looking for drugs, knives, cell phones and any kind of contraband that the prison does not want you to have. This exercise is called a “shakedown.”
Refusing a shakedown is a violation of the rules, and you will be placed in “lockdown.” You will be considered a disciplinary problem and placed in The Hole for months or even years. In addition, if you are caught in prison with drugs, you will be prosecuted, and more time will be added to your sentence. Would doo-doo drugs be worth all this to you?
Shakedown!
Imagine being in your room sleeping and guards wearing helmets, gloves, and carrying electric shields and sticks barge into your cell, yelling, “SHAKEDOWN! GET AGAINST THE WALL AND STRIP NAKED!” They put their hands all over your body, patting you down and searching between your legs. They tell you to cough and squat and bend over and spread your cheeks. They go through all your property; they dump your belongings all over the floor. Some of them spit into their hands right before they touch all over you and your belongings. After an hour of harassing you, they leave you to pick up your belongings. You better have everything picked up by daybreak.
Lesson 5: In The Hole
Ju
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