This is an isolation test.

Trigger Warning

The subject of forced intercourse appears briefly in this post.
It is not mentioned in graphic detail, but explains part of prison life.

Hi, folks. :)
Today's post is a thought experiment: By and large, prison is an isolation test.

We sequester hundreds of thousands of people across the USA behind fences and wire, preventing them from talking to and seeing those they love on the outside in a regular manner by way of punishment for crimes committed.

Introversion v. Extroversion

Here's a thought: I am largely an introvert. I only have so much capacity (so many spoons) to be outgoing before I just need to get away from people to mentally recharge. It's how I survived 4.5 months of isolation in a lockdown cell that drove others in the wing mad, banging on doors and screaming at the top of their lungs at only a few days in.

Prison can defy that need for quiet quite readily:
Now, I live in the worst future hostel possible, sharing quarters with up to 95 other humans, and I consider myself lucky! I only share a bathroom-bedroom hybrid with one person.

This is the realm of two-person cells.

Open bay (aka Open dormitory) has 75 people sharing a communal bedroom and a handful of toilets and showers, with a whole lack of physical separation between the beds.

There is never a real moment of calm in the open bay setup; comparatively, I write many of my posts in the quiet of the counts that we are locked in for during the day here in two-person land. I have quiet in which I can reflect and ponder meanings of the mind, the heart, options for forgiveness, opportunities to advance my knowledge.

Some of us do quite well in this quiet, content to lay abed and quietly wait for the doors to roll as count clears.
Others smoke their fake drugs, screw each other, or beat each other half to death in the quiet, and this sentence sadly lacks hyperbole.
Yet others emulate howler monkeys, bellowing at the top of their lungs in the quiet time here.

Why are we all so different in our handling of being isolated and sequestered from society? Because we are human, whether prison remembers that or not. We all have different mental builds.

Extroverts seem to handle Open Bay a little easier, because their friend might be two bunks away, and so they'll talk across the man in the middle while count is going on. They'll fall quiet only when an officer comes in to actually count, and strike up the convo as soon as the officer makes to leave.

Introverts like me on the other hand thrive at count times in two-person cells -- we have a reason to be in the cell, to be quiet without being questioned.

Flip our places of residence to make each of us uncomfortable.

Gaydar Ping

Let's add in a thing I learned from others: if your prison staff thinks you are not heterosexual, they love to stick you in Open Bay, "for your protection". Their reasoning is you might be beat to death behind the doors in two-person cells because of an intolerant bunkmate, or they might have to do PREA paperwork.

PREA?

Yes. That is the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
You sequester a mass of individuals away for decades in some cases, deny them sexual release, threaten to add a Lewd and Lascivious charge if their hands are even near their pants and scrap every ounce of their privacy...
Then someone of the same sex comes around, and seems receptive of advances, when no-one is looking.
As one gentleman here put it, he's been in for 39 years. He doesn't care if that's what your lifestyle is, so long as he can get some oral, to make his statement less crass.

According to the books, however, inmates cannot consent to intercourse, whether with each other, or with staff members. So even if two inmates were doing something together in a way that on the streets would be consensual, in prison, it is considered rape. Getting caught with your pants in the down position can mean an additional charge if that officer feels like doing the paperwork.

In two-person land, you are sequestered in mildly interrupted quiet for at least 30 minutes. Plenty of time for doing that.
Open bay is a bit more challenging -- your privacy is a lot more forfeit there.
It is that "Everyone can see the sea" approach that they hope will keep people from having intercourse, consensual or non-, in prison.

That, and failing to remove abusers from the dorm block -- if you are the victim, expect to bounce from camp to camp until you find the non-hetero friendly one, or find yourself doing some of your time in confinement, the single person cell block.

It's almost easier to just masquerade as masculine in that case.

Ask yourself, Is Prison Right For You?

No. Not by a long shot. Stay out of prison.
Get people out of here. Fight for sentencing reforms.

More often, so many of the issues here are unresolved, unaddressed mental health needs; unaided educational needs; untouched equality needs.

I say this as a PoC, looking across a sea of melanin behind the wires.

Unbuild Prisons; Build Communities.