Prison Camp: Daily Life
A Forum for Stories of Incarceration, Justice, and Redemption
Prison life is defined by the grind, the repetition. This journal entry, after six months, captures that moment when the reality of living behind the fence finally settles in.
PRISON CAMP: JOURNAL 5-1-2019
You realize early on that to the other inmates, you’re all equal. No judgements. No scoring of offenses. All in the same boat, one for all and all for one. But to the staff, we’re all prisoners. They don’t grade your crimes. If you’re here, you belong here. And they treat you as such. Some are professional, some are harsh, some are aloof, but none are friends.
At first, walking the track meant being in a new place and taking it all in. What was positive about it: the exercise, the pleasant landscape around it, the nice fall weather, and the acceptance that’s normal at the beginning of something, even this, because it’s only the beginning. And the beginning is easy. It’s after that, when the just-getting-used-to becomes a routine and the routine morphs into boredom and the boredom morphs into permanence and the reality that this is where you live now and you’re not getting out anytime soon. And over time, day by day, the guards and staff start to get to know you. Know your name. At first, you’re a new guy among 100+. But then you’re in front of them regularly, you’re in a job, they interact with you, they see you every day in the halls, in the cafeteria, on the track, recognize you standing at count time four times a day, delivering your mail, see you standing on line for meals and many guys have left and many have arrived and you’re not the new guy anymore, and it’s been six months already and you are now well known: Inmate DiMenna, six months in, established and branded and the reality of six and half more years here no longer a number but a painful constant state of mind.
There is no adjustment anymore. And one day, after a long, wearing day at work in some menial, repetitive activity, another unappetizing meal, another long pause between the four o’clock count and the ten o’clock lights out, you lie in bed staring at the steel bunk above you and finally realize with total certainty your new reality that this is home. And when you come to terms with all of that, whether it’s on the track, eating a meal, checking your mail, taking a shower, a coffee break, you’re confronted by the frightening prospect that you’re not after all a good person, and at the end of the day, we’re left alone in our solitary bunks with only our own dark thoughts.
If this story resonates with you, or if you’ve wrestled with your own origin myths, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Up Next on White Collar Journal:
Wednesday (Justice Notes): Criminal Justice Reform Efforts
Thursday (Notes from Exisle): Log/Verse: Daily, fragmented reflections
Sunday (Prison Camp): More stories from prison