What is Jail Really Like? Interviewing Ex-inmates Reveals a New Level of Insight

As a recent venture, I've had the opportunity to talkI also learned about the dark side of jail. Now, as I
to people who have had experiences of beingmentioned, I've seen movies and TV that have
incarcerated. I personally have never had time behindshown me a lot of dirty things going on in jail, but I
bars and have no close acquaintances who've beenhave a hard time believing them because, hey, it's
through the experience, either. As such, my onlythe movies. It turns out that a lot of the stuff about
exposure to the jail experience is from what I'vethe gangs requiring payment for protection, watching
seen from TV and movies. I never really knew whatout who you talk to, shiv making and so forth really
the actual experience was like.does happen, at least in the big jails. It was pretty
My phone interviews were educational in severalscary to find out the amount of reality in the fiction
ways. For one, as background research, I found outI'd seen.
that one out of 142 Americans (slightly outdatedAfter my interaction with these ex-inmates, I was
data - likely a higher percentage now) is currently ingiven a new level of respect for the freedoms I
jail. It's over 2 million people right now. I also learnedtake for granted. In a lot of ways, hearing about
things about some jail terminology and concepts Ihow bad things are there opened my eyes to how
had not previously grasped. For example, in somegood I have it. I don't know if I'd necessarily
counties, you will only serve one half of yourrecommend it as a pastime for people who want to
sentenced time as a result of time off for goodsee the positive in their lives, but I do think that if
behavior. I learned about work release programs thatyou know someone who's been to jail, talking to
give relatively privileged inmates a level of freedomthem can provide a very enlightening look into just
even when they're not fully free.how good your life really is.