Folsom Prison Blues
How Critical Race Theory is being inserted into prisons to integrate cell living
On Father’s Day 2008, I rode 10 hours shackled ankle, wrist, and waist, roasting in a ramshackle CDCR bus on a hard plastic seat with no A/C on a hundred-plus degree day traveling from Lancaster State Prison to Folsom State Prison. That bologna sandwich sack lunch never tasted so good. I had no idea what’s to come.
My life is cleaved into a before and after. As are so many other lives, whether by death, disease, destruction, or denial. We all spend much effort and considerable time sheltering and dressing up our closet skeletons.
My dividing point is prison. I had a childhood friend named Jerry. He had a friend named Larry. Jerry lived a few doors down from my grandparents house. Jerry married Jackie, the daughter of the crazy old man that lived across the street from my grandparents. Jackie and Jerry and Larry had meth issues, were total white trash, but basically good people.
Larry loved his wife-beaters, Marlboro Red Hardpacks, and scraggly goatees. Jerry was a proficient plumber and Larry a skilled scofflaw. Jerry used a shovel and Larry held a shovel. Jerry said “I did” and Larry said “You should”.
But Larry repeated a phrase so often that it was easy for me to dismiss. “You ain’t a man til you been to prison” said Larry time after time. And as many times, my reply was “Well then, I’ll never be a man”. Then we’d take a bong hit.
In that before time, prison was a faction of fiction. Larry told stories about his “prison” days. Turns out, he spent all his time in jails. Now, I’m not disparaging time down in county, but it’s not a grown-ass man’s prison.
My sentencing was straight out of a courtroom TV show. In 7th grade drama class, I starred in a scene that featured me being handcuffed and led out of a courtroom setting on the gym floor. Fast-forward a few decades, I find myself in an actual courtroom being sentenced to 16 months of incarceration, to be served at a California Department Of Corrections & Rehabilitation facility of their choosing.
As the gavel pounded, my first thought was Larry: In his wife-beater, taking a drag, leaning on the shovel, stroking his wispy-ass beard, nodding his head. I heard his voice - “fuck dude - now you’re a man!”
An entire industry has been created to cater to newbies and their first-time prison fears. Here’s a well-written piece that recounts a familiar tale - at least to me - about first-time offenders entering the system. My prison consultant was quite different. He was a dude I met at Intake, gave me tons of advice in a few hours, and then, I never saw him again.
“The intake process is shocking. Until you actually go through it, you can’t really anticipate it or believe it,” says Kimelman. “It’s sort of what you see in the movies, sort of not. There’s a lot of the strip-down and the searching.”
Once inmates are strip-searched, they are swabbed for DNA, fingerprinted, asked security questions, and given a health check and then a psychological evaluation. Once that process is complete, they are assigned their bunk. “The guard said, ‘I’m going to put you with a couple of drug-dealing N-words; I’ll put you in with your own kind in a little bit,’” Kimelman remembers — his first brush with racism on the inside. Then comes the prison uniform. The camp didn’t have his size, so Kimelman’s standard-issue khakis and white T-shirt were several sizes too big. He was then told to go straight to lunch.
Standing at the defendant table, listening to the judge drone on, one line clearly penetrated the fog - “I hereby sentence you to 16 months of incarceration.” And with that, the bailiff hooks me up, leads me to the hidden door behind the bench, and with a glance over my shoulder mouthing “I love you” to the wife, I’m gone.
It was the most fucked-up day of my life since I caused the accident. Many more more-fucked up days were to unfold. Booked and processed, I was put in a holding cell at the local jail. I was alone for a while, then some asshole comes in and crowns himself shotcaller for the day.
He was a big crazy-looking dude, and he makes a point of grabbing the two toilet papers rolls, stating that they were now his and anyone wanting to take a shit had to pay rent. Luckily, anxiety had banished my appetite days prior, so I had nothing to shit. But a whole hell of a lot to learn.
Despite hearing so much lately about defund the police (we did) and empty the prisons (we didn’t), the numbers tell the tale. We lock up more people than any other country, by a long shot. Twenty percent of the world’s prison population is incarcerated in the United States. The US makes up merely 5% of the world’s humans.
Race is huge in prison. Several entities are working hard to integrate prison cell living. The Supreme Court has chimed in, ruling cell segregation by race is constitutional, but they imposed some modifications.
This was happening as I was going out. Upon entry, though, it was made clear on Day One that race ran the system - by the cops, by the convicts, by the civilians - in prison. Every action revolved around race - TV choice. Cellie choice. Shower choice. The only time races mixed were during meals and yard.
It was chin-to-chest and nuts-to-butts from cell to chow hall. After grabbing a tray of slop, it was sit in the first open stool at the first open table. You could be sitting next to any race. There was rarely any talk, for mixing with another race got your ass beat by your own race. Nobody got up until the last eater knocked on the table. Then we left. Men in the yard or at chow were humble and respectful by default of prison etiquette. But it was always boiling inches below the surface.
Overcrowding in Calif prisons are notorious. At Lancaster (LAC), I avoided a transfer to Chowchilla because I was a clerk and got the LT to approve my move to the dayroom. Moving into a dayroom was a trade-off. Completely in genpop, with all races. It was usually the three races on each bunk to prevent race camps.
As of Fiscal Year 2006/2007, LAC had a total of 1,519 staff and an annual operating budget of $100 million.[2] As of September 2007, it had a design capacity of 2,300 but a total institution population of 4,976, for an occupancy rate of 216.3 percent.
That was three months prior to my entering the system. It was a powder-keg. There was freedom from living in a cell and there was privacy using the shitter. But it came at a cost of the lights never off. The guards always fucking with shit. Every single choice in prison is a trade-off between two fucked up things.
Here’s a few more stats and numbery things. Reading intellectual research by super-smarticle book-learned experts is good, but it reveals very little of the actual human beings in prison.
Like everyone that has never lived in prison, even reading about the lived experience of Convicts like Coleman and me doesn’t begin to describe the intense emotional, mental, and physical toll prison inflicts on a person or that person’s family. Coleman and I served different times and for different things.
I never judged a man in prison because we had already all been judged by a man. The next judge was God. But I ran with dudes just like Coleman when I was down. His posts bring back certain feelings and emotions, which is the sign of an authentic writer.
What’s different about guys like us than others who lived in prison is that we can cogently articulate those experiences and explain to our readers how those experiences transformed our lives. Prison transforms all lives of those that enter its gates. Outcomes are positive or negative. Thank God mine were positive.
The post he wrote last week hit me right in the gut. At several moments in prison, there were points at which one action I chose could extend my release date, and the opposite action could get me killed by my own race. Those were my choices to make and my fates to suffer.
My experience in prison, and now, 15 years after release, is somewhat unique. I met no more than a few dozen Convicts in all 5 or 6 facilities I lived at that I would consider interacting with on the outside. And in fact, I did remain in touch with two dudes I met inside. But they both went back in. Happens a lot.
A cellie told me once, don’t ever tell me your family names or cities, because I’ll probably sell them. Sage advice from a skinhead. One of the most profitable hustles I had was writing letters for dudes that were illiterate. I mean some of these guys could not read a Dick & Jane book. Or write their name. Or add 2+2.
This is a bit of a slog to read through, lots of stats and wonky shit. But it also had a lot of true shit as well. Prison hierarchy was not just an unknown unknown for me, it was an unthought-of non-thought. Little did I know that as I was leaving prison, all of the race-rules were being changed.
Because gangs in prison are considered a major problem in California, and the gangs are generally comprised of members of the same race, it will be helpful to the reader to learn the names of many of these gangs, otherwise known as affiliations, and the general concept of which races comprise each, as well as what animosities are generally understood to exist between them. The official position of California prison management has been that the housing practice in question was designed to deal with gangs and to protect inmates from in-cell violence.
Many gang affiliations identified appear to be comprised primarily of Latinos. There are Northern Hispanics and Southern Hispanics, from northern and southern California, respectively. Members of the Northern Hispanics and Southern Hispanics are not supposed to be housed in the same cell as they are known to have the tendency to be violent with one another. There is an assumption that Latinos from northern California are part of the La Nuestra Familia gang, and that Latinos from southern California are part of the Mexican Mafia gang. This presumption is so strong the names appear to be used interchangeably.
There are also the Fresno Bulldogs, a group of Latinos, mostly from the Fresno area, who are labeled as very violent. Bulldogs are not housed with any non-Bulldog Latino and are even sent to different prisons from those with known Northern Hispanic, or La Familia Nuestra, affiliation. Lastly, there are Paisas, who are Mexican citizens imprisoned in California, who typically affiliate themselves with Southern Hispanics and are perceived to require protection from Northern Hispanics.
The other gangs generally discussed relate to Black and White inmates. The two gangs associated with Black inmates are the Bloods and the Crips. Known members of these gangs are not eligible to be housed with each other as they are categorized as violent, rival gangs. For White inmates, there are various groups which generally appear to fall within White Supremacy groups. There are the Aryan Brotherhood, the Nazi Low-Riders, the Skinheads, and the Pecker-heads, also known as the Woods. The Skinheads and Pecker-heads are known to occasionally fight one another over business, but typically all of members of the White gangs get along. The Nazi Low-Riders are known to encourage violent acts against homosexuals.
The Fresno Bulldogs were the most hardcore badass motherfuckers I ever saw. The Mexican Mafia was afraid of them. I played a valuable role in each of the facilities I lived in. Starting at Lancaster, and with my record tagging along at every subsequent stop, I became an admin worker in some department or other.
I worked as a clerk, cook, or GED teacher. Those positions permitted some limited freedoms: movement, canteen, and trust. Those freedoms came from the cops. The funny thing is, the guards called anyone above the rank of Sergeant cops. They explicitly explained that any complaints will be met with one of two outcomes: Boot Therapy or Flashlight Therapy. And don’t wake them up, either!
The greatest freedom, though, was that of association. Due to my hustles, I could interact with other races for officially approved business. It was a clandestine mission, insuring we were not witnessed to be narced off. The interactions I had with these men in multiple facilities were the only humanistic connections possible in prison.
Approved by shotcallers of each race, we were like account executives for the skin color you were. For instance, the first clerk job I got, there was already a Black dude and a Southerner. I was the token White guy. Sarge explained it thusly - no race favorites in clerk jobs - but when it cracks off, you can beat the shit out of each other.
We exchanged goods and services, like ink, springs, information, bed and cell moves, and food. But only packaged food. No opened packages. We met in blind spots to conduct our covert capitalism. It was furtive and surreptitious, but really important to manage race relations.
I lived with several intense dudes in 6x9 bathrooms. I am not a racist man, but the racism expected in prison is built-in. I personally, having lived in prisons, cannot see any way for mixed-races to live in a cell together. Not because of personal racism, but because of institutional racism. It just won’t work, it’s a forced solution. Dayrooms yes. 6x9 bathrooms? No.
Many of the men sharing my cell had swastika tattoos on their face. That is a bold statement to live with. One dude that lived briefly in my cell was a Jew. He went out sideways. Most of the violence I witnessed in prison was same race on race.
It was called getting in check. The times that I personally observed one-on-one violence, if it was same race, it was fucking up on the rules. If it was one-race-on-another-race, it was one of three things: sex, drugs, or money. Just like on the outside. Often, all of the above. And almost always ended with rubber bullets and tear gas and cell turn-overs.
Every structure in prison is race-related. Black guards guard Black inmates. Hispanic and White guards manage the two races, which are more conducive to limited interaction. Blacks and Hispanics have a rough time mixing.
Asians and non-Mexican Hispanics have choices to make at Intake. If you’re Asian or a darker-skinned Caribbean, you’re most likely running with the Blacks. If you’re a light-skinned Caribbean, probably one of the Hispanic gangs. But say, what if you are a dark-skinned Hawaiian dude? Run with the Whites. An Albino-Latino? Southerners. A one-drop Mulatto? Blacks.
I saw plenty of Black dudes selling themselves for sex - they were Trans. Hispanics and Whites not so much. In some facilities, like Old LA County 3600 Block, Black showers were off-limits to the other races. I don’t think the cops even went in there. I never saw open homosexuality with Whites. Every ChoMo tho, was White.
It’s unforgiving and judgemental. It’s superficial and shallow, and based only on the fear of violence. But to me, that fear is completely valid. They’re attempting to mix the races in prison, in contravention of historical tribal alliances.
But now what? What race are Armenians? If they’re White (Caucasian), but are connected to the Mexican Mafia - the Southerners - how does that affect prison rules - written and unwritten?
This was a post without a point. Looking over my past writing about prison, I noticed that it was heavy on emotion and light on description. The effort here was to show what at least prison life was like for me in California. Prison is wrapped in urban lore and cultural myths. It’s truly a society unlike anything else.
I hoped you learned something by reading this post. I’m not proud of the actions and decisions I made that put me in prison and damaged so many people in my life. I am proud of my post-release actions and decisions that I’ve made so I’ll never go back.
Ric