Incarceration

This past March I volunteered to be a “test inmate” for a few hours at the new Washington County Jail that was to open later that month. It was a training day for the guards to learn how the schedule was going to work or something. I have to tell you, 3 hours was all it took convince me to never, ever get on the wrong side of the law. I wouldn’t do well locked up….

It was kinda exciting at first…..they led us all in, gave us a demonstration of a....uh….standard search that is preformed on every inmate [luckily we didn’t all have to go through that process…ew], and then gave the guys the old ‘black and white striped shirts. All us ladies got…..orange and white striped shirts. And I am talking bright orange. Talk about a flattering piece of clothing…. :P Anyway, then we were broken up into small groups and led to various cells in a few different cell blocks throughout the jail. My group ended up being me, three of my friends, and 3 preteen girls. They put us in a cell area, shut the door, and then left. We all just kinda looked at each other and were like, “so….now what?” We explored the area a bit [which didn’t take long], but then the excitement wore off. We soon realized that no one was going to come for us, and that we were pretty much stuck until a guard came to let us out [which turned out to be like 45 minutes to an hour later!!]. So, what do 3 teens and 4….. 'mature' kidults [haha] do with themselves while voluntarily ‘incarcerated’? We make our own fun!

First item on the agenda: Operation: Trick The Guards. This fun little game consisted of us getting the guards to think we had…..uh….escaped, or disappeared. Every so often, a guard would come around and peek in our window. We all plastered ourselves against one wall so that the guards wouldn’t be able to see us when they looked in the window in the door, of course making the assumption that there was no one in the control room up above looking at us. The plan worked flawlessly. The guards came around, and we could hear them outside as one said, “Hey, where’d they go?” And of course in a very mature, adult way, we all looked at each other and covered our mouths to smother the flurry of giggles that erupted. We actually got the guards to open the door and peek inside, and then we jumped out and said, “HA! We got you!” Oh, yeah…..the ‘operation’ was a success.

Next item on the agenda was to decide why exactly we were in jail. What heinous crimes had we committed to end up in the Washington Country Jail? What were our aliases…aka…street names? This took up quite a bit of time as we discussed the various misdemeanors or felonies each one of us might be capable of. Our list of crimes were quite shocking, let me tell you. My crime was either forgery or for running a meth lab…..I can’t quite remember….and I am not going to share my mean street name….he he he….

Then we sat around and planned our escape. We eventually decided that it would be near impossible to actually make a successful break. It’s a brand new jail, not Shawshank. Although, at one point, we had a pretty good plan mapped out involving a staged fight, a human ladder, and an air duct…..but since we weren’t sure of the schematics of the heating and cooling system, we figured that some mastermind designer had already thought of that and had safety measures in place.

The highlights of being locked up were the optional, yet highly attended chapel time and ‘yard time’. We were happy to be anywhere other than our cell. Chapel time was fun; the time outside in the yard was disappointing. I was thinking, grass, maybe? Nope. We were escorted to small, enclosed, cemented area. The only grass was on the other side of a heavily barred gate leading to an emergency area in case of fire. Whoohoo! Now that’s my idea of a playground.

All in all, it was an enlightening experience. Even with all the ”fun” we created for ourselves in our cell, I was ready to get out after about 15 minutes of being locked up. Its an almost claustrophobic feeling knowing that no matter what you do, there is no escape. For 3 hours I was a prisoner, my freedoms stripped from me, forced to follow the schedule set out for me by the law enforcement system. And there was nothing to do except talk to fellow ‘inmates’ and stare at the white cinderblock walls that surrounded me on all sides reminding me of all the freedoms I had lost…..

.....and all I got was a T-shirt…. :)