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Prison Camp - York County, South Carolina

"You have to focus on your own program. Keep to yourself and fly under the
radar. Be anonymnous. Don't volunteer any information about anything. Don't talk
about how short your time is. Don't draw attention to yourself. Don't talk too
much or be overly friendly. Respect boundaries. Keep yourself neat and clean.
Organize your personal items and don't make too much eye contact with anyone - at
least at the beginning."

The Prison Camp is next to the York County Detention Facility. The entire complex
is part of the Moss Justice Center. The names are misleading because the detention
facility is actually the maximum security facility and the prison camp is a
minimum security work dormitory housing inmates who are in for unpaid child
support and unpaid traffic tickets. All things are relative in their scope and
interpretation.

Built within the last two years, the prison camp is a massive warehouse structure
divided up into large housing units. Delta dorm is for the non-violent, short term
people who are in for fifteen days. Some are in for six months. Charlie dorm
houses those who are in for more serious charges and are on their way to state
prison. Based on the fine or conviction the time of incarceration is generally cut
in half because the inmates work an eight hour shift seven days a week.

RACE:
There are and were no Mexicans. No Latino gang members. All the Hispanics were
housed in orange jump suits in the neighboring detention facility. No problems.
And it was absolutely astonishing to see how the white and black races mingle and
essentially get along with each other. After having exposure to the reality of the
vindictiveness and division of the races in Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail
I could not believe that there were open chairs, available telephones,
conversation and relative peace in the dorm. Blacks and Whites sat with each other
at the tables eating together.

SCHEDULE and FOOD:

The York County Sheriff Department has quite a smooth operation going at their
"country jail". Inmates work in the laundry, kitchen, landfill, and recycling.
There is a desk at the front end of the dorm manned by a single deputy working a
twelve hour six to six shift supervising about 60 inmates. During the night the
deputies play solitaire on the computer and struggle to stay awake.
For those working in the laundry and kitchen the day begins at 3:30am. The rest
are awakened at 5am. Breakfast is served around 5:40 am and consists of two pieces
of white bread, grits, a piece of round salty meat, a small orange, a half-pint of
milk, and sometimes watery reconstituted powder eggs, all served on a yellow
plastic tray. Inmates are given their own beige plastic cup and spoon as personal
items and if lost are given extra work hours. Lunch is in a bag which is given to
the inmates as they leave in the vans for work. The bag contains, without
variation, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread. The sandwich
contains a very meager dollop of peanut butter and a small portion of clear purple
colored jelly. A baloney sandwich is also provided, again, on two pieces of white
bread along with a packet of mustard. Completing the feast is an orange, a little
square of white cake wrapped in cellophane and a half-pint of red fruit punch.
Excluding laundry and kitchen all inmates are back in the dorm from work duties by
4:30pm. Dinner is served close to 5pm and consists of a type of meat hash with
starch, two pieces of white bread, another orange, another small square of white
cake and a half-pint of milk all beautifully presented on the yellow plastic tray.
Meals are brought to inmates and are served and eaten at beige Formica tables in
the dorm. An astonishing dynamic to observe is that no one fights for who will be
in the front of the line. Whoever gets there first is first, white or black.
Generally the whites are in the front of the line for some reason.

INMATES:
There is a rural Southern archetype of the shaved head, construction worker,
methamphetamine manufacturing, pot smoking, weathered and tattooed male. The
majority of the whites embodied these descriptions. It is fascinating to see the
variety and placement of tattoos on their backs, necks, arms, legs and faces. I
don't know what happens to these young southern boys in the country but by the
time they get to their mid-twenties and beyond they look like they have been
kicked around and run over by a truck a few times. The South is a strange and
foreign land. The York County Blacks, mostly from Rock Hill, are beautifully
aerodynamic and energetic. The majority are in for possessing or manufacturing
drugs. These are peaceful blacks and generally friendly.

BEHAVIOR:
This is good place to talk about how to handle oneself in jail. You have to focus
on your own program. Keep to yourself and fly under the radar. Be anonymnous.
Don't volunteer any information about anything. Don't talk about how short your
time is. Don't draw attention to yourself. Don't talk too much or be overly
friendly. Respect boundaries. Keep yourself neat and clean. Organize your personal
items and don't make too much eye contact with anyone - at least at the beginning.
Everyone watches everyone else. If you look weak and needy then you become a
target. This is jail, albeit, mild compared to elsewhere but it is still lockup.
Focus on keeping nourished. Eat the Oranges for the vitamin C. Trade the cake for
Oranges.

WORK:
Collection-Recycling:
Most of the inmates are trucked out to the recycling facility at the landfill and
spend the day sorting through York County household trash on the conveyer belt
separating plastic bottles, cans, colored plastic and colored glass into chutes
that drop off into large dumpsters. This is quite an operation. A couple of
elderly and weathered county public works gentlemen run the place. After the
sheriff deputies drop off the inmates in the morning they leave. This was another
completely amazing sight. Thirty inmates, in relative freedom, working. What it
showed me is that people want to work, locked up or not.
The general public in York County would be horrified if they knew that prison
inmates were digging through their personal trash. The amount of personal papers,
information and items that people throw away is incredible. Inmates look for
cigarettes and unopened bottles of beer from backyard parties. They look for
girlie magazines, hats, sunglasses. All of these are daily acquired and there are
plentiful hidden inventories strategically located around the recycling facility.
The elderly public works "supervisor" sits in the back corner and strips
insulation off copper wire to use for his own recycled revenue project.
Laundry:
This by far is the best work detail available. The laundry and kitchen are located
in the adjacent Detention Facility and the inmates are driven in a white van
through one fence around the corner, through another fence, and into the back
loading dock. The reason that Laundry is so good is because the five Trustees in
the detention facility congregate in the laundry as their main headquarters.
These individuals are long term state inmates serving several years to a decade or
more. They have access to all kinds of extra items, real coffee, radio, books, and
especially food. The kitchen is through the double doors and across the hall. The
trustees and the two prison camp inmates assigned to them are served meals first,
are provided double portions of everything, with an ongoing supply of sweet tea
and several large pieces of white cake. The work is low impact and there is plenty
of time to read and sleep.

ACTIVITIES:
Basically you can read a book, watch TV, play dominoes or cards, talk, take a
shower, walk around and go to a church service five days a week from 7 to 8pm.
There are two 20 inch televisions hanging from the ceiling. One facing the front
of the dorm and the other facing the back. Inmates ask the deputy for the remote
control and usually one TV is on a movie channel and the other is on sports. Two
interesting movies on the FX and SciFi channels respectively were Underworld
Evolution and Battlestar Galactica. It should be stated that you can't really hear
anything because of the background noise but the way to enjoy television in jail
is to lip read, zone out and pass the time. If you don't expect to hear what is on
television then you will enjoy it alot more.
The dorms have large floor to ceiling windows and a back door leading to an
outdoor cement slab. The door is open throughout the day and inmates can come and
go outside as they please. The area is surrounded by a chain link fence with
barbed wire and a view of the surrounding trees and vegetation. Local churches
provide services and food. This is one of the great benefits of being in the
prison camp. After the meager dinner at 5pm hungry inmates go out of the dorm,
down the hallway and into the chapel for snacks and soda. Church is also good
because free New King James Version bibles are provided by Kenneth Copland
Ministries.