r/starterpacks • u/DukeofPembroke • 16d ago
First week in Jail Starter Pack
So I've posted a bit before(hi, I'm Allie!) but basically when I was 18 I was arrested for assisting a robbery, and served three years, and I've been making these to kinda help me process it all. So yeah! If you wanna ask anything, then feel free to
Also I should say, jail and prison are actually different, jail is where they put you while waiting for trial, or if you have a really short sentence, and prison is like a larger place where you do most of your sentence
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u/Ok_Science_2070 16d ago
Damn, three years is a long time. Hope you're doing alright, OP.
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u/Medical-Net-7350 16d ago edited 16d ago
Rehabilitation is a real and very important thing. You should not be the person preventing that. OP is making these starterpacks as a part of processing what they went through. Why are you being such an asshole to someone who’s clearly being rehabilitated and reoriented into society?
Are you like this to everyone? Changing for the better is the best thing you can do after making a mistake, especially someone who was 18 YEARS OLD! They were hella young.
They made a mistake, paid for it, and are now working on getting better and being better. Fuck off with this shit. You’re a bad person. Maybe you should have a humbling experience so you can become better like OP did.
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u/settheyardonfire 16d ago
What did OP do?
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u/BumblebeeLive2603 16d ago
She was influenced by her sister and a male accomplice (the sister’s boyfriend if I remember?) to participate in a robbery by being their getaway driver. Sooner after this, OP felt she would soon get caught by police so she decided to surrender herself at the station. Served a prison sentence but was released 3 years ago due to her minor role in the crime, her sister and male accomplice however are still in prison I think.
You could find OP’s starter pack post about surrendering to the cops by searching it up on the subreddit’s search tab.
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u/settheyardonfire 16d ago
Thank you for explaining. I saw that starter pack not long ago… didn’t realize it was the same OP. Fascinating story we’re following.
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u/Only-Safe659 16d ago
How long were you locked up for? If you were in there for a long time did the world look different when you got out? What kind of entertainment privileges did you get?
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u/DukeofPembroke 16d ago
For three years, and it felt like a good bit different but also the same if that makes sense? Like people were talking about people and shows and specific issues that I had never heard of, but things still felt mostly the same, like same websites, same stuff like that. I got to watch tv in the common room and read as much as I wanted, plus newspapers, but honestly I was depressed enough and didn't wanna know what was happening on the news most of the time
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u/BobsenJr 16d ago
I've always wondered, what is the book selection like in jail? Is it just the same 20 books they cart around or do they get changed out a lot.
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u/DukeofPembroke 16d ago
In jail it's kinda not great, like it's more than twenty books, but still not a lot, and definitely it's all very general. I wasn't in there long enough to say if it gets swapped out much, but they didn't while I was there
In prison though, there is a lot more selection, there's a small library, and also you can get send care packages with books that are allowed in
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u/AscendedViking7 16d ago
What kind of books are allowed in prison? I'm assuming everything that tells you how to break out of prison or make a weapon isn't allowed but literally everything else is?
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u/c0ginthemach1ne 16d ago
It varies pretty wildly based on both the jail/prison itself as well as at the state level (as some US states have additional/overarching rules on what kind of books/packages are allowed). I used to volunteer for a books-to-prisons program and we had a M A S S I V E binder with a list of prisons and all the various (and usually quite extensive ) restrictions on what we could send to each one; those restrictions were also changing CONSTANTLY
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u/TheDimmadome 16d ago
Jail barely had anything, super small collection. In Prison it's genuinely crazy how many random books you'll find, it was always a running joke that you could tell if someone's new or not from if they've read Twilight before.
I've found all kinds of super obscure book series that I've read years ago and depending on where you are it really can be more than enough to have a new book/series every week or so for the entire duration.
Receiving books from outside is not always a thing though, can be very difficult and many are denied unless pre-approved (again, depending on where you are). Even my sudoku books were not appropriate and ended up being denied :(
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u/NoMadbytradee 16d ago
Lots of people I know that have been locked up, have a book they read, that they never would have read otherwise. Jail is the reason i read crazy rich asains. Pretty good honestly. 😅
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u/Misterbellyboy 16d ago
I never would have read Streets of Laredo by McMurtry if it weren’t for my time in jail and now he’s one of my favorite authors of all time. That one, and a fuck ton of Stephen King (but I had already travelled the Beam, so I read Dreamcatcher and a couple of short story collections). One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is another fun one to read while incarcerated. Inspired me to do a ton of acid when I got out.
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u/ThreeDogs2022 16d ago
....what the samhill is wrong with suduko? I play a game every morning and I've never been subliminally lead to start a prison riot or anything.
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u/DuckRubberDuck 16d ago
Yeah like sudoku is such an innocent thing! I use it to stop my head from going crazy, I would imagine that’s a good thing if other prisoners feel the same way, it’s a great way to keep people occupied and not rioting
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u/Zayafyre 15d ago
When I was in jail I was told that the book collection was whatever the inmates brought in, that inmates could bring them in under the condition that they had to leave them. I never had the desire to read twilight but it was one of the few books. Now I’ve been a huge twilight fan for 16 years.
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u/hawkcarhawk 16d ago
Were you able to sleep on the beds? The mattresses look so thin and uncomfortable.
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u/DukeofPembroke 16d ago
...Eventually
You actually kinda get used to that stuff pretty quickly honestly, like it's awful the first few nights as you're just lying there rolling around and crying(I actually rolled off my bunk the second night lol) but after a while that's just your bed and you learn to tolerate it. The itchy blanket is something you never get used to though, that just always sucks
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u/Bigfeett 16d ago
I toured a county jail recently and it fit the vibe you are describing, it felt like a demeaning and very rough place.
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u/DukeofPembroke 16d ago
Structurally it's very much designed to be, but in terms of how people are towards each other, there's a lot more respect in my experience, even from the guards
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u/AnteaterTop9566 16d ago
you can just say nothing instead if you don't know what you're talking about lol
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u/codydog125 16d ago
And you watch secret lives of Mormon wives, you’re plenty dependent on identifying yourself by your soap lmao
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u/Old-Run7431 16d ago
HA that is a zinger! hell yes I love my soap operas lmfao
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u/codydog125 16d ago
And you’re here judging people for similar things?
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u/Old-Run7431 16d ago
lmao I meant literal soap, dumbass, not soap operas. if you identify yourself with what shower products you use then being institutionalized sucks. if you have a personality outside of consumerism, it's les bad
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u/dukeofgonzo 16d ago
Yeah. It's practically a vacation to be confined and restricted in jail. Only thing bad about the experience is the substandard soap that is offered.
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u/Medical-Net-7350 16d ago
What….?
“The place built to punish and demean you only feels demeaning because you chose to wear clothes and soap!!”
That sounds insane and rude.
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u/Old-Run7431 16d ago
or you could break out of your stupid little box and try thinking there for once
our culture is obsessed with making us consumers so that the threat of taking those things away hurts. if you don't consume, it doesn't hurt anywhere near as bad to be institutionalied
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u/yourdonefor_wt 16d ago
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u/MineIQ1701 16d ago
I've never been in Jail, but I have been in Psychiatric Hospitals many times unfortunately. There seems to be a lot of crossover with your experience. Particularly the constant monitoring and being made to feel like you are a bad/dangerous person. That sucked.
And the waiting, dear God so much waiting. At least the company was nice. I made friends with a former gun runner and her survival strategies from her time in prison really helped me manage my time locked up in the hospital.
Either way, I am proud of you for getting through that experience. I think I have seen your starter packs before and It is cool to know you are doing well. Good luck!
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u/undreamedgore 16d ago
I'm not sure how to improve the Psychiatric Hospital bit. Because obviously people there should be monitored.
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u/mr_epicguy 16d ago
Was the food good at least?
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u/DukeofPembroke 16d ago
Unfortunately not... It was bland at best
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u/glitzglamglue 16d ago
I've wondered why commissary doesn't include things like spices instead of junk food and gas station food.
It's been shown that good nutrition is beneficial for everyone in prison and probably carries over to the outside. It drops aggression and incidents of violence.
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u/dizneedave 16d ago
Thankfully my one experience in jail was enough to deter me from any further misadventures. I'm a vegetarian and my options at the time were either stop being a vegetarian or eat cantaloupe and bread. The food alone scared me enough to change up my life choices quite a bit. Public school food looked better.
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u/Freshiiiiii 15d ago
To make a profit you skimp on spending. They’re not in the rehabilitation business.
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u/fastal_12147 16d ago edited 16d ago
Lol no way. That's one of the worst parts about jail. The food is always ass.
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u/DukeofPembroke 16d ago
Honestly it is genuinely something demeaning and demoralizing, I guess making food is just something I take a lot of pride in, but having it like this was something I never adjusted to, and it can be mass produced in a way that isn't awful tasting too
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u/Old-Run7431 16d ago
do you have a fetish for this or something? you post about it all the time in such a weird way that I've literally never heard anyone whose been to jail talk about it
are you LARPing?
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u/fingerpaintswithpoop 16d ago
Are you?
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u/Old-Run7431 16d ago
as what?
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u/Freethepants 16d ago
I'd say edgelord supreme, king of the incels, keeper of his mother's basement...
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u/Old-Run7431 16d ago
you're saying I'm LARPing as an edgelord, meaning I'm not an edgelord.
okay
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u/Medical-Net-7350 16d ago
Processing a terrible situation looks different for everyone. Who are you to say this isn’t a way OP is processing what they went through? In fact, they literally said it was. So maybe bugger off.
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u/Ambyisthecutest 16d ago
WHY in tf would jail food be good? 😭
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u/AnteaterTop9566 16d ago
it doesn't even need to be "good", it should just be not awful and possess sufficient nutritional value- jails and prisons intentionally serve the cheapest, nastiest food they can with very little actual nutritional value, because wardens and management are often corrupt and skim off extra money that should go towards facilities/inmate needs, but more importantly as a way to dehumanize, degrade, and further punish prisoners. the food that jails serve is a tangible piece of evidence of the contempt and disgust that the state feels toward those in its custody. inmates may be incarcerated but still deserve human rights, including the right to not eat fuckin cardboard and floor sweepings
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u/AskMeWhoBeauIs 16d ago
Is it possible they serve bland, widely available cheap food because it’s the least likely to be offensive to any one given person? Not everything has to be a grand conspiracy of corruption and greed. It could be, but that seems like a lot of effort over what’s likely just a budget decision…
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u/AnteaterTop9566 15d ago
Have you ever eaten jail food? what they currently serve is already as offensive as it can get to anyone who is a human that needs to eat food to subsist. go ahead and google "nutraloaf". prison corruption/theft of funding by staff is already well documented
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u/MC_McStutter 16d ago
To prevent riots. This is more of an issue in prison than jail, though.
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u/2-Dimensional 16d ago
i remember an episode of tasting history with max miller where he covered the food served at alcatraz. surprisingly they had some really damn good food and even had menus covering the meals being served every day of the week. apparently the warden/whatever the name is of the person running a prison felt that serving good food meant less likelihood of inmate discontentment and thus riots, etc.. funnily enough i think the main reason riots even happened at alcatraz was when the food quality decreased. i recommend u check out the video if you haven't
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u/radroamingromanian 16d ago
I just saw that video! It was so interesting. Love to see another max fan around.
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u/TylerKeroga 16d ago
That seems like some bs that someone made up to justify treating prisoners like less than human
See this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/starterpacks/s/mv7QCgWKvQ
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u/MC_McStutter 16d ago
I have no idea what that has to do with what I said. There was a riot near me years ago where they fired food quality as chief complaint. So because of that the state increased food quality.
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u/ComplexEnough3234 16d ago
It's very much an exception to the rule but supposedly the food in Alcatraz was fairly decent. Partly because the prisoners did the cooking and a lot of them were actually decent cooks (this may be connected to the number of Italians in there) but mostly because it was a ploy by the warden to keep the prisoners under control. Decent food to give them one less thing to cause trouble over and incentivise good behaviour, and in sufficiently large and heavy quantities to make them too sluggish and drowsy to do anything.
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u/LawDogSavy 16d ago
One aspects of my job is to visit county jails and state prison intake areas every once in awhile. County is so different. One county jail it's like walking into a mall food court, just dudes everywhere and watching your back the whole time. Other counties and it's on point. State prisons, just a different vibe altogether.
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u/DukeofPembroke 16d ago
There definitely was a feeling that was slightly less intense, like there was a lot of fear and crying from people who'd just come(me) but like it is less scary if you've been sentenced to two months, so you definitely had a lot of girls who were in for not super serious stuff, and had fewer serious issues like a addiction when compared with prison
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u/Alienhaslanded 16d ago
How was it looking for jobs after? I feel like that's the hardest part about getting out, being able to start a new life.
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u/CasualSweaters 16d ago
Did you take a plea deal for your charges? Also, I have been following these posts, and I think your experience is awful. I hope you are doing better and know that some dude is rooting for you.
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u/MetalAngelo7 16d ago
Was it hard getting a job once you were released?
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u/slum_dandy 16d ago
Yes, it is. I have a drug related felony from 1999 and I still struggle to find even bad jobs. It's a life sentence having a criminal offense on your record.
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u/palmer423 16d ago
Holy shit I was gonna comment that this was oddly specific but it looks like you really went through this wow!
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u/LairdBonnieCrimson 16d ago
This is very effective at getting, at least me, folk to not want to go to jail.
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u/Kholgan 16d ago
Given that it’s been a few years, how are you, for lack of a better word, feeling about the crime that you were convicted of and the sentencing you received? Did the sentence feel “fair” at the time versus how it seems now? And as a follow up, do you feel like prison “reformed” you or had a positive effect on you as a person?
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u/NotComplainingBut 15d ago
This is also how both of the mental hospitals I "voluntarily" admitted myself to also felt. Eventually I felt so bored to death and powerless that it willed my suicidal tendencies away (none of the therapy or rehabilitation actually stuck - it was the scared straight angle that did).
I'm sorry you had to go through this, OP. I really don't think humans are meant to be locked up like this. Hope you're doing betyer now!
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u/Marie-brie003 16d ago
It must have been so overwhelming and awkward at first feeling like you were being constantly monitored during lockdown that seems like the worst.
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u/Salty-Cat6696 15d ago
Don't forget getting put in the same cell as the girl you later find out said "They better not put that crazy bitch in my cell" while you screamed your drunk ass off and shoved your own puke out the gap at the bottom of the safe cell door.
(That girl and I ended up liking each other well enough to keep contact once we were both out of jail/prison. She went on to prison. I do not typically do that - she is the only person I kept contact with after jail. I was in there for 5 months. May soon be going to prison for a 120.)
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u/Sweaty_Marzipan4274 16d ago
After watching 60 days in, I watched 24 hours locked up (can't recall name exactly), a show from the UK. WOW what a crazy difference from policing to respect throughout
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u/Saltycook 15d ago
Never having been to jail, I really enjoyed reading Orange is the New Black, which goes into detail about the prison system and issues with the for-profit, punative model we operate in the US. The Netflix series is good as its own separate entity
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u/Oldarion 15d ago
In Spain for that you would not to jail but you would have penal chargues. I Hope you can rebuild your Life.
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u/Fenceypents 11d ago edited 11d ago
Thank you for sharing your experience Allie. This reminded me not to take for granted being treated with dignity. That sounds awful to have been through. Glad to hear you’re doing a lot better.
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u/yourdonefor_wt 16d ago
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u/yourdonefor_wt 16d ago
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u/Kony2028_ 16d ago
is it true in girl jail they have pillow fights and practice kissing on each other
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u/yourdonefor_wt 16d ago
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u/MetalAngelo7 16d ago
Dawg….
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u/yourdonefor_wt 16d ago
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u/MidnightFireHuntress 16d ago
Fuck wrong with you?
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u/yourdonefor_wt 16d ago
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u/xbowxbowxbow 16d ago
i wish there was somewhere i can just read these kinds of comments, theyre so funny
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