BS: Mudcatters in Prison

Subject: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 08:58 AM

Without a doubt more US mudcatters have probably been in prison compared to UK mudcatters.
25% of the worlds prison population are in US prisons.
1 in every 150 Americans are in prison.
Most US prisons have been privatized (sort of like a McDonalds franchise) and are considered to be a leading growth industry.

Since the US has the largest prisoner population per capita I was wondering who here among us has spent considerable time in prison or is actually posting from prison.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: gnu
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 09:26 AM

And, since April Fools is well over, the name of one of the largest private companies who specialize in designing, building and running correctinal facilities in North America IS: Wackenhutt. I am NOT making this up.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: gnu
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 10:24 AM

Hehehe. "Correctional". Of all the words to typo!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 03:52 PM

I guess there is no folk music in prisons.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Amos
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 03:57 PM

Nor no blues either, you damn convicts!! Smile or take the consequences!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: frogprince
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 04:05 PM

Does 3/4 hour in a holding cell in Chicago,(1972) waiting for my roommate to bail me out after a traffic accident, count? I was kinda dilsappointed because I didn't have anything to scratch my initials on the wall with.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: khandu
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 05:02 PM

Never in prison, but I was jailed in Texas for an hour and a half (over a traffic ticket!!)in '82. I was put in a cell with a beligerent biker-type drunk that was twice my scrawny size. Of course, he asked what I was in for and I was not going to tell him for failure to pay a expired sticker ticket. I put on the meanest face I could & with the gruffest voice I could muster, said, "For beating the f*** outta some son of a bitch who crossed me."

I gather that he wasn't convinced. He looked me up and down & started laughing and went back to sleep.

k

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 05:12 PM

I toured the town jail with my uncle, the cop, when I was a kid. And I was once a shotgun guard for work details out of a military stockade.

Does either of those count?

Wait! My wife was in the prison at Westville, Indiana! Yeah! She was a guest speaker and they even gave her lunch.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Peace
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 05:23 PM

"Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?"

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 05:26 PM

Not exactly prison but jail:

1969: Detroit, Mi.- 2 days for suspicion of armed robery for being caught in a black neighborhood with a rifle behind the rear seat of my VW bug... Like, what was that all about, anyway... Up there for a White Panthers meeting in Ann Arbor... Forgot the rifle was in the back and... nevermind...

1969: Washington, D.C. 1 night for "failure to disdand" at an anti-war march...

1970: Richmomnd. Va. 4 or 5 hours for "failure to move" during a sit-in at the deans office at VCU...

And does this count? G.E.D. jailhouse teacher from 1974 to 1976 in the big Richmond City Jail on 17th street, but I got to go home at nights and was off on the weekends...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: MudGuard
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 05:37 PM

As you make a distinction between prison and jail - could you please explain what is the difference between them? When I learned English at school, I learned that they are synonyms ...

Sorry, I can't tell any stories about being in prison or jail or whatever, the longest time I was held up by police was when I cycled across the Germany-Switzerland border and the Swiss border police didn't believe I was not a smuggler till they had finished searching through my bicycle panniers.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Sorcha
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 06:49 PM

Jail is usually local....in home town or very nearby at the county seat.Short term stuff.
Prison is usually Long Term penitentary type stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 07:22 PM

I visited one of my congregants once in Greenhaven State Correctional Facility in Stormville, N.Y. He was doing 7 years for arson. I went to bring him kosher food. It was a real scary place. Visiting someone there is a real deterrent to crime because you realize that if you ever break the law you could be in there too. It was a maximum security facility with many people in there serving life terms for multiple homocides without ever any hope for parole.

                                              SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: MudGuard
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 07:39 PM

Thanks for the explanation, Sorcha.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: kendall
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 08:26 PM

In Maine if you commit a misdemeanor it calls for a sentence of up to 364 days in jail. A felony gets you more time, and in prison. I've never been imprisoned, but I put a few there. Minor things like shooting a pregnant doe out of season on a game preserve on a Sunday with no license. Resisting arrest didn't do them any good either.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 08:33 PM

its probably like England where they closed all the mental hospitals and theres nowhere elseto keep people who pose a danger to society.

part of a programme called care in the community, which worked out like couldn't give shit in the community

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 08:45 PM

I've been to two prisons, both of which were in Dorset. The first one, I was there as part of a Christian fellowship that went regularly to the prison (it was in our parish - about 250 yards behind the church!). It's a short term young offenders' prison so things weren't too bad.

The second was at the invitation of the curate who had just been made prison chaplain at the Verne Prison, Portland. This was first built as an army barracks and still retains much of its character as such. It's a fortress for both keeping people out and keeping people in. They were the long term, violent offenders so things were a little different!

I'm suppose I'm a law abiding little soul really... although I was once stopped for driving too carefully..... I guess it's just that they've never caught me at anything!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Peace
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 08:48 PM

BDiBR is in the Big House even as this thread progresses.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: beetle cat
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 09:23 PM

There are enough folk songs about being in prison. The first one I can think of is the Lag's Song, Louis Killen sings it. Then think of all the felons there are in Folk song, warning others not to make the same mistake, people at the gallows and so on. BUT as long as we take the advice offered by these songs, we should be OK.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 09:29 PM

Don't want me no bald headed woman,
Make me mean, Lord, Lordy, make me mean....

Advice like that? Or like

...now with his loaded blunderbuss the truth I will unfold,
He made the Mayor to tremble, and he robbed him of his gold...?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: dianavan
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 09:29 PM

Donuel - You are so close to the truth its not funny.

"Most US prisons have been privatized (sort of like a McDonalds franchise) and are considered to be a leading growth industry."

Have you ever driven from Tucson to Phoenix? There are three or four prisons in that area and it really scary when you think of the percentage of the population that is imprisoned. The locals know that a new prison is going to be built when they see the golden arches go up. No lie! I guess thats to feed the folks that are employed by the prison or the contractors that are building.

My brother recently helped build a new prison in that area. The cement floor was poured on top of cardboard boxes! Thats right, corrugated cardboard stacked side by side with pockets of air. He said he thought it was to make it a little easier for the guys who wanted to tunnel out.

I have only done one day of jail time. It was in Morocco. Since nobody spoke English, I didn't have a clue why they picked me up and took my passport. I spent the day sitting on the floor of a little room with four white walls wondering if I would ever see my family again. Suddenly they appeared, fingerprinted me, took my picture and released me.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 09:54 PM

If you are doing an entertainment turn at a prison, you can try this song...

The Grey Flannel Line

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 10:02 PM

Dianavan;

Try Youngstown, Ohio. The only vaible building in the downtown is a highrise prison... I mean this literally... The rest of the town is either boarded up or demolished...

But they sho nuff git that big ol' high ride prison...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: LilyFestre
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 10:17 PM

There are days when I would gladly go to prison and leave the rest of the world behind me for a minute or two of solitude.

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: DougR
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 01:47 AM

I've seen a lot of threads that I considered stupid on the Mudcat, but this one is about the most. IMO of course.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 02:18 AM

I'm sorry you had to read it, doug.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Mooh
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 07:51 AM

DougR...Why stupid? Perhaps one of us has served time for matters of social conscience. Perhaps one of us has turned their life around after a spin in jail. Perhaps someone currently imprisoned has access to the Cat and seeks understanding, comfort, forgiveness, or reason. Perhaps one of us will need such a thread in the future. I hope it won't be me, or you.

What is valid discussion for one or more of us should make it valid enough for the Mudcat. Many songs have been written around prison experience, and that alone could be reason enough for this thread.

As for myself, never spent a day in jail, except when a kindly cop spared me a sleep in the pouring rain with my bicycle and let me crash in a holding cell. At least it was clean and dry.

Disagree if you like, but stupid it is not.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: harpgirl
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 09:05 AM

Bobert, you knew John Sinclair????   Uh, oh I mean I never knew him.....

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: kendall
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 09:05 AM

More stupid than all those Shatner threads?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Wolfgang
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 09:09 AM

Entire World - Prison Population Rates per 100,000 of the national population

But be careful when reading the statistic:
(1) For a number of countries data are missing (North Korea, for instance)
(2) In a number of countries, forced labour camps (like in the former USSR) are not counted as prisons.

Both reasons artificially inflate the percentage of prisoners in US prisons reported by Donuel.

Nevertheless, in comparison to European countries with a similar method of counting the prison population in the USA seems very high.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Wolfgang
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 09:16 AM

Somehow, the link doesn't lead to where I wanted it to land.
You have to click on 'Highest to lowest rates' and then to change the second window to prison population rates and click on 'go' to see the statistic I wanted to link.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Amos
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 09:39 AM

I think this will do it; The US is at about 714/100000 while the UK, Canada and France, for examples, are in the range of 125 or less.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: GUEST,Mr (born again bachelor) Red
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 10:18 AM

Well I was once trapped in a hopeless marriage. Does that count? It sure was a release when I read the note on the table.

It was inside a locked house and the key had been given to a neighbour - unbeknownst to me. The note said (and not much else) the key is with neighbour Harrison.

Good joke eh? I spoilt it by ringing in advance and had to ring round to find an answer. But I would have happily broken in - would I have been slung in jail for burglary?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Charmion
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 11:11 AM

Canadians don't have to go all the way to Arizona to visit a cluster of prisons; a drive through southeastern Ontario from Burrit's Rapids to Joyceville and Kingston, and then going on through Collins Bay to Bath and Millhaven will do the job just fine. You can then top off the experience with a visit to Penetanguishes on beautiful Georgian Bay, site of Ontario's hospital for the criminally insane.

The Correctional Service of Canada reports that it operates 54 penitentiaries, which are federal institutions for inmates sentenced to at least two years in custody. The provinces operate Canada's prisons (for inmates sentenced to terms up to two years less a day) and jails (remand centres for people awaiting trial and undergoing a wide variety of pre-trial assessments). All the provincial systems are over-crowded, so individuals on remand -- who may well be innocent of the charges they face -- can find themselves banged up with fearsome folks who have been convicted and sentenced, but are still in the jail system because no provincial lock-up has room for them.

My knowledge of Canada's prison system is mostly vicarious, thanks be to God (I've done a lot of editing for Corrections), but over the years I have spent a day or three in court. I also once took in my best friend's middle kid for a fortnight during a period of extreme adolescent delinquency (his) and hands-in-the-air frustration (hers) when the judge in Youth Court was facing the unpleasant alternative of sending the kid to jail on remand because the staff of a "secure group home" (read: jail for kids) had declared themselves unequal to the challenge of supervising him. Two weeks with me was daunting for the kid and an interesting challenge for me; although he was painfully determined to "be good" (sleeping on an air mattress in my study was not delightful, but it wasn't jail either), I had little idea of what to do with a 15-year-old boy who didn't want to spend all his time reading. We took a lot of long walks, as I remember, and discussed the nature and quality of human society for hours on end! I eventually realized that the kid had nearly talked himself into jail -- by twisting and churning every proposition put to him, he could drive your average adult to blithering rage in minutes flat.

I hate to think what would have happened to that kid if the judge had just given up and jailed him ...

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Jim McLean
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 11:45 AM

I served 6 months in Glasgow's notorious Barlinnie jail because I refused to do my National Service. I registered as a Conscientious Objector in 1956, just after the Suez fiasco and was put in prison in 1957. It was quite an experience but every cloud ... I met the great Johnny Ramensky and really saw the wild side of life.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 11:50 AM

We spent years and years holidaying at Haverigg, Cumbria, where there is an open prison. Dunno if I ever spent any time with the in-(or is it out?)-mates. Couldn't tell!

Does that count?

DtG

Oh yes - Spent 3 hours sharing a bottle of Vodka with my mate Mike and a WPC in an interview room at Swinton Police Station waiting for my Brother-in-law to be bailed for a drinking offense!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 12:14 PM

I've given the details at least twice on VietNam threads, but in a nutshell..........6 months, 3 weeks, 3 days in Petersburg Federal Reformatory for "Treasonous Acts Upon the United States of America"....ie., refusing induction into the armed services. The sentence was 3-5 years and the releases kept getting earlier and earlier as the numbers grew. It dropped to 3 months soon after I had been paroled and eventually no time at all was given.....a small victory over the government, real small. Later the whole thing was written off by Jimmy Carter under pressure from Amnesty International.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: DougR
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 01:09 PM

Kendall: I guess I'd consider it a toss-up between this one and the Shatner threads (no offence L.H.).

My point is, who cares?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Amos
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 01:17 PM

I have had a couple of highly amusing ventures into slammers, in my perfervid youth, but the details are perhaps best left for another time. I swear i did no wrong, though!! LOL Ain't that what they all say.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: PoppaGator
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 01:39 PM

DougR, what's so stupid about this topic? I think it's more than valid. Even learning that very few members have had any experience of incarceration is interesting in itself, and the few stories that members do have to tell are well worth hearing.

It's obvious that you've never held a position of conscience that put you in a position where your only choices were either (A) to stifle yourself, standing by mute while allowing perceived injustices to proceed, or (B) to risk imprisonment. That is obviously not true of many people who have been involved in "folk music," at least in mid-twentieth-century America. In fact, I'm surprised that more prison stories haven't popped up.

You also obviously (like most of us) belong to a sufficiently privileged social class that the prospect of wrongful arrest and imprisonment, or of technically justified imprisonment for a minor or "victimless" offense, is not a real worry. If you were a poor black male in an American inner city, you would stand a very likely chance of being busted any time you walked out your door. There is a higher precentage of US citizens in prison than citizens of any other country in the industrialzed world and, let's face it, not too many of them are suburban white guys.

I have a jailhouse story or two to tell myself, but will wait 'til later. For now, I had to get the above off my chest first.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Amos
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 01:45 PM

DougR:

Why project your own callousness on other beings? It is possible there are people more caring than you in the world., and surely your indifference need not infect them.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: DougR
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 01:50 PM

Amos: to each his own. I read the sentiments of Poppagator and respect his views, just as I do yours, but I do not have to agree with them, right? Having served "time" does not elevate my opinion of a person regardless of the reason they served.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: PoppaGator
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 02:14 PM

DougR, I have generally respected your views, regardless of the fact that I often disagree with them, and that's why I was surprised at your reaction to this discussion.

Whether or not your opinion of an individual is affected by his/her history of incarceration, you certainly ought to tolerate discussion of this issue. Characterizing it as "about the most" stupid topic ever discussed at Mudcat is pretty extreme, and seems out of character for you.

Why are you so defensive about this topic? My guess is that you may once have seriously considered an act of civil disobedience in support of a cause in which you believed (e.g., disrupting an abortion clinic) and then chickened out.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Den
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 02:25 PM

Lifted a few times by the Brits in Belfast. Held for 2 days once under the PTA with no charge. I won't go into what happened to me as a guest of the crown.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: jeffp
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 02:32 PM

It's interesting that DougR has contributed the greatest number of posts by an individual to a thread that he has labelled as stupid.

Go figure

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Wolfgang
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 02:42 PM

It's interesting that DougR has contributed the greatest number of posts by an individual to a thread that he has labelled as stupid.

Go figure

Yes, I went and did check the figures and found you did count them wrong, Jeff.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: jeffp
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 03:03 PM

Sure enough. Amos holds a slight lead. Oh well.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Sorcha
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 03:07 PM

I haven't been in jail, but son has. twice. Once overnight, once for 8 mos. Not a fun place to be but it did force him to clean up his act. Doesn't happen that way often.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: MAG
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 03:24 PM

I once did an overnight in the Fox Valley (IL.) lockup for supposedly driving on a suspended license. They were wrong and the charges were dropped, but that's another story.

It all happened after some friends and i tried to go on a camping weekend. It poured rain the whole time and the bedraggled group of us made the mistake of stopping in the charming town for some lunch. We were treated like dirt by the waitress and pulled over as we were leaving town and I got yanked; my friend drove my car home and came back for me the next day.

It occurred to me later to wonder if they did this because one of my friends happened to be Black. I related this story to another Black friend, who cracked up laughing.

Ah, the ex-urbs. A world unto themselves. I was pleased it was foreign to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters in Prison
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 04:03 PM

One night in a police cell for pushing an aggressive slightly drunk guy through a plate-glass window at a motorway service station, 1972. Not really intentional and not my usual style, but I was in a bad mood. And marooned five hours sans passport on the whim of a female federal ranger a few miles north of Juneau in 1996, while she called up reinforcements. I had put up my tent in the wrong part of the forest, by about 20 yards, and refused to re-site. (It was 11.30pm.) I was given an on-the-spot ticket but never paid the fine, so I suppose I'm persona non grata in the states to this day. (That was when I discovered that Juneau, where you can drive only about 20 miles in any one direction, had 28,000 people and 29,000 licenced road vehicles.)

MudGuard, I'm not aware of a distinction between jail and prison here in the UK. So it looks like you did learn English rather than American.