48 Hours Later

I'm out on work release for the first time. Here's the story of what happened. The only consistent thing I discovered is that no one gives you any information and what you do hear is usually either wrong or you are told different things by different people.

First I had to turn myself in at 'self surrender'. No one told me that the self surrender area is a ramada with a few benches. There is no door, no window or person to give you any guidence. All there is, is a sign that says "Self Surrender - Leave all items in car". This makes no sense, since they gave me a number to call that told me what I could take in. From asking others around I was told I was at the right place and to just wait. I was there at 6:45 am so I could surrender at 7am. At 8:15, a guard finally opened a garage door and shouted for us to line up. She looked at me and told me I could not bring my bag in. I had my items in a black tote. I looked at the others and realized they all had theirs in white plastic bags, like the kind you get at the grocery store.

She did not explain or allow me to ask if it was the tote or bag that was the problem, so I put my stuff in a plastic garbage bag to try to take it in, but by this time they had closed the door so I had to wait until 9:30 before they opened it again. This time with my garbage bag I was allowed to take my stuff through.

We were then stood against a wall and frisked and taken into the building for admittance. The woman in attendance asks us what we had in the bags and we told her it was the items on the recording, she said, they need to change that recording, you aren't allowed to bring anything in but she did not take our bags from us. The men went to one side of the room and the woman - there were 4 of us went into a small holding cell. They had us fill out a medical records form and then called us out one by one to have us answer the exact same questions out loud and take our mug shots. Around 10:30 we were moved to a 12 x 12 ft cell with a small cement bench and a combination sink toilet and left there until 4 pm. There were 3 woman already in, so a total of 7 of us. We sat on the floor and one by one they took us out to take our fingerprints and put us back in. Around 2 pm the took out the 3 woman that had been there before us. One of the woman that had come in with us, had indicated she had some medical issues, so they took her out also.

At around 4 pm they put us in handcuffs and loaded us into a van that was very much like a dog catchers truck - the same kind of cages. They took us to Estrella, which is a couple blocks away, frisked us again and went through our bags more throughly. Around 6 pm we were then walked in handcuffs to 'tent city' where the handcuffs were removed and were told we would be called to be assigned a bunk and recieve a bedroll. It was about 10 pm before this actually happened.

Tent City is a dirt lot that is fairly roomy. It has 7 tents, 6 that house inmates and 1 that is the TV tent. The TV tent has a TV that doesn't work and a bunch of bunk beds with no mattresses. Each tent is set on a concrete slab. The Tent has sides that roll up, so due to the time of year, late summer, all the sides were rolled up so it was open air. They have 14 bunk beds each. I was assigned a top bunk, but luckily was able to get them to let me switch to a lower one, since they are very high and I didn't want to try to get off one in the middle of the night. They were not bad, the mattress was thin, but OK, they game me a sheet & a blanket that was like a sheet but out of blanket material, which was actually fine for Sept weather and a very small towel. The towel I brought in was good for a pillow.

There was not much to do during the day but read my book and move to different bunks to avoid the sun. They do have a big industrial fan in each tent that provides air movement. Very boring. Most of the other inmates had work release or work furlow so there were only about 15 to 20 people spread out among the tents that were in all day.

What they don't tell you is you can't make a phone call for 24 hours and then when you do, you can only call collect and only to a land line, not a mobile phone. The phones are on a wall about 3 feet above the ground with a cord from the phone to the reciever that is about 8 inches long, so it's impossible to talk comfortably anyway. You have to enter your assigned number which starts with a P and you must enter the P first - #7 on the dial pad and then your number, then 0 then the number you want to dial with the area code. I asked a guard how to use the phone and was told, he didn't know, he had never had to use it. I had to find out by asking other inmates.

Work Release is another trip. You are assigned a card with your picture and number on it and told you need to put it in a basket by the admin area 1 and 1/2 hours before you need to be released. However, what they don't tell you is this is only true for people being released for work after 7 am. If you need to be released 7 am or earlier, you have to give your card to the guard that comes by to do a bed check at midnight. If you happen to be sleeping and miss this opporturnity you will have to wait until 8 or 9 am before being released the following day. Lucky for me another inmate let me know this. I sleep very lightly waiting for midnight so I did not miss my chance to get out at 7 am.

There is a difference between work release and work furlow is on work release you stay at the tents for 12 hours and are released for 12 hours. Work Furlow, you go to your job only and straight back to the tents, they take your paycheck and pay your fines with it and give you back a very small amount to use on vending machines, etc.

While walking to the tents a guard told me that Sheriff Joe spends 11 dollars a day on feeding the horses in his animal resue unit, that is next door to us, but only spends .37 a day on feeding an inmate. They only feed you two times a day, once around 10 am and it is stale bread, meat that has an oil tinge to it, 2 oranges and a package of cookies. The oranges and cookies were edible. The evening meal is a joke, who knows what it is, everyone takes a tray, looks at it and maybe trys a bite and puts it right in the garbage, no one can eat it. Everyone eats the junk food in the vending machines.

I have to be back at 7 pm tonight, I'll update you tomorrow on more items.