Prison guards have one of the hardest jobs, dealing with some pretty messed up people on a daily basis. They're finally sharing what really goes on behind bars.
Some Bunny Loves You
“My dad used to work as a CO and he would never tell me any stories about his time there until one day of constant badgering he told me the tale of the Easter surprise.
Easter morning one of the inmates thought it would be a brilliant idea to get completely naked and shove a toilet scrubber all the way up his a– so the only part visible was his bristled “bunny tail”, he then proceeded to scream that he was the Easter bunny while trying to hop around and avoid the oncoming guards.”
Sleeping With One Eye Open
“I had a neighbor who was a CO at a juvenile prison in my city. There was a new kid at the prison one day, he was apparently very shy and very quiet. He had the misfortune of sharing a cell with one of the more violent inmates. His second night there, his cellmate unscrewed a screw from a bench, and sat on his bed in the middle of the night. When he woke up, he said “I’mma make you a pirate,” and shoved the screw into the new kid’s eye. My neighbor was the first CO to respond to the kids’ calls for help. When asked why he shoved a screw in the new kid’s eye, he claimed that he looked at him the wrong way. That’s a pretty f—– up situation if you ask me, and not one I’d like to deal with under any circumstances.”
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
“My SO’s brother was sent to a juvenile detention center (one of those camps for “bad” kids) by his mom. He wasn’t a bad kid, just stupid. Not violent at all and was sent because he smoked weed… Anyways, his cell mate was a psycho. Smeared his feces all over their cell walls and somehow, got a hold of a screwdriver and stabbed my SO’s brother in the back. Luckily, it wasn’t a deep stab. He checked himself out at 18.”
A Light At The End Of The Tunnel
“At my jail, we had a non violent criminal in lockdown with a violent one. Bad dude killed the other guy with a colored pencil through the eyeball. Being a woman, I was working female facility so only heard all the chatter over the radio. Speaking of eyeballs, also had a guy pull one of his out. Also didn’t see that one.
Worst I dealt with were just the stories when I would talk to my girls. So many crying sessions as they discussed their childhood. One that stands out the most: had this girl none of the COs could stand. She was constantly in trouble and getting put in lockdown. I had a very good rapport with her though. Came in one day and she was in a cell doing typical “acting out.” She had calmed down but was getting riled up again. I went to see her since she always behaved with me. Turns out her aunt who was also in the facility had just been sentenced to death. This woman, Margaret Allen if anyone’s interested in looking it up, had killed a woman by cutting her throat and pouring bleach in it and her mouth, then buried her still alive.
Anyway the young girl was upset over this and even I was like, look, that f—— b—- deserves death, you need to behave and don’t get in more trouble or lose sleep over this. So she proceeded to tell me why she loved her so much. As a kid, around 6, she was in an apt with a few other little cousins, when some guys broke in to kill the parents. They were cooking crack at the time. So the 10 year old shoos all the kids into a closet and tells them to be quiet. This girl’s best friend, same age, hears screaming and runs out and is also shot dead. The oldest kid wasn’t able to stop her. Long story short, this aunt who was just sentenced to death took her and the other kids in and kind of raised them off and on and always made sure they were taken care of. All lived in the same apt complex.
Those of us who aren’t raised in such poverty and violence have no idea how bad kids in this country f—— have it. I sat and cried with her a good hour.
So much tragedy. I learned a lot in my years as a CO. I see old inmates often. I get hugs and cries thanking me, or see girls full of pride for doing well. I’ve even had them find me on Facebook to ask for help bc they’re spiraling out of control again. Ok now I’m rambling.”
Woah…
“My dad was installing a ventilation system at a women’s prison. He had a nice chat and a sandwich with an inmate. After they said goodbye to each other, a guard told my dad that the woman was sentenced for life because she killed her husband, and put the body through a meat grinder.”
Part Of The Job
“Oh boy here we go
My first fight I responded to was a stabbing. Trying to contain that situation with nothing more than OC spray and Gloves was a pretty grim welcoming to corrections.
I try not to look at their charges because I find it hard to treat them the same after I find out that they are a violent sex offender. Almost every time an inmate is polite and seems like a decent enough person I end up hearing their case in the news and it is 9/10 sex charges.
I saw a guy who slipped in the bathroom have his hip come completely out of his socket and his leg came out at a ridiculous angle.
Trying to have a conversation with someone and deescalate them when you can hardly see them because so much feces has been spread over the window.
During a strip search an inmate used his hands to make his butt cheeks say “excuse me sir, but do you have a breath mint?”
But by far the most disturbing thing is the complete lack of accountability. 90% of these guys have convinced themselves that they are the victims and have done no wrong. Never accountable for anything and have a sense of entitlement that is more frustrating than anything to deal with than any other aspect of my job.
Becoming accustomed to being threatened is a pretty strange phenomenon. I didn’t realize I had become desensitized to it until I was threatened by an inmate telling me “I am going to murder you and rape your wife.” I told my family that it happened a few weeks later just as a “oh by the way” sort of thing and they were mortified. Where as I had almost forgotten it happened.
An inmate who was infamous for packing drugs in his rectum came in and completed his dry cell stint in segregation. Other inmates didn’t believe him when he told them he didn’t have any drugs on him this time so they decided to check for themselves. They accomplished this with a Dasani water bottle enema.
The host of medical conditions you see during strip searches is alarming at first. The list contains testicles the size of mango’s, genital warts larger that their p—, AID lesions (always make me gag), and of course p—- amputations always catch you off guard.”
A Slap In The Face
“Not really disturbing in a traditional sense, but still made me uncomfortable. I’m a CO at the Denver complex for the department of corrections. Seeing James Holmes, the Aurora Theater shooter, come through our processing after getting sentenced. I’d seen this man’s face and heard the stories for two years on TV. But seeing him person just slapped me in the face with a weird sense of reality. I don’t really know what I expected, but it was pretty disturbing to me personally.
If that doesn’t count, then seeing an offender hanging from a sheet in their cell.”
Gross!
“I work closely with all the prisons in the state. There’s one notorious inmate who likes to jerk off and throw his semen in everyone’s face…fellow inmates, guards, it doesn’t matter. He’s not strict to semen, sometimes piss and shit, just whatever he can get his hands on.”
Rotting Flesh
“Former prison guard. I had to escort a new prisoner to medical. I had no idea why until we got to medical. He had bandages all over both legs and he walked stiff-legged (couldn’t bend his legs). When he sat down, the nurse started removing bandages to expose rotted, abscessed flesh. He was a heroin addict and was injecting in his legs. His legs were so swollen and gangrenous that the smell almost put me down. When he tried to bend his right leg, the skin split and infection oozed all over the floor. The doctor looked at me and immediately called for another guard to come to the room. I asked what was wrong and she said, “You’re going into shock, I need you to leave before you pass out”. Surprised at what she said, I protested, but she demanded that I leave. On my way out, I started to feel light-headed. I looked in a mirror and noticed that I was sheet-white (normally a brown guy). I’ve seen people hanging. I’ve seen people stabbed and shot. I saw a guy blow his head off with a shotgun. When I was in the Corps, I’ve pulled burned bodies out of a crashed CH-53E. This, by far, was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”
Scarred For Life
“My dad is retired from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and started out in the California prison system. There are a lot of stories that us kids didn’t find out until he was retired.
He was attacked with a pipe and almost died. He doesn’t know who attacked him or why.
He was on a kill list from the Mexican mafia and my mom got threatening phone calls from people saying they were watching us kids at the bus stop.
He transported inmates back to Cuba where they were promptly walked around a corner and shot and killed after they were handed over.
I’m pretty sure he shot and killed fleeing inmates but he won’t confirm it.
He has walked in on many suicides and saved a few people trying to commit suicide.
He won’t talk about a lot of things, like riots. He was head of the SORT team, so he has seen some s—.
I’ve tried to get him to write these stories down but he won’t do it because he doesn’t want anyone to get in trouble.”
Left Behind
“My friends mom was a prison guard when I was younger. We went there our whole class, and she told us about how inmates would break down mentally. One story I remember her telling multiple times: She was on night shift, and was suddenly alerted by screams of help, the screams came from a cell, and her being careful she looked inside the door window. There, in the farthest corner, an inmate was on a chair, screaming, pleading for help, and trying to avoid something on the ground.
Mom: “What’s wrong inmate?”
Inmate: “It’s the CHICKENS! Please get them out!”, while still standing on the chair, jumping and crying.
Mom: “what chickens? where are they?”
Inmate: “EVERYWHERE!! Please get them out!”
So friend’s mom opened the cell door and guided the invisible chickens out. The inmate calmed down, but as friends mom closed the cell door, he screamed: “YOU FORGOT ONE!!!!”
So she went back in and got the remaining chicken.
Note, the inmate in this story was a big a– biker dude, he was probably on drugs, but i think it’s a fun story.”
Squeaky Clean
“One of my old roommates worked in the county jail. He came home one day with a stone face so I asked him how work was. All he said was “I saw a guy eat his shampoo because he couldn’t shower…then uncontrollably puke and s— himself…that’s how my day went.”
Not Good Enough
“Not a prison officer but my dad spent 26 years working as one in the UK. Brixton then Belmarsh.
Heard a lot of crazy stories including how the IRA prisoners used to be. “Mess” strikes used to happen frequently. They used to cover themselves in their own feaces, wait for the guards to go into the cell and attack them. They then just started hosing them down through the service flap.
He also told me swallowing razor blades was fairly common amongst prisoners. Although one time this guy didn’t think that would be enough – so he slotted a bunch of razor blades amongst the bristles of a toilet brush and then rammed the whole thing down his throat up to the handle.
He lived.”
Money Bargains
“Honey buns are routinely spent on sex as a currency.
Also the amount of Ramen Noodles a normal college student eats in a week would make you rich as f— on the block.”
Seeing The Worst
“I’m a C/O at a max prison. I’ve seen an inmate lick his own s— off his walls, I’ve seen an inmate cut up where his cell floor was covered in blood (they will dilute it in water to make it look like there is more blood than there is, the inmate lived) and I’ve seen an inmate hog tie his celly and put a plastic bag on his head and then put his property box on top of his head (inmate survived). Guys I’ve worked with have seen worse, like an inmate ripping open his guts, an inmate pulling chicken bones out of his urethra, and of course inmates who have successfully hung themselves or got beat to death by their celly.”
Taste The Rainbow
“A buddy of mine is a guard at a women’s prison. He once has to confiscate a jolly rancher dildo. These crafty women collected jolly ranchers and molded a rainbow colored shaft. Then wrapped it in Saran Wrap from the kitchen and passed it around.”
Now That’s Painful
“An inmate in segregation got very upset that he didn’t get some paper a co promised to get him on first shift, f—– ripped off his own big toenail and cut up his arm with it.”
Poocasso
“When I used to work in the jail, I initially thought people covering themselves and their cells in feces was as bad as it ever got.
Then one of the inmates in my partner’s cell block had a miscarriage into the toilet and smeared the afterbirth all over the cell door.
Suddenly, a Poocasso doesn’t seem all that bad.”
A Poo Parrot
“Guy sculpted a parrot out of his own poo. He would place it on his shoulder and talk to it all the time. After 3 days the smell was unbearable. On the fourth day, he refused to come out of his cell for a shakedown. He kept threatening to kill his parrot if we came in his cell. The second we opened the door to extract him, he grabs the poo parrot off his shoulder and bites the head off and chews it. That is probably the craziest/nastiest thing I’ve seen.”