A Geek in Prison & Socioeconomic Observations Mashup - A Life Series by Charlie Shrem (Part 8 - InterPrison Exchange & Keyboard Training)

in #story7 years ago (edited)

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This is Part 8 in a series about my life as a Geek in Prison. Click my name to follow me and check out my blog for the Preamble and Parts 1-7. All names are changed to protect inmates privacy. Everything I write is hypothetical and for educational purposes only.

This is a joint post of my Geek in Prison and Socioeconomic Observation Series. I think you will all enjoy this one as I find it intriguing.


Every prison has a commissary as we discussed in previous posts. Depending on your level of security, it could be better or worse. As far as federal institutions go, the highest security is a Super Max like ADX Florence, CO. The next level down is a maximum penitentiary, a medium, low and a camp. After a camp you can be designated to community release which allows you to live on home confinement but are still an inmate. You are only eligible for this once you've completed 90% of your sentence.

In Lewisburg, we had a pretty decent commissary. Across all prisons the price of Mackerel never deviated much away from the $1.25 range which is another reason it was used as a currency. If you transferred prisons, they let you take your property with you including your Mackerel. The Mackerel maintained its value throughout all prisons.

This is a really important factor when it comes to maintaining value. If a currency isn't fungible and without bias it will fail.

Many inamtes love Siracha Hot Sauce but my prison did not sell Siracha and other prisons did. The same thing goes for larger bowls, robes and other items that were in high demand.

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The IntraPrison Exchange where you can buy something from an other inmate is pretty well known. You can use various prison currencies such as the Mackerel, or even be "on the books" where an inmate run store can issue you credit for a fee. You can use that credit around the compound and as long as you settle up with your credit issuer you are fine. It's the prison credit card.

The InterPrison Exchange or IPX as its known is the ability to purchase something from another prison. How this works depends on your institution and can vary.

Many inmates have hustles, where they do things for money. This can be personal training, cleaning your cube, ironing, cooking, drawing, and even hat and scarf sewing.

Personally I did not have a hustle although I would help people do things for free like typing. Use of the email system costs $0.05 a minute. Being a fast typer myself, writing a few dozens emails a day would only cost me roughly $1-$2 a day maximum. However many inmates were either older, from lower income neighborhoods, or just never spent too much time around a computer. I was surprised at the amount of people who were spending 30 minutes writing 1 email! Thats roughly $1.50 per email and adds up quickly.

Of course, if there is demand there will be supply and that included typists. Typists would charge and type up emails for you. However I liked teaching an inmate how to type himself. I figured that in any job they get, being a fast typist is important.

keyboard

I would train people a few different ways. The easiest and cheapest way was to draw out a keyboard like this and sit with the inmate while he practices. It seems trivial, but it helped and saved inmates hundreds of dollars. I would have them write out an email they wanted to send by hand, practice on the keyboard and then head into the computer. Their fingers were now trained.

Some inmates wrote very personal emails to their loved ones and I was touched and humbled that they trusted me with this. I personally wish that typing classes could be officially given in prisons as is a really easy thing to learn and can help raise inmates confidence to reach for higher goals.

school

I met and befriended dozens of extremely smart people who simply never had the educational experience to pursue something other than selling drugs. I met a marijuana farmer who can run numbers better than math PhD's because its what he did all day. When I asked him why he didn't go to college, he said he never needed to.

In the next post I will talk about some classes that were given and the type of educational and vocational actives were offered in my prison. Thankfully my prison had what I thought was a good educational department.

What types of classes would you like to see being taught in prison?

-Charlie

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Thanks as always for a fantastic story. I love the idea of supplying printed out keyboards to practice on.

I'd love to see more basic computer programming skills in prison. Maybe just using MIT's Scratch as a starting point. Humans love the process of creation. It drives us in so many ways. It could be fulfilling for inmates to build their own programs, games, and the like within the prison environment to not only enjoy a moment of escape, but also a much-needed sense of control.

Wow ! The way you helped your inmates with the keyboard "trick" is amazing! I wouldnt have that idea.

Great post & series! I did a little volunteer literacy work at Riker's in tandem with a yoga & meditation program. It was a great experience working with the inmates, but highly frustrating dealing with the prison system itself. After all of the red tape of getting background checked and prison IDs, the wardens office would often turn us around at the door for some missed paperwork on their end after our hour-long commute. I love the idea of typing being taught in prisons however and if there was an easy way to work with the systems it would be exciting to be invovlved in such a program. Maybe us Steemers could make it happen!?

This is fascinating insight into prison economics/life! Typing is such a simple but revolutionary skill; how incredible that by sharing your abilities, others continue to be greatly benefitted.

I want to see yoga/meditation in every prison. You mentioned that you eventually led your own class. Is it commonly offered? Do you continue your practice now? Do you maintain contact with any of your students?

Also would be great to see law and commerce education, however unlikely the rules of the private prison corporation would be revealed. It's in the best interest of the system to keep the population compliant and uneducated, but what if there were a sudden shift towards a system of true rehabilitation and the prisoners were taught that which could best serve them?

I like the programs where inmates train dogs. it is good for everyone, helps people rebuild emotion, prpose and self-esteem. Prison can fuck people up. Especially if theyve spent many years or dont have much on the outside. The 'healing power' of animals is strong, real. Better than talking to a therapist, and men would probably prefer that than talking to a therapist.

You are sadly misinformed. Math Ph.D.s do not think about numbers at all and probably avoid them like the plague (at least I do).

Keep up the stories! Great work. Glad to have you here.

You are right and I didn't mean to offend :)

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Such a great series Charlie!!

Glad you got to tutor in there. Though it must've been frustrating being limited to subjects so simple.

I'd love to see them teach cryptography in prisons. Though, I know the prisons would never do that, and for the most part, the prisoners probably wouldn't have the wherewithall, or the means of computer time to stick with it.

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