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These 25 Truths About Prison Life Will Shock You If You Believed The Misconceptions Before
Unless we really experience it, most of the things that we know about prison are probably based on Hollywood blockbusters like The Shawshank Redemption or Escape from Alcatraz. However, many instances are added just to spice up the plot, as reality can be starkly different.
When one netizen asked former prisoners to share the biggest misconceptions about life behind bars, they revealed some shocking truths. Today, we have compiled the best ones so that movies are not your only source of information about it. Just scroll down to check them out for yourself!
More info: Reddit
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#1
You would be surprised at what we were willing to do to avoid boredom..... I never thought I would see a spelling bee in a county jail, but we did one.
We would also get encyclopedias and farmers almanac and make our own who wants to be a millionaire games.
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#2
The very sad reality is that for many people life inside is way better than outside. People reoffend so they can come back.
I'm in healthcare and worked in corrections and that experience really changed how I view people and life in general.
There are a lot of sad situations and people living very difficult lives out there. So much untreated mental illness, low IQ, people who are easily taken advantage of, and those who just got the end of the stick in life.
#3
Secondhand on this, but there is a lot more compassion from inmates than you’d expect.
Not everyone in prison is a bad person. Many of them are just people who are being held accountable for the worst mistake they’ve ever made.
To understand how exactly these misconceptions about life in prison pop up, Bored Panda got in touch with Eden Lobo, a counselor and psychology professor, for an interview. She explained that most of them come from distance and storytelling. Many folks have never been inside, so they rely on movies, TV, and headlines that focus on violence and extremes because they’re more dramatic, she added.
"Prisons are also very closed off, so everyday reality rarely reaches the public. It’s also emotionally easier to believe simplified, harsh versions of prison life. Thinking 'it’s supposed to be bad' creates distance and avoids harder questions about humanity and punishment. When real voices don't reach outside, that's when stereotypes start taking shape," she said.
#4
I only did 1 year, but I had a bed, food, heat/ac, electricity and radio and television for entertainment. Now I work 56 hours a week and can't afford all those things.
#5
I did 6 years, state and federal.
Imo, the biggest misconception is that is awful 100% of the time. Humans are incredibly adaptable. After the first 6 months or so, it's just life. You get up, go to work, hang out with your friends, rinse and repeat. Ya, there are awful things about prison - but its mostly just boring sameness with occasional bouts of excitement.
#6
One of the biggest misconceptions is that people from completely different backgrounds can’t get along.
My fiancé is a nerdy white guy and has been in a notoriously rough jail for the past seven months. I never thought I’d be able to say this, but he started a Dungeons & Dragons group there and became the Dungeon Master. People of all different ages, backgrounds, and life experiences came together. He taught everyone how to play and create their characters, and now they run campaigns every day with basically no resources. The jail is as bare bones as it gets, so I’m on the outside constantly looking up rules, lore, and mechanics and sending him whatever he needs so he can build campaigns. Somehow I’ve become a long-distance DnD support person, despite having never played DnD in my life. Recently, his federal charges were dropped, and now the other inmates are worried he’s going to leave without teaching them how to run their own games. So now he’s teaching them how to be Dungeon Masters too.
Since he started the group, the amount of frustration and violence between inmates has noticeably gone down.
Our expert stressed that the media is a powerful tool when it comes to depicting life behind bars. "Their portrayals of prison focus on violence, chaos, and extreme situations because they make better stories, but they’re not representative of everyday life. This leads people to believe prison is nonstop danger, while the reality is often routine, boredom, and quiet psychological stress," she said.
According to Prof. Lobo, by relying on stereotypes and dramatic moments, the media flattens the complexity of incarcerated people and erases the emotional and social details of daily prison life. She believes that over time, these repeated images become the public’s default understanding, even though they reflect exceptions rather than reality.
#7
I've been home for a little over 6 years after serving 6 years. Honestly, there aren't any misconceptions. It depends on where you are. Orange is the New Black actually did a pretty great job at portraying it. So did Shot Caller. Yet, both have entirely different dynamics. All the horror stories you hear actually go on somewhere. Advising on misconceptions is difficult. But the number one rule for survival is respect. Show respect and hold yourself in a respectable manner, and you can make it anywhere.
#8
My cousin did a few years, and he said the biggest shock was how incredibly polite everyone is. In the movies, everyone is bumping chests and starting fights, but inside, you say 'excuse me,' 'please,' and 'thank you' constantly. He told me you learn very quickly that being rude or disrespectful is the fastest way to get hurt. The manners are literally a survival mechanism.
#9
I’ve worked inside prisons, not sure if that’s quite what you’re looking for.
The biggest misconception is it’s like on TV, with constant drama soap-opera like moments.
In reality, one of the most excruciating parts of incarceration is how tedious and boring daily life is.
We also conversed with our expert about the most harmful misconception about prison from a psychological standpoint. According to her, it is the belief that people in prison stop being parents, partners, or community members. It is especially damaging because it strips them of their emotional and relational identities, she added.
"Psychologically, incarceration does not erase attachment, responsibility, or love. In fact, separation from children, spouses, and family often intensifies emotions such as guilt, grief, anxiety, and helplessness. These feelings shape daily life inside prison, even though they are largely invisible to the outside world," Prof. Lobo stressed.
#10
I’m an American who recently did 20 days in a South African prison called Pollsmoor, considered one of the most notorious prisons in the world. Other than not getting enough food, not enough beds, freezing temperatures with no blankets, no showers and the toilets mostly being broken it was pretty boring. Almost all the violence I saw was guards beating up inmates for talking back. I had one or two close calls.
#11
My husband was a sergeant for almost 19 years. He says the thing was he treated people how they treated him and it worked well. The guys who kissed back the most and always were trying to get on his good side were the pervs. Most were just trying to get in and out. Oh, and he believes there really were some people who were innocent. He couldn’t give them special treatment.
#12
Shut up, mind your business, do your time. Although it's not that bad. I did1 month in county, 1 month in a max joint, and 13.5 months in a medium farm joint. The month in county was the worst. Nothing to do. I was in genpop with some lifers. Not bad people. Don't make them mad. The folks in there will hold you to your word. Be careful what you say. Don't take on debts, and if you have to take on a debt, pay it it off how and when you say you will. I could've escaped 100's of times with a 10-12 hour head start. But I didn't. Conviction of escape was an automatic 5 year minimum, and you did every day of it. It was a learning experience. There's things I'd go back for, but not many.
While emphasizing her previous point, Prof. Lobo further stated that from a psychological standpoint, maintaining meaningful relationships is central to identity and mental health.
"When society assumes those roles no longer matter, emotional pain is minimized, and support systems are undervalued or cut off. Limited contact, disrupted parenting roles, and stigma can weaken family bonds, increasing distress for both incarcerated individuals and their loved ones."
She also believes that this misconception also affects reentry. People return home carrying unresolved emotional strain and fractured relationships. This can make reintegration more difficult despite strong internal motivation to reconnect and contribute.
#13
Haven't been to prison but I have been to jail for a while.
Just how truly boring it is. Imagine doing just absolutely nothing for 20 hours a day. You're locked in a room and you can read one of a few books that are so bad that they bore you to tears from the library cart that they send around in the morning. And no I'm not talking literary classics, but modern books that were written within the last 10 years that are so tame and uninteresting that you'd rather just try to sleep in a fully-lit room than spend the time trying to read.
The rest of your time is spent at rec, meals, or "common time" where you have the option of watching the communal TV that's probably tuned to HGTV playing Property Brothers, the History Channel playing Storage Wars, or any other C-list TV program that you could imagine being played in the waiting room of a dentist while waiting to get a root canal. Also during "common time" you have the option of hanging out with others and playing cards or anything involving just paper and pencil. No dice or anything resembling "gambling" is allowed, so you play War, Go Fish, or my favorite from my time BS.
Meals are OK-ish in jail. It's hospital food, so you get rubbery eggs and a "sausage patty" that's just a burger with salt and pepper on it for breakfast, you get a scoop of mac and cheese for lunch that tastes slightly better than eating glue. For dinner you get "salisbury steak" that's again just a hamburger patty with packet gravy dumped on top of it and a bread roll, which is the best thing you'll have while in jail.
And this is your day-to-day. You wake up at 6:30AM to get ready for count at 7, you march to the showers where you get 15 minutes, you go back to your cell until 8AM, you march to the cafeteria to eat and get 30 minutes, you go back to your cell for 2 hours until 11AM where you get rec for an hour, you go to lunch and get 30 minutes, then you get "common time" until 3PM if you don't have class. If you do have class, you're down at class until 5PM. Then you get dinner for 30 minutes, then back to your cell for an hour and a half until 7PM when you have evening count. Then you get "common time" until 9PM before you're back in your cell for final count. The cycle repeats day after day.
Literally your only solace is writing family and friends in your downtime or common time where you can just do whatever on the block. Don't get put in jail.
EDIT: For those curious I got arrested for growing some illegal substance. Apparently my landlord found it while doing an unannounced inspection and reported it to the cops because she was old and crotchety and it wasn't legal yet. They slapped me with "Possession with intent to distribute", and a few more minor charges. Ended up pleading it down to possession and got 90 days in jail instead of the original 2 years in prison and close to 50k in fines.
BrownEyedGrrl 21 hours ago
So you were in jail; not prison. I've been told that they're completely different.
#14
I work in a prison as a psychiatric social worker. The first thing I tell people when I interview them for a position, is that it is nothing like the movies. Yeah things happen but in reality it’s on occasion and not every day all day. I have worked there for 6 years and not once have I had a problem. I work in mental health and a lot of the inmates and I are on a first name basis and we talk and they come to me if they have problems. Most of them just do their time and get out. It’s a good place for them to sober up and get clean. I don’t say great because people still get stuff in but in reality it isn’t as bad as you think.
#15
Everybody is fighting and stabbing. In reality, it's just a bunch of people trying to do their time peacefully and go home.
Well, that was definitely eye-opening, wasn't it? Just like our expert claimed, many of these stories reveal that life inside is really quite boring. Do you think that it's important that people understand the truth behind the misconceptions? Also, if you know any myths that need to be debunked, feel free to share them with us in the comments below!
#16
The biggest misconception? That it’s nonstop chaos. Most of prison is actually boring routines, small annoyances, and figuring out how to survive the little things.
#17
I worked next to a guy for 4 years and he did 21 years in prison. He was cool with answering any questions I asked. He told me the best advice he was given for making his time easier is to leave everything outside of prison outside of prison. Don't try to focus on what he had before he got locked up, and to learn to be content with being alone. He told me solitary isn't much of a punishment if you are ok with being by yourself.
#18
I think it probably depends very much on which country you are in, and which jail you are in.
I was in Silverwater jail in Australia the 80's and it was pertty bad.
There was a women's jail next door and they used to do the laundry....ours as well as theirs. This was a long time ago but even then I thought that seeemd wrong. I wonder what the women thought of this...
There were a lot of violent., scary people. But I remember at night possums used to come down out of the trees...and the prisoners would gently hand feed them little bits of bread with honey on them. Nobody hurt the possums and I think if you had you would have been very sorry very fast.
I was a short timer, so I stayed in a little house or barracks inside the prison. Lower security and more relaxed than the more serious criminals. I didn't actually stay in a cell, instead there were maybe 20 of us in the house each on our own bed laid out in rows in one big room......kind of like you see in the army. We had inspections too.
After cooking duty we had to lock the knives inside big steel freezers which were then padlocked shut. The first time they told me this I thought the guy was lying so I just looked at him, Then he told me one time a knife went missing and they found it later in somebody's back.
The prisoners would brew their own alcohol. We had metal tube frame beds and it was actually brewed inside the beds..inside the tubes.
Sometimes they picked people and forced them to wash the warden's car...I didn't like that. Felt corrupt.
The worst thing for me was knowing I could not leave. Unahppy at school? Unhappy in your job? Unhappy in a relationship? Unhappy with your parents? You can always leave. But here was one place I could not just leave and I absolutely hated it.I felt trapped.
On my last day the processing officer asked me what I thought of jail and I told him I hated it. He laughed and said "You'll be back". I never did go back..
Forty years ago now and I had a stroke last year so my memory is a bit rusty on some of the details.
#19
I've never been an inmate, but I did a rotation in a prison during medical school.
I was shocked to learn that prisoners have to pay for medical care, just like on the outside. (This is in the US, obviously.) If you're extremely sick, you better hope you have $30 saved up in your commissary to see a doctor and pay for prescriptions. Oh, you need a specialist? Better hope you have family willing to send you a few hundred dollars so you can be seen in 10 months.
People always make references to prisoners getting "free healthcare, food, room and board at the taxpayer's expense!" It isn't true.
I don't care what the crime was. Everyone deserves access to medical care at no cost.
Emilu 4 hours ago (edited)
Crazy. Someone's freedom gets taken away (perhaps fairly, I can't say) but then they have to pay for their own healthcare? With what? The money they can't earn because they're... y'know, in prison/jail? (Sorry US friends, I forget which is the correct term for someone found guilty and incarcerated for you). I definitely don't want to mindlessly jump on the US hate train like I know others here do, but this sits so poorly with me.
#20
The idea that gaurds are "good guys," who keep the bad guys locked up.
I wasn't a prisoner, but I was trafficked to a prison gaurd. Sometimes, the only difference between somebody being on the inside or outside of bars is privilege and luck. .
Westend Girl 15 hours ago
I wasn't a prisoner, but I was trafficked to a prison gaurd? What does this mean?
#21
I did six 1/20 years straight, and I want to say that it was horrible but in all honesty it really wasn't. I actually had a good time. Of course I missed my family and friends don't misunderstand but I did keep busy, I got a college degree, we started the Central Virginia food Bank in Virginia, they had started in program back in '96 I believe, and we were outside workers, we are contracted to clean the national guard building, we tore down a building for the fire department in Hopewell Virginia, we were all over the place it was actually a great experience. I learned a lot especially when I first got there. In goochland the women's prison, that was the only facility for women back in the '90s, we lived in little buildings there were five of them and 30 days after I got there I was assigned to my first job, because it's mandatory that you work, and I was sent to the bakery and back then we made all of the bread for the entire institution and the cookies and cakes whatever, and then I got assigned to a kitchen and each building had their own kitchens, and I did that for a year and a half then I got assigned to the laundry folding laundry for UVA and MCV in Virginia, you stayed very busy actually. I don't know what it's like in other states I can only tell you what I experienced. The women were actually great, I made a lot of friends I miss a lot of them, we played cards together I think the roughest time was when they locked down the institution to shake it down for contraband. Because back then they locked down the entire institution for days, and we weren't allowed out of our rooms we could only go to the bathroom and get our meals and that was it. Back then we could smoke so that helped, I worked my way all the way up to work release and got a job and made parole and went home. I actually had more hard of a Time adjusting to the outside again that I did to the inside. I wish I could tell you all some of the stories because they were funny as hell, a huge misconception is, that everyone wants to fight or is violent, entirely not true. Women want to go home they want to get back to their lives they didn't want to have to stay there any longer than what they did, and institutional infractions would give you more time if you got charged and convicted of it. Most of the women will really cool people to be around and I had a great time with them, the officers were not overbearing and they actually had compassion for the people and they helped you in any way that they could. I would say that it was the best learning experience I could get. I guess my advice to you is get involved in everything that you can, get a job and move up, do everything that you can to improve yourself, I've read a lot, I was actually reading a book a day, most importantly though I learned how to be with myself. I'm in less face it when you're going through the court process and you're in a holding cell waiting to go to court for 8 hours you can't do nothing but enjoy being with yourself. Sometimes you'd have people in holding cell waiting with you but the majority of the time you don't. What did I hate about it all the food in the jails was awful, but down in the penitentiary it was awesome. Oh my God some of the girls they could cook their backs off. It was great. I wish you the best if you have any other questions hit me up..
#22
Did 18 months in a UK Cat B.
Okay, so the biggest misconception from my PoV is that you're rehabilitated when you're inside. Just doesn't happen. Not enough staff, no-one 's really qualified etc. Obviously this contributed to reoffending. Similar story once you're out and on probation. It's all stick and no carrot.
The concept of prison in itself is an interesting one. Ask yourself, what is prison actually for? The loss of freedom as a punishment? For public safety? For rehabilitation? Why would you want a person who has broken the law to get locked up? If it's so you feel safer, well that prisoner is likely to be released at some point and if they haven't successfully rehabilitated them they're probably going to commit more crime.
The prisoners who rehabilitated did so the way I did, we read a lot, talked a lot, were open and honest about our fuckups with one another, with our families and friends, with any pastoral workers or volunteers. We set plans for our futures, established support networks we could be accountable to. We created our own carrots! Because all the authorities have are sticks.
#23
People think the punishment is the bars. It’s not. It’s your head. No privacy, no control, everything decided for you. Days blend together and mess with your sense of time. That part changes you way more than any fight ever would.
#24
That prisoners belong in prison. Hear me out
The overwhelming representation of Low IQ, Illiteracy, Intellectual Disability, Neurological Impairment, Drug Addiction, Severe/Prolonged Exposure to Trauma and Homelessness etc.
These are issues that can be readily dealt with within the community. These are driving, causal factors for imprisonment and yet none of them are illegal. One of the biggest predictors that you'll be incarcerated is illiteracy.
90% of inmates would be better served in the community with the funding that pays for imprisonment going to welfare programs and the like.
And for they nay sayers, would you prefer to spend $100,000 dollars a year AFTEr someone has committed a crime against your neighbour or your child, or would you prefer it spent to avoid it?
#25
I was a juvenile corrections officer for 10 years. Every time I met someone and told them what I did, they assumed I beat up kids for a living. There’s a lot of rules that go into when you can and can’t put your hands on a kid, at least in the Mississippi county jail system. But throwing punches, kicking, or just generally being aggressive like that was strictly frowned upon. Anytime you had to use force, you’d better be justified in doing so.
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Tara Noe 4 hours ago
I worked in prisons for years, and have seen amazing things. People who experienced absolute rock bottom and chose to shine instead of wallow. Hardcore gangsters becoming selfless mentors. Inmates teaching other inmates how to read. Those previous illiterate men going on to get qualifications and even degrees. The lost and the forgotten become inspirations in prison. It's humbling to watch.
Tara Noe 4 hours ago
I worked in prisons for years, and have seen amazing things. People who experienced absolute rock bottom and chose to shine instead of wallow. Hardcore gangsters becoming selfless mentors. Inmates teaching other inmates how to read. Those previous illiterate men going on to get qualifications and even degrees. The lost and the forgotten become inspirations in prison. It's humbling to watch.
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