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.

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.

Everybody is fighting and stabbing. In reality, it's just a bunch of people trying to do their time peacefully and go home.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.