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Former Prisoners Spill The Horrifying Truth About 20 Brutal Things They Witnessed In The Slammer
Interview With Expert
I think most of us know about life in prison through Hollywood blockbusters like The Shawshank Redemption or Escape from Alcatraz. However, reality is starkly different from fiction, and some daunting things go on behind bars that we can’t even fathom without experiencing them.
Well, when a netizen asked former convicts to share the brutal stuff that they saw in prison, these folks didn’t hold back. From totally horrifying to utterly shocking, you will thank your lucky stars for never having experienced these things yourself. Just scroll down to find out what I mean!
More info: Reddit
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#1
Nurse, no experience inside jail or prison. But I take care of inmates all the time.
The worst one I saw had a wound on his finger when he initially went to the jail some months before. He kept complaining of pain. The jail employees did nothing. He said he would ask for help and be turned away by the nurse or ignored by the guards. He came to me for CANCER treatment, not for his finger, in an outpatient clinic. I saw his finger wrapped up (this was obviously done by someone medical).
I asked what happened and he said he couldn't even think straight it hurt so bad. He said it was injured during his arrest. I unwrapped it and it was absolutely necrotic, black, bone exposed. I was surprised it didn't smell worse. He had lost all feeling to the tip and mid of his finger but the base at and right above the knuckle was excruciatingly painful and discolored. I can't even imagine how he was getting by this way.
I assessed it and reported it to my charge nurse and the on call physician and he was sent to the ER. I saw him again a couple months later and he had his finger amputated. He thanked me and told me he felt so much better. I just cried hearing that having his ring finger cut off was something he was thanking me for.
I also had a patient with an STD in his ileostomy stoma. That was pretty rough too.
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#2
Not mine, but my father's story: The prison he was in had a lot of gangs based on race. This one particular gang was known for it's strict rules of respect and 'norms' that it's affiliates had to follow. There was an intense protocol of managing those who broke these rules, and they had an astounding number of connections. Apparently there was a guy in there with a wife and two little girls waiting for him to get out. It came to light that he was having s*x with a weaker male inmate against his will. This was a serious disrespect of the gang's norms. Once the gang's leader found out about it, he gave the guy one of two options: admit to what he'd done to his wife during visitation or be beaten to d***h in his cell and have the leader tell her afterwards why it happened..
#3
Going in a different direction than some of these other comments:
My first bunkie at my parent institution got insanely sick and was complaining of crippling stomach pain to where he couldn’t even get out of bed for count. Medical not only wouldn’t schedule an appointment for him to come down, but they refused to send nurses to him because he was “probably faking for attention.”
After three months of this, they finally scheduled him to come down. Late stage stomach cancer. He was d**d by the end of the year.
What was supposed to be an 8 year sentence became a life sentence. RIP Gerry.
EDIT: Had his sentence wrong. 8-13 not 3-11. Still shouldn’t have been a life sentence.
EDIT 2: I know it was too late to save him, but they could have moved him to hospice months earlier and spared him some pain. Altogether from the beginning of his symptoms he lasted about 6 months.
A year later, another buddy of mine tested for colon cancer and they actually did a decent job with him. Rode him to Columbus weekly for chemo treatments and let him keep his bed and job assignments. So perhaps they learned their lesson?
Also, Gerry wasn’t a d*****r. He was in a bar fight that got out of hand when the other guy pulled a knife on him. Gerry admitted that he took it too far and that’s why he accepted an involuntary manslaughter charge instead of crying self defense. If I remember correctly, the victims family were okay with the deal he got (which you rarely see in terms of plea bargains.)
He was a good guy who’d had a rough life and was trying to better himself. He was good to me and showed me the ropes when I first got down. I know he had a daughter he was in contact with, but he was old and didn’t have any sort of social media so I wouldn’t know how to track her down. I hope she’s doing okay.
I don’t know about you, but I felt tormented just by reading some of these brutal tales. The truth is, we can’t even imagine what people who experience it firsthand go through. To get deeper insight into the matter, Bored Panda got in touch with Eden Lobo, a counselor and psychology professor, for an interview.
She began by comparing prison to a massive pressure cooker. “When you lock people away in crowded, understaffed spaces and strip them of their privacy and safety, a brutal survival economy takes over. Power and violence become the ultimate currency, and prisoners often feel forced to join tight-knit groups or put up a terrifyingly tough front just to keep from becoming a target,” she explained.
#4
I spent two years in jail and then a few months in prison. Nothing too bad happened when I was in jail. When I was in prison I was attacked by someone bigger than me. I was in my cell and had instant coffee from the commissary on a table. The guy - his nickname was "Crowbar", a big, tall man who was pretty intimidating, came into my cell and took my bag and started walking away. I yelled "Hey!" and started to run after him to try and get it back. I saw him enter a cell (I don't think it was his) and I walked into the cell after him. As soon as I enter the cell, I see him spring from the bed and full hand slap me super hard across the side of my head/face/ear. My ears started ringing instantly and I stumbled away, back to my cell. I climbed unto my bunk and before I could even recover he comes in with one of his acquaintances, swinging a cable with a lock attached to the end of it. I don't know how he got it, usually items like that are kept away from the prisoners. He began to scream at me, telling me that if I told anyone (the guards) that he hit me then he would bust my teeth with his makeshift weapon.
Anyway, at mail call that evening I didn't see him around and went to the door where the guards enter and told the guard everything. I was transferred to a different unit and am pretty sure that he got disciplinary actions for that.
#5
Story time:
I did a week of work release. Really just showed up to sleep, had my job schedule me all day every day so I had minimal time overall, still got to shower at my mom's and smoke a bowl before work so not the worst week of my life honestly even though I did have to squat and cough every time I went in.
So my first night there I'm alone in a section with 4 bunks and I'm tucked in, and I hear rhythmic grunting from next section over. All logic out the window, I'm certain I'm hearing prison s*x. I was scared and slept with my back pressed up against the wall.
The next night, I get checked in a little later in the evening.
But the dude next door was sticking to his schedule...
Pushups.
That's all I heard.
#6
I work in capital defense, so not a convict, but I've met a few, and read the files for dozens at this point.
Prisons are nasty. They are horrifyingly disgusting.
Like... What do you mean, the unit had to go on lockdown and get disinfected for YEAST? What do MEAN, the whole prison gets sick in the winter every year due to RATS??!?!
Our expert believes that the threat of danger behind bars is real every single second. Prisoners’ brains enter a permanent state of high alert, called hypervigilance. She stressed that they can’t afford to show fear, sadness, or vulnerability because someone might use it against them. As per our expert, they end up completely numbing their emotions just to get through the day.
“The tragic paradox is that the exact mental armor that keeps them safe inside prison is completely destructive once they get out. They can’t just flip a switch and turn off years of survival mode the moment the gates open. The brain gets rewired by that trauma, and the transition back to regular life is often incredibly jarring,” Prof. Lobo added.
#7
I watched a guy get doored because he didn't shower.
Being doored meant you stay by the door till you get moved. No bathroom, no bed, no phone, no food, no nothing.
They would stomp this guy if he tried. Guards watched and laughed. It took 5 days.
#8
My friend worked in a prison and, you know those mini zamboni floor cleaning machines that you might see in a supermarket? They had a special one of those to clean up blood, [edit: we referred to it as the Blood Zamboni] and it was cleaning up a _lot_ of it near her workspace one day.
edit: I need to add a semi-[un]related comment from the same friend on moving from a prison job to a regular public-facing job in the same field:
> I miss having gun coverage.
#9
A buddy of mine who was a sheriff's deputy out here in California was assigned to county jail when he graduated the academy, his agency allowed graduating recruits to select Patrol or Corrections and he'd selected Patrol (so he got Corrections). He said his first day in the jail an inmate threw a bucket of s**t and p**s on him and he didn't have a spare uniform so he had to wear it all day. Over the next two years he said he'd constantly request a transfer to Patrol and kept getting denied. One day an inmate attacked him with a shiv and he fought back and f****d the dude up, but he was placed on administrative leave for use of force. When he got back the county had absorbed a small city's PD so all those officers were placed in Patrol. He went to his captain and demanded a spot and was told there were no openings (they'd told him this before the buyout) and he quit on the spot. He told me working in the jail was the worst thing he'd ever experienced. Every day getting attacked, getting j**z and s**t and p**s and puke and food thrown on him.
We also conversed with our expert about the lasting trauma that inmates experience after coming out, and she called this Post-Incarceration Syndrome (PICS). Studies highlight that PICS is not currently a recognized psychiatric disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or the International Classification of Diseases (ICD).
However, the term is used by some researchers and practitioners to describe the very real psychological challenges that people who have been imprisoned may face upon reentry. Prof. Lobo narrated that even years later, a person might still find themselves pacing, refusing to sit with their back to a door in a restaurant, or jumping out of their skin at sudden noises.
“Their body is safely out of prison, but their nervous system is still trapped in the yard,” she commented.
#10
I spent some time incarcerated in a female prison so my experience might be a little different.
S****l a*****t/r**e was bad. It wasn’t common but I happened. I never saw it but heard it. S*x in prison is very quick and stealthy. But happens a lot. Guards and inmates, inmates and inmates, even guards and guards. I listened to the girl in the cell next to mine get r***d by her cell mate and it still gives me nightmares.
Fights happened but were honestly kind of rare. Very catty, a lot of hair pulling and scratching. One girl got the side of her face clawed.
#11
Saddest story I heard was from a prison teacher. She had a student whose dad had injected him with h****n at the age of just 11 so that he would have someone to get high with. Stuck his own son between his toes so the mother wouldn't see it.
What kind of a life was that kid ever gonna have with a dad like that. He was getting an education in prison after a life of crime and d**g a*******n. So sad.
#12
Not mine. A buddy i worked with for a while.
Oil can be heated up surprisingly hot in a zip lock. They were thrown at the ceiling when you walked past a cell. When it pops it sprays everywhere.
He mentioned one instance where an inmate was bent over right as someone walked by and it full on hit him in the face. I have no idea what that would look like and I dont want to know.
Prof. Lobo believes that reentering regular life also takes a massive toll on relationships. After years of forcing themselves not to feel anything, it’s difficult to suddenly be a warm, vulnerable partner or parent. According to her, many ex-inmates end up isolating themselves because the regular world feels unpredictable, loud, and overwhelming compared to the rigid structure they left behind.
“Ultimately, prison brutality doesn’t stay behind those concrete walls. It changes how a person perceives trust, safety, and human connection. Moreover, it leaves invisible scars that they carry with them into their living rooms, their jobs, and their communities for the rest of their lives,” she concluded.
#13
I saw a guy lose his left eye over a TV dispute. One big guy changed the channel on another big guy and the guy who's show got changed got up, came behind him, and as he was suplexing him lifted him into the corner of the metal stand the TV was mounted to the wall and that was that. The dude who lost his eye found god and got real humble after that.
#14
Not a convict or prison guard. But I used to work for a funeral home. One day we got a call that there was a d***h at a prison near us and we needed to come take them into our care. Turns out they were trying to smuggle in d***s and one of the balloons inside them popped.
#15
My first night in my bay, a snitch got his face stomped in. Won’t forget the sound or image of that dudes face crushing.
Well, that definitely gave me perspective on the impact these brutal experiences can have on people. I shudder to even think about those who get wrongly accused and have to go through such ordeals without fault. Anyway, dear readers, that’s it from our end, as we leave you to go through the rest of the list. If you know any such tales, feel free to share them with us in the comments!
#16
Not a convict but a fire medic. I responded to a jail for a guy with a broken leg. Well the guards broke his femur when they raided his cell. Why did they raid his cell? Because he was n***d and smeared his s**t all over the entire cell. They went in with tyvek suits and riot gear. The guy ate some of his s**t on the way to the hospital. .
Earonn - 36 minutes ago
Yeah, what a great society that throws mentally ill people into prison. Wow, the people must be SO PROUD of their country. bet they wave flags all the time and shout at others how their country is the best. When in truth this part of it is as s****y as the inmate's faeces.
#17
Did 9 weeks for a********g a police officer. Was getting transferred to another unit when another guy came in battered to s**t and begging to go to the hospital. The guy was shaking and clutching his head like he thought it was going to fall off, but the CO's denied it, saying they'd wait for the unit nurse to come and take a look at it. Guess who never showed up by the time I got transferred? Gotta love prison healthcare.
#19
An inmate had covid with underlying health issues prior to Covid. But anyway he was sick for about a week and ended up d***g. His body was left there for hours as to not mess up count.
#20
I'm not some hardened criminal and never went to prison. But many years ago, I did go to jail for a minor m*******a offense. And in the short time I was in there, one evening, a rookie officer came in, said it was lights out and that if anyone even got up to even go to the bathroom, he was cutting off phones for everyone all day.
A gentleman who was laying on his bunk sat directly up, looked the cop right in the face and said "Oh yah?" and proceeded to get up and beat this cop stupid bloody in the minutes it took to get the riot officers in there and it took 4 of them to get him to stop.
Afterwards, a sergeant came in and told everyone that they would not be turning off the phones, as that's illegal, and asked everyone to just go about business as usual.
The image of that guy destroying the officer has never left the edges of my brain. I've seen a lot of things in life but that...that one really stuck with me.
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Earonn - 35 minutes ago
Did you notice which stories weren't there? The ones people love so much, of child ra.pists getting ra.ped in return. Almost as if that is not true and doesn't happen all the time, and people only tell that to themselves because it means they don't have to fight for better justice for ra.pe victims...
Earonn - 35 minutes ago
Did you notice which stories weren't there? The ones people love so much, of child ra.pists getting ra.ped in return. Almost as if that is not true and doesn't happen all the time, and people only tell that to themselves because it means they don't have to fight for better justice for ra.pe victims...
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