re: Would you rather be in Supermax prison and be left alone, or in a regular prison

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Is food delivered to your cell in supermax and is there tv?

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The other day when we were talking about El Chapo, I got on Florence's website and ended up finding the Florence ADX orientation guide they give to people about to go there.

Meals are delivered to your cell. One tray is for cold items. One tray is for hot items. Whoever delivers it pushes it through a slot and moves on. The door between the cells and the cellblock is a big heavy steel door with the slot, then inside of that is your typical jail cell door to create a small vestibule so you are never close to the people in the hall. Only one of the doors can be opened at once, so there's never a clear path from the inside of the cell to the hall. They push the food through, then later when the hall is clear, the jail cell bars open so you can go into the vestibule to retrieve your food. Everything moving into and out of the cell when the inmate is in the cell is done this way to prevent all possibility of contact between the inmate and the person in the hall.

The ENTIRE cell is concrete. Desk, bed, shower, all concrete. You get something like an exercise mat to lay on top of your concrete bed. You do have your own toilet and your own shower, but the shower's got one of those buttons like you see on sinks at the airport where you smash down on it and the water runs for a little while and shuts off. Water temperature is not adjustable, so if you're at the end of the line, you might get lukewarm showers.

The cells are constructed and soundproofed to limit communication between inmates. I'm sure those guys have figured out ways to talk to their neighbors without screaming at the tops of their lungs, but every attempt is made by the prison to cut them off from the world outside their cell. There is commissary, but you mark what you want down on a sheet of paper and it's delivered to you in your cell.

There is radio at ADX Florence, but it's prison radio. You listen to what they broadcast. There is a TV in each cell, but it only broadcasts certain hours with religious, educational, self-help, etc. There is no news. There are no current events. There is no current TV. You watch what they allow you to watch when they allow you to watch it and they don't want you to know what's going on in the real world.

The lights NEVER go out in your cell. You do have a window, but they're constructed so all you can really see is the sky and some roof so you can't get your bearings in the prison in an effort to keep inmates from somehow being able to coordinate any escape attempts. You can basically just see more prison out of your window. It's in the foothills of the Rocky mountains, but they purposely designed the windows so you can't even see the giant mountains near the prison.

You are allowed to send a certain number of pieces of mail per month but, of course, it's all monitored and heavily censored.

And that's just the supermax part. That's not the highest level of security in the control unit where they store the terrorists and people like that.

Supermax would have the OT crying for mommy in minutes.

Your arse will heal, your mind will not.

Gen pop for me.

When we talk about needing to be around people I think most of us are forgetting who these people are who we will be around.

I don't think spending time around hundreds of prisoners would be enjoyable.

Give me Supermax all day.

Unless you get the AIDs or the Hep C.

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Dang based on that description, I’m assuming the Supermax has a pretty limited selection of books.

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They do have law and leisure libraries and are allowed to enroll in one correspondence course per semester. They are also allowed to have books, magazines, etc., shipped in, but they're limited to three items per shipment and the shipment has to come directly from a bookstore, publisher, etc. The content is also subject to censorship according to prison regulations.

Reading is one of those activities that prisons encourage, so I'd imagine you could get a pretty steady stream of stuff to read coming in, if you can afford to pay for it. Ultimately how much you can have and what you're allowed to read is all at the warden's discretion. I'm sure if you start getting a package every day with three issues of "Soldier of Fortune" in it, they'd start limiting your privileges.

The ADX is no joke. The vestibule arrangement of doors is to keep staff from being “gassed” when delivering items through the slot. That little treat is when they save up their feces and urine and mix them up to form a nasty concoction they then throw at/on staff using any kind of container they may have in their cell.

Regular prison for me. Would rather not be in hell on earth, which is SuperMax.

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Supermax has windows: 3 feet x 4 inches

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The facility El Chapo is going to has no windows in the cells and few meal slots.

small bit of experience here. 45 days to be exact. The only thing that really sucked is that I got moved twice. So basically I got used to everyone and had a good routine down in BR then they shipped me to Catahoula and had to be around a totally different group. It winded up being fine as there was more freedom. I never had any money to get anything so I was no good to anyone. I got shipped back to BR to serve the last week which was during Christmas. I was in a small cell with about 5 other guys. I thought that was going to suck but we actually had our own TV and phone. They shared some shite with me since it was Christmas.

Supermax. I don't do well around other people.