As I look out of the window next to my desk, while jiving to Beck, all I see in a mass of orange jumpsuit in various sizes. Today, I am in charge of the Reception Center (RC). The RC is the area of the prison that houses all the new arrivals. When inmates are shipped from the various county jails, they first must go through a screening process. That process is done on the RC. This is the most volatile area of the prison Inmate who have never “done time” are housed with inmates who practically live in prison. Here you get the 19 year old high school graduate who is involved in a DUI that resulted in serious injury living with a seasoned criminal doing 25 years to life for a third strike. It is a mix of the bad and the worse. If there is a suicide, it will happen on the RC.
Reception Centers for the female felon are very different from the men. Women are placed in one area. The RC that I am in charge of has 2 building that house 256 inmate each, and one building the houses 200. but due to overcrowding, we have 50 additional inmates in bunks on the floor of one building. All told we are housing approximately 767 inmates in the RC. Men are separated based on crime, and other social, gang and criminal histories. The women are not. So it is very common to see a young white first termer, who was busted passing bad checks living with an inmate sentenced to 25 years to life on a third strike. It is poker with knives. There are the predators and the prey. Like a big stack and small stack playing heads up. The big stack (predator) pushes the little stack (prey) around. The little stack is afraid to play back for it might cost them their lives. Well the short stack decides to make a stand, and POW!
I can’t help but wonder where things went so wrong for these women. I mean, I can’t believe that some set out to be a convicted felon. Everyone has a story to tell, a lie to live. It is just sad.
Another interesting fact about prison life is the number of communicable diseases there are. My institution is full of inmates with Hepititis A, B, and C, HIV, TB and other things like lice and now I find out today we have an outbreak of the Norwalk Virus, yummy. There is danger in every corner. All I need to complete my day is an inmate with Hepatitis C and HIV commit suicide by cutting her wrist because she found out she has head lice. That would be the nuts. PRISON!
Prison Trivia: Inmate who are new to the system are called, “fish”. This is because county jails would always transfer inmate to the state on Friday’s to make room for weekend events. As was the practice back in the day, before diversity, the inmate population always had fish on Friday’s, hence the nickname, ‘fish”
For the fist time since I began to play losing poker, I did a Poker Tracker review. This was done with the assistance of Sean Nolan. Sean is a low limit professional at the $100 and 200NL game. This was an eye opener. I was actually embarrassed. I agree with Sean that this is very necessary to review each session. Well, I couldn’t hide anything as this was the first time I had ever participated in a review. It is very apparent, I must improve or quit. Sean was right when he said, “It is like a dog, you have to rub his face in it to get him to stop”. Man, did he rub! “Hello, my name is Greg and I am a losing poker player”. It was embarrassing, humiliating, humbling and eye opening all at once. I reviewed my worst hands, and I could offer no explanation as to my play. I sucked at every aspect of the game. Sean did offer words of encouragement, like he has some hands he is embarrassed by, and everyone has played poorly. I am writing this a day after the review and I am still in awe. I will continue to review the hands, now and after each session, and I want to spend at least an hour or two to study without any playing. If this doesn’t improve, then maybe The ConvictKeeper will be a prison only blog.
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