I hope that if you’re reading this book, you’re not charged with any crime that is in any way related to sexual offenses against children. Personally, I have nothing against you if you are. Having represented literally dozens of men accused of child molestation, I realize that this is the one area of the law where more mistakes are made than in any other. Women make the accusation against men to get them out of the house, or to gain an advantage in a divorce case. Rebellious teen girls make the charge against a father or stepfather as retribution for discipline imposed in the home.
Then again, sometimes you just like fucking little kids.
In truth, it does not matter if you did it or not. Once the word gets out amongst the jail or prison population that you’re a convicted or accused child molester, you can pretty much chart your life expectancy with a stopwatch.
Maybe that sounds a little crass, or flip, but it’s the truth. Whatever you’ve heard about the treatment of child molesters behind bars, multiply it by 100, and it’s still not serious enough.
This is why God (in the form of the state, which is trying ever so hard to replace and eliminate the concept of God in every way) invented P. C.
P. C. stands for protective custody, and if you’re charged with, or convicted of a sex offense, you should seriously consider asking for P. C. the very second you hit the jailhouse door. It will probably be the difference between walking out of jail one day a free man, and rolling out of jail with a tag on your toe.
P.C.’s are usually single celled, or placed in a cell with one other person who is charged with something similar. Hopefully your cellie isn’t some sort of jailhouse hypocrite who hates molesters in spite of his being charged with the same crime. Also hopefully you get along with your cellie, because in most PC jail pods, you are locked up in your cell with him 23 hours a day.
When I was in San Diego, we were responsible for feeding the PCs and more often than not, we’d slide the trays of food through a slot in the door. There were twelve cells to a pod, two men in each cell. Under the house rules, each one of them was allowed out of the cell for one hour a day. If the cellies got along, they would both get to go out at the same time.
After the hour was up, back into the 6ft. by 10ft. cell for another 23 hours.
If you’ve never been inside before, this might sell like a pretty good deal, being separated from the rest of the prison population, safely locked up by yourself around the clock.
In truth, most people who are in PC hate it with a passion. The boredom of being locked in a room for almost your entire sentence is enough to drive some people crazy.
Literally.
If you’re a gambler, or a pretty good salesman, you might want to just try your luck in general population. If you can bullshit your way past the few inmates who will make it their business to find out about your life story, you’ll probably do OK in GenPop.
Because I’d not only been a lawyer, but a criminal defense lawyer to boot, the bailiff in the courtroom where I was sentenced was kind enough to write on my booking slip
“inquire about PC.” When I arrived in central receiving, the desk officer at the booking desk asked in a voice loud enough to be heard for miles around “why do you want PC?”
I put on my best “Whatchoo talking bout, Willis?” face and said I didn’t ask for PC. That ended the conversation.
For about twenty minutes.
Once I was inside the first holding cell, this 30 something gangster makes it a point to ask me in front of everyone in the holding tank “Why’d they offer you PC?”
I was forced to think quickly on that one, and told this clown I used to work for some lawyers here in town, and I guess they thought I might need PC from some of their clients. Since the clients hate the fucking lawyers, not me, I didn’t need P.C.
This started a general round of “My lawyer really fucked me because…” and within seconds (the normal attention span of the average inmate) I was forgotten as story after story was told of dump trucks and shitty case results.
Unless you really believe your life is going to be in jeopardy (and I don’t mean just because you’ve never been inside and are generally fearful of the experience) avoid PC like the fucking plague and tough it out inside GenPop. I think you’ll be a lot happier in the long run.
F. Classification.
At some stage during your first 24 hours, you should meet with a classification officer who will take down a brief life history and then decide where in the system you need to be placed. Your past criminal record (I’m assuming little to none in your case), your gang affiliations (again, I’m assuming none), your work history and educational background all add up to a certain score. This gives the classification officer a certain idea as to where you should be placed.
If all of the above assumptions are true about you (no prior record, etc.) and you have a good education and work history, you’re going to classify out at the lowest possible level for your crime. Now if you’re convicted of murder, or rape, or any of a number of other serious offenses that require a large amount of prison time, this will override your classification score and land you in a high security prison or jail.
But for your average dope fiend, drunk driver, embezzler, or other low level offender, a low classification means a minimum or medium security facility, and a lot more freedom than the poor bastards in maximum security are ever going to get.
One tip to remember: if you have any physical ailments, it may be best to keep those to yourself as long as they’re not constantly recurring and/or life threatening. A lot of times your classification is going to be right at the line between minimum security and medium security. If you’re healthy and able to work, this might be enough to push you back over the line into minimum security. If you complain about physical ailments, it might be enough to land you in medium security, where jobs are less plentiful but the prison hospitals are a little more advanced.
This is not to say you should ignore or try to hide conditions like high blood pressure. On the contrary, this is serious enough that you need to mention it to the classification officer
when he asks if you have any diseases or medical conditions that need treatment. I’ve never heard of high blood pressure disqualifying anyone from a job or a minimum security placement.
But if you have a hemorrhoid problem, or occasional bouts with arthritis, you might just keep your mouth shut and play through the pain. The perks and benefits of a minimum security placement will probably be worth the aching joints and the itchy ass.