This Ain’t Rehabilitation – It’s Survival

— by Ryan

You wanna know what prison’s really like?
Not the movie version. Not the watered-down “justice system” fantasy they sell you in court.
I’m talking about the real inside.

It ain’t about rehabilitation.
It’s about survival.

You walk into these gates, and you’re immediately forced to choose:
Fold or fight.
Ain’t no in-between.

The gangs? Yeah, they’re real. They run the yards, the dayrooms, the cells.
It don’t matter if you came in quiet, kept to yourself.
Eventually, someone’s going to test you.
And if you don’t stand up? You’re food.
Straight up. You’re someone else’s property.

I’ve seen men get jumped just for looking too long.
For saying the wrong thing.
For not saying anything at all.
You can catch a beatdown just for where you're from, who you talk to, or how fast you move on the tier.

And then there’s the dope.
Yeah, it’s in here. Don’t let anyone tell you different.
Some of it comes in through visits.
But a lot of it? Comes in with staff.
That’s the dirty truth they don’t want to admit.
COs, nurses, contractors—they’re the ones walking it in.
Why? Because they make more off us than they ever would out there.

And when that dope hits the yard?
It’s chaos.
Debts pile up. People get stabbed over $5 worth of pills.
Guys rob each other in the night, cutting open mattresses, stealing comissary, stealing photos, stealing the only damn things some men have left from the outside.

Then they pretend it's all under control.

You ever seen a man OD in his cell and the nurse take 40 minutes to show up—just to say “he’s faking” and walk out?
I have.
More than once.

And when someone snaps under the pressure?
When they beg for help, for meds, for therapy?
They throw you in suicide watch like you’re a threat instead of a human being in crisis.
Strip you naked. Put you in a freezing room.
Leave you there, humiliated and broken, hoping you just shut up next time.

There’s no peace in here.
There’s no dignity.
You get disrespected by people in blue, and you get disrespected by the ones in orange.
Sometimes the COs are more dangerous than the inmates.

This system?
It don’t want to fix you.
It wants to break you just enough so you keep coming back.

But I’m not giving them that.

I’ve been beat down, spit on, lied about, locked down, jumped, gassed, humiliated.
But I’m still standing.

Because I’ve got something most don’t have in here:

A reason.
A woman who believes in me.
A future I refuse to let them steal from me.

So yeah, this is prison.
No sugarcoating.
No fake hope.

But even in the darkest parts of this place, I still find my light.
And every day I survive, I’m one step closer to coming home.