Until You’ve Walked Through Those Gates, Sit Down and Be Quiet

-By DeAnna

You see memes like this floating around all the time — the ones that crack jokes about how “good” inmates supposedly have it. You know the ones: they talk about sex three times a day, reading books, working out, and then “complaining” about prison life. People laugh, hit share, and feel smug because they think they know something about what it’s like inside.

I used to be one of them. I used to think prison was “right.” I believed it was what people deserved if they broke the law. I repeated the clichés: “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.” “Three hots and a cot.” “They’ve got it easy in there.”

And then… I worked there.

Let me tell you something: until you’ve walked through those locking gates — hearing that buzzer, watching that steel door slam behind you, feeling the air shift from free to suffocating — you don’t know a damn thing about prison. Until you’ve seen the reality — the mace, the gas grenades, the cell extractions that leave blood on the floor, the corruption that poisons everything from the inside out — you’re just parroting what you’ve been told.

Prison is not a spa. It’s not summer camp. It’s not a place where people are “living their best lives.” It’s a dehumanizing machine that grinds people down. Food is served from boxes literally labeled NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION. People rot for years in cells the size of closets. Medical care is a coin toss. And the same system that’s supposed to rehabilitate is often the one feeding the very problems it claims to fix.

And if you want to know how inhumane it gets — let me paint you a picture.
I’ve done medical transports where a man was doubled over in agony from a stabbing or clinging to life after a medical emergency. And where do they end up? In a hospital bed, shackled by a wrist and a foot like an animal, trying to heal with cold steel biting into their skin. No dignity. No compassion. Just chains and suspicion, even when they’re fighting for their life.
That’s the reality you don’t see on TV. That’s the truth they don’t show you in the memes.

And here’s another truth that will piss off the peanut gallery: not everyone in there deserves what they were handed. Not every sentence fits the crime. Not every conviction is even rooted in truth. But the system doesn’t care. Once you’re in those walls, the narrative is written for you, and the world outside is more than happy to believe it.

So the next time you want to crack a joke about prison life or spout off tired phrases about “choices” and “consequences,” do us all a favor — unless you’ve walked those tiers, smelled that chow, heard those screams, seen a man shackled to a hospital bed in agony, or looked into the eyes of someone broken by that system… sit down and be quiet.

Because some of us have been there. Some of us do know. And we’re done staying silent while people laugh at pain they don’t understand.