Prison lockdowns are among the most annoying situations in prison. During a prison lockdown, inmates are confined 24/7 inside their respective cells. Prisoners don’t get to go out to the yard and have some recreation. They are not allowed to go outside of their cells for church, school, work, or even the library.
The only people who are allowed to be up and about around the prison are the critical workers. Critical workers are prison staff who are in charge of taking care of the infirmary, clerks, housing unit cleaners and the culinary workers. Lockdowns can occur for various reasons. For example, assaulting a prison guard or inciting a riot among inmates will always result in a lockdown.
However, prison lockdowns aren’t only caused by violence inside a prison. Other reasons may include an outbreak of a disease, or whenever a prisoner in death row is about to be executed. Lockdown durations may vary. There are lockdowns that last for months depending on the severity of the offense that caused them.
Contrary to what most people in the outside world think of lockdown, inmates are not left to starve and die inside their cells. By law, inmates must still be able to get a shower at least once every 72 hours, and get their meals three times a day. They can have their meals brought to their cells or a small group of inmates will be allowed to go to the dining hall and eat their meals there. They will be guarded at all times and will be brought back to their cells immediately after their meal.
Life can be extremely monotonous during lockdown, so you have to be aware of a few tips on how to survive lockdown inside prison or county jail. Every morning you wake up for roll call inside your cell, get breakfast and then go back to sleep. You then have to wake up again by noon and have your lunch, watch TV or read a book. By eleven o’clock in the evening, its lights out. If you’re the type who needs to go out on the yard and stretch your legs, then you better get used to just doing push-ups in your cell for exercise.
For an inmate who’s in prison, lockdown can sometimes be torture. The reason why most inmates think that lockdown is a form of torture is because they’ll be having too much time on their hands. Instead of diverting their thoughts on why they came to be in this hell hole that is prison, they instead begin to realize how they just threw their whole lives out of the window. For a person who’s locked in a cage, this can definitely kill a man’s soul.
If you want to know how to survive lockdown inside prison or county jail, you just have to be creative on how you keep yourself occupied. These include various activities like reading a book, watching TV, writing a letter to your loved one, doing push-ups in your cell, etc.
When reading a book, try to read something that is informative; something that will enrich your mind. Refrain from reading books that does not, in any way, help you enrich yourself. Try to read up on self-help books that falls within your interest. You’ll be surprised how fast time flies when you’re doing something that you’re really into.
Some prisons offer TV within an inmate’s jail cell, albeit with limited channels. If you’re on lockdown, try to watch informative shows as much as possible. Absorbing essential information about something is an integral part of any self-enrichment process. However, learn to discern if the information they serve up on TV is credible or not. Believe it or not, there are shows in TV that are purely speculative and has no factual basis.
Since the prison is on lockdown and you have too much time on your hands inside your cell, why not take this chance to write a letter to your loved ones. Constant communication with your loved ones is crucial to prison survival. Knowing that you have someone outside waiting for you is a fantastic motivator to stay out of trouble and survive incarceration. Correspond with important people in your life often. You can even talk with your cellmate, as long as he’s someone you can trust, about their lives in the outside world and what you guys will do once you get out. Communicating with the people you love will save your life.
Since you’re in the path of self-enrichment, do not forget to also enrich your physical aspect; your fitness. There’s no use in enriching your mind when your body is frail and weak. There’s no point in enriching the body either if your mental acuity is that of a primate. In order to enhance yourself successfully, you must attend to both your physical and mental aspect.
Designate a time of day where you’ll do exercises inside your cell. With a little creativity, you’ll be surprised by the number of physical workouts you can do inside a limited space. If possible, try to ask the help of your cellmate. Ask him or her to be your exercise partner. Of course, this is assuming you have a mentally stable cellmate who won’t rape you or stab you just for kicks.
Be patient, meditate, and hope that the lockdown is called off soon. Lockdowns usually are called off once jail security personnel finds that the prisoners are willing to cooperate. Once they root out the cause of the lockdown, they’ll call it off right away. Just look at it this way: at least, if you’re a sex offender, you won’t be worried about someone taking you out since all inmates are confined to their respective cells. Just hope that your cellmate doesn’t care what kind of offender you are, or else you’ll have to sleep with one eye open. So there you have it, that’s basically how to survive lockdown inside prison or county jail.