Female vs Male Prison - How DO They Compare - YouTube

This episode is brought to you by Surfshark; Get Surfshark VPN at the link in the description

and enter the promo code INFOGRAPHICS for 85% off and three extra months free!

This is the story of Daniel and Donna, a pair of lovers who decided after too many nights

spent broke at home to turn to a life of crime.

Except this love-struck duo weren’t exactly criminal masterminds, and two days after they

turned to the dark side of life they found themselves in handcuffs.

They’d decided to rob the local pet store and were subsequently caught in the act of

trying to fence a rather noisy hyacinth macaw and a quiet, if not scary, ball python.

For their transgression the two were told they’d have to spend some time behind bars,

a frightening prospect for both people since they’d never been to prison before.

How did incarceration go for them?

All shall be revealed.

Daniel arrived on a bus that he had boarded at the county jail.

As soon as he entered the prison he was taken to the holding tank after he had verified

his name.

He sat in this tank for quite some time and he wasn’t really sure what was happening.

Daniel, to say the least, was at this point regretting the fact he had stolen those exotic

pets, and when he looked at a sign that read, “Receiving and Discharge”, all he could

think about was the discharge part.

That should be one year from now, he thought, and he was right to imagine it certainly wouldn’t

be the best year of his life so far.

His name was called and he was told he was going to be processed, which first consisted

of having his fingerprints taken and some pictures taken.

That included some pictures of his scars and tattoos and any other unique features.

One part he didn’t much like at all was when he was told to strip off his clothes.

The officers then took a look at him, asked him to open his mouth and stick out his tongue.

They did this while shining a flashlight in there.

They asked him to perform a slightly humiliating twist, bend over, and cough routine.

He was given some prison issue clothes that didn’t even fit and also given a prison

ID.

After this, Daniel was told he was going to a temporary unit where he’d be staying until

a suitable housing unit could be chosen.

There he was given a book to read which explained all the prison’s rules, and we are talking

about formal rules, not the prisoner code.

During his time in this holding cell he got to see a doctor, and that doctor asked Daniel

some questions about his health and if he was currently taking any prescription medicines.

After the processing part was over Daniel was called to an Admission and Orientation

meeting where he learned a bit more about the prison and what was expected of him.

The officers explained to him and some other inmates how to buy things at the commissary,

what programs were on offer and what disciplinary action might be taken if they should decide

to break a few rules while doing their time.

Donna’s experience wasn’t all that different, but because her hair was long during the search

part she had to kind of untangle it and run her hands through it.

She also had to open her mouth wide and the officers made sure there was nothing in here.

These officers, by the way, were females.

Donna was told to squat and cough while naked, something she didn’t much like, but the

search wasn’t all that invasive since Donna was not under suspicion of carrying contraband.

So far the experience for both inmates isn’t that different, but it’s only a matter of

time before Daniel and Donna start to live in very different worlds.

When Daniel was a free man he liked nothing more than to watch documentaries about prison

life, and so he was well aware that prison could be a really difficult place to live.

Thanks to YouTube’s many prison’s shows he at least knew how to act.

On his first day in general population he knew not to walk around acting like a tough

guy, something he certainly wasn’t, but he also knew not to walk all slouched and

look like a frightened rabbit among a skulk of hungry foxes.

“Don’t talk too much and don’t ask too many questions,” Daniel remembered, even

though he was told to show his “paperwork” one day so other people knew what he was in

for.

Thank God that exotic pet stealing didn’t warrant a “Kill on Sight” badge.

During his first week in the general population, Daniel heard that one of those guys he’d

been through processing with had been beaten by a bunch of other inmates.

He found out through his celly that a “Smash on Sight” or SOS, order had been put on

that man.

That was scary enough, but things would soon get much worse.

Almost every day it seemed like violence was going to flare up, but Daniel had at least

made a few friends.

There was some amount of racial segregation at his prison, but it wasn’t quite as strict

as he’d seen in some of those TV documentaries.

At first when he went to the chow hall he made sure not to sit with anyone not of his

own race, but after a while he realized in this particular prison the strict race rules

didn’t exactly apply.

Donna’s experience in minimum security general population was a bit different and she didn’t

witness any smashing on sight or even that much violence.

Sure, there was the odd altercation, but most of the women got on well for the most part.

What Donna realized quite quickly is that she kind of became part of a family there.

Since Donna was very young she was taken under the wing of a much older prisoner and so in

some ways she became that prisoner’s daughter.

She had sisters, too, and there was a father-type figure in the family.

What Donna quickly found out is that like Daniel she had to show respect to the other

prisoners, especially those who’d done a lot of time already.

Occasionally there’d be back-stabbing and gossip, and conflicts would arise, but Donna

didn’t witness women shoving homemade knives into each other’s stomachs.

Far from it, for the most part Donna and the other inmates got along and tried to help

each do their time as best they could.

As time went by for Daniel, he saw more and more violence.

Sometimes it felt like living inside a pressure cooker and that cooker on certain days would

just explode.

One time he was right next to a guy who got smashed by about six inmates.

At the time Daniel had no idea what had happened but he later found out that the victim had

been accused of not taking enough showers and smelling bad.

Personal hygiene in men’s prison was really important, and while smelling bad wasn’t

as bad as snitching, it could certainly get you beat up.

Daniel saw that fight with his own eyes, but when questioned by the guards he didn’t

say a thing.

He was well aware that snitches get stitches and so in prison you had to act like a blind

person.

On one occasion Daniel did find trouble when he was working in the kitchen.

Another inmate had accused him of serving up disproportionate amounts of beans, which

in Daniel’s eyes wasn’t true at all.

He had his bean serving skills down to a fine art, but the other guy didn’t seem to think

so.

This was now a problem for Daniel, since he’d now been disrespected in front of other inmates.

If he didn’t do anything about that, he’d be seen as weak and may become prey for other

inmates, but fighting the guy would likely lead to disciplinary action.

Daniel wasn’t even much of a fighter, but he was told by his celly that in prison men

have to stand up for themselves.

Luckily for Daniel, because he’d kept his head down, kept clean and made some friends,

he was told by one of the main guys in the unit that he could “squash the beef”.

That meant Daniel going under the stairs and fighting with the aggrieved bean guy.

Daniel just swung his fists wildy and the fight was over in a matter of seconds.

After that, he ended up spending the next couple of weeks inside a segregation unit,

but in time he actually became friends with the man he’d been fighting.

Yep, that didn’t seem to make sense, but nothing in prison made sense to Daniel.

Rules and reasoning on the outside were very different from rules and reasoning in prison.

Conflict resolution was somewhat different for Donna.

One day she’d been minding her own business when a female inmate bad-mouthed her for allegedly

taking all the boiled water.

That wasn’t true, so Donna tried her best to resolve the conflict with reason.

It actually worked, and the other inmate accepted she had been wrong.

Donna didn’t have to fight to ensure she didn’t become prey.

That’s not to say Donna didn’t ever see a punch getting thrown, only that it seldomly

happened.

What Donna didn’t like was the fact a lot of the women got in the officer’s faces

a lot.

There might not have been that many fights, but there was a lot of arguing.

She even saw snitching now and again, and Donna thought that was something that never

happened in prison.

On one occasion she witnessed an officer telling an inmate to tuck her shirt in.

Instead of doing what she was told the inmate looked around and pointed to other women whose

shirts weren’t tucked in.

This seemed to Donna like behavior she had seen in elementary school.

Why don’t people just do as they’re told, she wondered.

What was really sad for Donna is the fact that the inmates seemed to internalize stress.

She was aware that men might externalize their stress, which led to a lot of fights in men’s

prisons, but some women just kept it all in and then one day the worse would happen and

someone would self-harm.

It wasn’t all that uncommon, given that it seemed about 75 percent of the women had

some kind of mental health problem.

A few months into her sentence and Donna was in a kind of relationship with another woman.

This person she greatly admired and while the relationship was emotional and not physical,

she felt a kind of closeness to the woman.

In fact, if you asked Donna if she had any real friends in prison she would tell you

that there were a few people she had come to trust and respect.

For Daniel it was a different matter.

He would tell you that while there were some people he got along with, there was so much

fear and violence in the population that he just concentrated on doing time quietly and

staying out of trouble.

Making close friends with someone seemed quite unlikely just because no one really trusted

anybody.

If you wanted to compare male and female prison to video games then you could say that male

prison at times was closer to playing Fortnite, while female prison was closer to playing

The Sims.

Some guys seemed intent on gaining a higher place in the hierarchy by any means possible,

while a lot of women seemed to replicate family life.

This wasn’t that surprising, given the fact that quite a lot of men in Daniel’s prison

had committed violent crimes and were involved in gang activity.

Very few women in Donna’s prison were in for violent crimes and a lot of those women,

compared to men, had actually been living in a family unit before they went to prison.

Donna was released first, but not that long before Daniel got out.

On the day of his release, Donna was waiting for him in the car park when he finally walked

out of those prison doors.

The two embraced and kissed and agreed that stealing exotic animals had been a major mistake.

They’d written to each other there while they were incarcerated, but they still had

a lot of stories to tell.

“Was it as bad as you imagined,” Donna asked Daniel as the two were driving home.

“Yes…and no,” Daniel replied.

“Yeh, same here,” Donna said.

“So, what next,” asked Donna.

“Well,” said Daniel.

“We have our freedom now.

We can do anything we want.

Let’s start a new life, and stay far away from snakes and caged birds.”

We want to give a big thank you to the sponsor of today’s episode - Surfshark VPN.

Now we all know that there are lots of VPN options out there, but after doing a ton of

research, which is our specialty after all, we found that Surfshark really is the best

on the market.

It’s the only VPN service that is truly unlimited, with the ability to use it on as

many devices as you want, even at the same time!

That means you can protect your personal information and access content blocked in your country

on your phone, tablet, and computer all at the same time!

Moreover, Surfshark has a HackLock feature, which scans the web and gives you a heads-up

if your email or passwords are compromised, so the first person to take action is you.

So head on over to Surfshark.deals/infographics right now and enter promo code INFOGRAPHICS

for 85% off and three extra months for free!

Surfshark offers a 30-day money-back guarantee so there’s no risk to try it out for yourself!

Do you think Daniel and Donna had a hard time in prison?

Well, we think life could be a lot harder and we are going to prove that right now with

this great challenge video, “I Went Homeless For 72 Hours (REAL CHALLENGE).”