1. 1985, MCC NY (2), Jimmy B., white, age 54, in for a gambling beef, sentenced to 20 years, was in the prisoner's shakedown room and as per custom had to remove his jumpsuit, underwear, shoes and socks for the post-visit inspection.

   But first, a little background: Quite often in films we see prisoners having pleasant visits with relatives and friends. What the movies rarely show is what happens after the visits. Here it is in brief: between the visitors' room and the prison cells there is a prisoner's shakedown room where prisoners returning from visits are strip-searched for contraband. After one has completely removed every stitch of clothing, hands are held up high and rotated for the inspecting officer to see; the mouth is opened, tongue lifted up to show that there are no drugs or other items hiding in the mouth; the head is bent over and the hair is ruffled, the ears are bent forward; the testicles are lifted up to show nothing hiding underneath and the penis is lifted up; then the prisoner turns around, lifts each foot to show nothing stuck between the toes; then bends over and spreads his cheeks to expose his anus and hopefully in doing so nothing of a contraband nature pops out.

   This is the usual routine for most prisoners who are circumcised; however, Jimmy had a rather large, uncircumcised penis, and lots and lots of foreskin. For Jimmy, the post-visit shakedown took a little longer as the guard would keep insisting, "OK, pull it back some more," at least a half-dozen times. Jimmy could have made it easier for everyone by simply pulling his foreskin all the way back at the first request, but no, he enjoyed pulling his prepuce an inch at a time just drawing the whole procedure out to torment the guards.

   Not an easy job, being a shakedown guard, having to look at testicles, foreskins and anuses all day long.

   Jimmy B. died a little over ten years later.

   Despite the thoroughness of the searches, the prisoner's dorms after visits were always filled with the sweet aroma of marijuana.



2. 1986, FCI Otisville (3), Melvin T., Black, age 31, murder of a postal carrier, sentenced to 30 years, was coming out of the prison cafeteria when a female guard thought she saw a metal pipe in Melvin's pants. "Take out the pipe," she asked. Melvin was wearing loose green army pants and looked down and replied, "What pipe?" The guard then asked Melvin to place his hands against the wall and spread his legs. She started at his ankles and was patting him thoroughly when just as she got to his left knee she abruptly stopped when she realized that the "pipe" she thought he was hiding was in fact his penis. She stood up and told him to go on his way.

   Melvin was released in 1996 after serving 20 years in prison and is now working as a computer programmer.



3. In the same year Melvin also had an interesting incident happen. Melvin at that time was working in quality control at the Unicor (4) Furniture Factory when a 6 inch saw blade went missing.

   The lieutenant came in and asked the inmates if anyone knew where the blade might be. No one answered. Now the standard operating procedure when any tool is missing from the factory is for the inmates to go through a strip search and so he ordered all the inmates to strip. Then he had the factory guards split up so that each could inspect about 20 inmates. Remember the post-visit shakedown procedure I mentioned above? Well, each inmate had to open his mouth, shake his hair, etc., even including bending over and spreading his cheeks.

   Obviously no one was hiding a six inch circular saw blade up his butt, but rules are rules. Fortunately they found the missing blade a few minutes later on the factory floor and everyone could return to their cells.

   Afterward, Melvin went up to one of the guards and asked, "What would you have done if you saw a few inches of the blade sticking out my butt?" The guard laughed and said, "Are you kidding, I certainly wouldn't have asked you to take it out. Anyone who can stick that size blade up their ass is too tough for me."

ENDNOTES

(1):

MSNBC, 8 Aug 2009, Police: 500-pound inmate hid gun in his flab

Twenty-five-year-old George Vera was charged with possession of a firearm in a correctional facility after he told a guard at the Harris County Jail about the unloaded 9mm pistol.

...

The 500-pound man was searched during his arrest and again at a city jail and the county jail, but officers never found the weapon in his rolls of skin. Vera admitted having the gun during a shower break at the county jail.

(2):

The Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City is an administrative facility housing male and female pre-trial and holdover inmates for the Federal Bureau of Prisons located in lower Manhattan, adjacent to Foley Square and across the street from the Federal courthouse.

It is in Southern District of New York; prisoners arrested in this area have "-054" appended to their inmate number.

(3):

The Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, is a medium security facility housing male offenders located near Middletown in the southeastern part of New York state, 70 miles northwest of New York City.

(4):

Federal Prison industries

... make products for sale only to the Federal Government; it would not compete against private sector companies in any other market. The so-called "state-use" system had first appeared in the l9th century but had never before been attempted on such a scale.

... would be sufficiently diversified so as to avoid having an undue impact on any particular industry. Not only would the corporation be limited to one market-the Federal Government-but also within that market it would never be able to sell more than a certain, minimal percentage of merchandise in any product area. Moreover, FPI's suppliers would be private, so FPI programs actually would generate business for private companies, rather than take it away.

[Source]

Caption for photo above:

01 Jan 1999, Hughes Prison, Gatesville,, Texas, United States --- A prison official from the medical staff checks a prisoner for fresh ink on his gang tattoos during a cell shake down. Proof of a new tattoo is considered a violation of prison rules and can result in a variety of punishments. The SS markings are common prison tattoos for many white prison gangs. --- Image by © Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis