April 23, 2025 • 36 mins
When Remie was deep into his prison sentence, he found himself navigating a complex economic system most people never see. Each cellblock operated with its own thriving GDP—thousands of dollars in transactions flowing through a network of hustlers, entrepreneurs, and survivors every month.
The prison currency system reveals a fascinating parallel economy where food becomes more valuable, ramen noodle soups function as the standard unit—like dollar bills—and bags of coffee and Little Debbies serve as higher denominations for bigger purchases. The more exotic or rare the commissary item, the higher its trading value, creating investment opportunities where seasonal snacks become valuable commodities.
This episode offers rare insight into how alternative economies function in closed systems and why understanding prison economics matters for successful reentry. Whether you're curious about life behind bars or interested in how underground markets operate, this exploration of prison currency will change how you think about value, exchange, and economic adaptation.
Want to hear more stories from inside? Email questions to stories@lockdownlegacy.com or find us on social media to continue the conversation about prison life, reentry challenges, and everything in between.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode
of Lockdown Legacy.
Of course, I'm your host, remyJones, and today, once again,
I'm all alone.
But no worries, man, you knowyou're always in for a good one
when you're in my hands, right?
So, first off, I just kind ofwant to slow roll into this man
Updates on my life.
(00:21):
First, one of the reasons whyI'm solo today is because DJ is.
She's on a plane, man.
She's going to a conference in,I don't know, denver, something
like that.
So everybody, you know, keephearing your prayers, safe
travels and whatnot.
But that means that I'm herenot alone, totally, but that
(00:47):
means that me and my co-parent,jacob we got the four crazy
little ones to ourselves Prayfor the dads.
Y'all Pray for the dads becausewe have 100% all on our plate.
But we got this.
In other news, though, this wasthe first week that we really
(01:11):
got outside.
You know, the weather's beenwarm, the rain's been, you know,
at a minimum, and we really gotto start tackling these home
projects at the new house.
And my goodness, when you sayyou really got to have a strong
back out here, man, this countryliving is not for the weak or
(01:33):
the faint of heart, you know,not only have I been actually
for the last month breaking downthe bee boxes from the
beekeeper who owned the housebefore us which, by the way, we
may have gotten through a fewhundred, you know, I'd say two,
300 of them, but there'sprobably a thousand out there,
(01:56):
you know.
So we, we really haven't evenput too much of a dent into it,
but on top of that, this was thefirst week that we mowed.
So that was interesting.
The mowing of four acres is notsomething you do in an
afternoon.
It actually took us two days todo, both of us together.
(02:19):
You know, dj was on the ridelawnmower, I was out there with
the push mower and the weedwhacker.
You know we had to double teamit, but we got it done.
And for real, the rain wasthreatening to come in and just
ruin the whole thing.
Man, it was, uh, it was quitedisappointing.
But on top of that, I got a lotof stuff going on, man.
We, um, we got a barn, we got abarn and we managed to get some
(02:45):
more of the previous owner'sstuff out of there.
You know he had a tractor.
I mean just random stuff, youknow, random stuff, man, but we
managed to get it out.
And you know things are movingalong, man.
I got that man cave building andit's starting to empty out.
(03:05):
So I'm starting to justrandomly walk in there at times
and you know, future plan, youknow, just imagine and envision
things how I want them.
Right now it's a total mess, tobe honest.
But you know it's mine, it'sall mine.
I was very shocked when DJ toldme that she wanted no parts of
(03:26):
it.
But you know, when I said Iwanted a man cave when we were
shopping for a house, man, I wasreally just thinking like a
room or maybe like a corner inthe garage.
But now I got this whole damnbuilding to myself and you know
the mind can run rampant of whatI want to do.
But reality be like calm down,like I ain't got money for that,
(03:49):
I ain't got time for that, youknow.
But a man can dream and youknow who knows, over the next 10
, 20 years it might be what Iwant it to be.
I might surprise myself.
Be what I wanted to be, I mightsurprise myself.
So you know, pretty much that'sbeen the last week or the last
(04:11):
month really is just homeprojects.
You know DJ graduated.
That took up a lot of our timein the last month.
We got birthdays out the wazooright now.
You know, my youngest justturned five.
Uh, my second youngest nope,I'm sorry, my second oldest is
(04:31):
her birthday's this week comingup, wow.
So, yeah, we, we doing thebirthday thing and then we'll be
done for a while to furtherclose to the end of the year.
But you know, life is life andwe doing us over here, man, we
rolling with it.
So I appreciate y'all forjoining in.
(04:52):
I appreciate y'all for rollingwith us.
You know, shout out to the dayone listeners, shout out to the
new listeners.
You know this is a very muchappreciated thing that y'all
doing.
I guess y'all appreciate me too.
So it's appreciation all around.
So let me get on to the nextpart of this thing.
Man, I wanted to talk today I'mgoing to keep this episode
(05:18):
brief, man, because for realit's one of them just get it and
go type thing, but I wanted totalk about currency.
It was actually a conversationwith somebody that made me want
to talk about this, because theyhad no idea, like, what the
prison economy is like inside,you know.
(05:39):
And so every time it was likeevery two minutes of this
conversation, it was like theirmind was blown again and they
thought somehow money was justlike it is out here.
You know you got cash, you gotcredit, you got, you know, debit
cards and whatnot and I waslike, eh, kinda.
(06:02):
So in this episode I'm going totry to break down all the
different forms of currencyinside the prison and I'm sure I
will miss some, because youknow this is mostly from my own
experience.
But you know, in other statesI'm sure they got different
stuff going on In other, youknow in the feds, all that stuff
, other countries.
But I'm going to let it beknown right now money, all money
(06:28):
, ain't the same.
Money has a different valuebased on what it is, and in a
lot of ways it is like out here.
You know, you might have acredit card, it could be a visa
or a MasterCard and it might beaccepted everywhere.
But you might have somethinglike American Express that's
people are like, nah, we don'ttake that.
Or even some places nine daysthey're saying we don't take
(06:50):
cash.
Sorry, so it's the same on theinside.
So just to be blatant and notleave you guys in too much uh,
uh, x.
What's the word I'm looking forgood grief suspense wow, I was
on a whole other wrong startingletter.
Anyway, to not leave you in toomuch suspense, I'll let you
(07:13):
know right now that food inprison is like pretty much the
best bet.
The best bet.
Another standard currency isstamps like pre-stamped
envelopes or like a book ofstamps.
But it's all about who you'redealing with and what you're
dealing for.
(07:33):
So in general, pretty much youcan pay anybody with a book of
stamps or stamped envelopes.
But certain people I meanthat's not what they're into
they're going to tell you stampsgot half value, you know.
And then if you gotstate-issued stamps, which you
know, they could either have novalue or even less value.
(07:56):
So it depends on what situationyou're in, but pretty much
anybody except stamps, because Imean there was a time when I
ran a store in prison and I wasalso shooting tattoos and so
many people wanted to pay me instamps.
I don't know why they had somany, but I remember sending
(08:18):
home a package so my familycould cash in the stamps at the
post office.
Man, I must have had like athousand stamped envelopes,
which is crazy to imagine.
But you know, hey, it's realmoney, you know.
As far as the economy goesinside.
But food, you know we're talkingabout the have-nots.
(08:40):
But food, you know we'retalking about the have-nots.
You know so if your choice isto go to the cafeteria you know
the chow hall and eat, or tohave food in your box to eat,
man, everybody hands down isgoing to go for the food in a
box.
So the food in your box couldpotentially have a higher value
(09:02):
than standard.
You know.
So if you say, like soups,ramen noodle soups, that right,
there is, like the US dollar,everybody got one, everybody's
seen one and it's preferred, youknow.
But how many soups can youconvey, right?
So when you need to pay ahigher price, now all of a
(09:24):
sudden we're talking aboutyou're going to go buy a TV in
$0.25, $0.50 increments withsoups.
Nah, we're going to needsomething better than that.
So you can use little debbies,bags of coffee.
That's pretty much how that'slike going from ones to like
fives and tens.
(09:44):
That's pretty much how that'slike going from ones to like
fives and tens.
You know, usually coffee manholds a very high value and
sweets.
So if you got any type oflittle Debbie's, the more exotic
and hard to get, the higher thevalue, you know, and I'm
(10:05):
telling you, man, I have boxesof cosmic brownies Don't let it
be no holiday.
And they got the little zebracakes and Christmas trees and
all that because, man, peoplewas on it.
And we would actually writeletters, like they call it a
kite.
We would write kites to thecommissary, I don't know
administrator or whatever, andwe would ask them to get certain
(10:26):
stuff, because we knew if theycame in there with like some,
you know, some caramel bars,some apple crumbles or something
like that, like we was going tobuy them all because they only
going to have maybe a month andyou ain't going to see them
again for a year.
So all of a sudden now you'resitting on a gold mine.
It's like an investment in thestock market, you know.
So that's how we got down.
(10:51):
You wanted anything like hey,man um, say, you don't got money
on your phone.
Hey, why don't you sell me aphone call?
Like all right, man Um, a phonecall nowadays might cost 50
cents.
But you might tell somebody,you know, give me $2.
Well, what that means is a $2equivalent.
They're going to go to thestore.
You could ask for somethingspecific.
You know, give me a bag ofcoffee, I'll give you a call.
You know whether you got moneyon your phone or not, or whether
(11:16):
you're on phone restriction,whether you need a.
You know a three-way call,anything like that.
You know, give me $5.
Give me $2, anything like that.
You don't give me five dollars,give me two dollars, whatever.
So give me the equivalent.
But you know we talked aboutcontraband in prison before we
talked about the hustle.
So if y'all ain't hear that, goahead and check out the catalog
, man, because we got some greatepisodes.
(11:37):
But you know, I said I used toshoot tattoos.
I, I shot tattoos and I ran astore.
So money as far as commodities,food stamps, sodas and all that
stuff.
But I had it on on thatplethora of it to the point
(12:04):
where I paid the person in thecell next to me to have like
basically a warehouse, to usetheir cell as a warehouse.
I stuffed boxes of LittleDebbies under their bed and
stuff, you know, and I paid themweekly to house all of that.
But when it came to tattoos nowwe're talking about I made
really shooting tattoos theamount of money that some people
(12:29):
make out here working a areally good job, you know.
Um, this was in.
Let me see, this is in 2010.
I would say I would say 2009 to2011, 2012, something like that
.
I was shooting tattoos and Iwas charging people $40 an hour
for, like, if it was somethingsmall and quick, minimum $40.
(12:51):
And once I had the store, itwas so stacked up I didn't want
you to pay me in.
You know, soups and debbies andKool-Aid and sodas.
You know I was like yo, you gotto ask somebody, paypal my
people some money or somethingyou know, because you know cash
app something.
And so they would.
(13:13):
You know, I would follow themup to the phone.
They would call their family.
Hey, you know, send X amount ofmoney to you know this cash app
account.
All right, I would call mypeople, make sure that it, the
money, went through.
And then, boom, we go in thereand shoot tattoos all day, all
(13:34):
night, you know, until we hittheir their limit or whatever.
But my dude who ended up beingmy bunkie because you know we
had, we had a lot, we had ablock on lock man, we was
enterprising Um, he made Hoochand for those of you who don't
know what hooch is, it's, it hasmany names.
(13:56):
You know it's basically, um,homemade liquor.
It can be made out of anythingand I mean some people call it
toilet wine, some people uh, uh,that it's really got a million
different names.
But the point is, man, like itwas a hot commodity you can make
(14:23):
it out of, we made it out ofmixed fruit and you know, we
bring back oranges.
You know, in prison they giveyou the oranges that really
they're not that sweet andthey're kind of hard, so nobody
eat them.
There'd be a whole pile, maybe20 oranges, on each table in the
chow hall and we would have.
(14:43):
We'd be paying guys to bringthem back for us.
You know, one guy could fitprobably 20 oranges in his pants
, in his shirt.
You know, tuck your shirt in,put them down your shirt, tuck
your pant legs into your socks,whatever, and walk back to the
block and have a whole group ofpeople walk around you so you
don't, you know, stand out toomuch.
But I mean, with that we was,we was killing the game.
(15:07):
I mean, you got one batch ofhooch we weren't selling to the
average inmate, we would go toorganized gangs.
You got the Crips, the Bloods,the GDs In Ohio.
You got Heartless Felons.
You got Aryan BrotherhoodSkinheads.
We had all of them.
(15:29):
We dealt business with all ofthem, regardless of our own gang
affiliations at the time.
So we actually sold hooch tothe Aryan Brotherhood, you know,
and we would like they will buythe whole batch, they not
buying it by the bottle, by thecup, nothing like that.
So they will come like yo, Iheard you got, you know, a batch
(15:51):
coming up Like is it good, theyain't want none of the
low-grade stuff.
They actually wanted us todistill it.
You know, in there they call itclear.
So we would actually have tocook the hooch to distill it.
And you know, hey, man, I got$500.
(16:11):
I got $1,000.
And they would send it like itwas nothing.
You know they, hey, man, I got$500, I got $1,000, and they
would send it like it wasnothing, you know.
So that's where them PayPaltransactions and stuff.
But now we talking about cashequivalent, we talking about
PayPal transactions.
You know, people do get creditin there and credit is king.
(16:33):
But credit is dangerous and I'msure y'all know that from being
out here in the free world,credit is the best thing.
You know, hey, you can go insomewhere and you say, hey, man,
give me $100,000.
And they'll be like okay, hereyou go, here's the terms, and
guess what?
You mess around and can't paythat money back.
They're going to be on your ass.
(16:55):
It's the same way it is inprison, man.
If you run up a tab and I knowpeople that have ran up extreme
tabs with multiple people, tothe point where they were
literally in fear of their livesand they went to the
administration like, hey man, Ineed y'all to send me to a
different prison, you know.
And then poof, they disappearand you got everybody sitting
(17:18):
there.
Don't think that going to adifferent prison gets you out of
it, because people know peopleat other prisons and the worst
thing you can do is be in aplace where you don't know
nobody, but people know you andthey looking for you.
So, anyway, credit is a thing.
You got the from the low tier.
(17:42):
Two for one, hey man, let meget you know a bag of coffee
until store day, you know, onWednesday, or whatever.
Okay, well, you know, give metwo back, you know.
Or or two for three, you know,give me, I'll give you two, you
two, you give me three back, youknow, that's usually how you
make money running the store.
Um, all the way up to.
You know I was shooting tattoos.
He's running hooch like, hey,let me get that.
You know more more often I meanyou got guys that did real drugs
(18:06):
in prison and they were soknown for getting money or you
know whatever hustle that theyhad going on that they could go
to the drug man and be like, hey, let me get $100.
You know I'm good for it and itwas just like here.
They write your name in aledger somewhere, you know, and
that was that.
(18:26):
But those are the mostdangerous people to run credit
with, because you know, when itcomes to drugs, if you can't pay
, it's pretty much over for you.
The violence is off the Richter.
You know shit can really hitthe fan and it can hit the fan
right in front of the CEOs.
They don't care, and it hashappened plenty of times.
(18:48):
I've seen it happen plenty oftimes, unfortunately.
Plenty of times.
I've seen it happen plenty oftimes, unfortunately.
But you know there's all thesealternate forms of currency, but
cash does exist in prison.
You know.
I don't want people to thinkthat it's like this thing that
(19:09):
you don't see until you get out.
You may not, depending on whatsocial circles you run in out
you may not, depending on whatsocial circles you run in, but
if you're in the mix especiallyin the drug game and the cell
phones and the you know realhigh price stuff like you're
going to see some cash hit yourhand.
And the first time I seen somecash hit my hand it blew my mind
(19:29):
.
I was probably three years inprison.
And this is when cash changed.
This is when the big face youknow hunters came out and they
had the blue and the orange andall that shit on the paper
Somebody gave you that.
I was like what the fuck isthat?
I didn't even know what it was,and that just goes to show how
things change on the outsidewhile you're in prison.
(19:51):
Because this dude handed me a$100 bill and I treated it as if
it was worthless because Ididn't know.
But you know I did business withthat individual so much and he
would just come and hand me cash, hand me cash, hand me cash,
and I didn't know what to dowith it.
So I was rolling these $100bills up and putting them in my
(20:15):
art kit and, like pen tubes, youknow, I was rolling them up and
putting them on a string andlacing the string through my
hoodie or through my pants orwhatever you know, because I
just, I just ain't know what todo with them.
I really, I really trust youknow nobody to like send it home
(20:37):
to or how I can send it home.
I know if they would monitor mymail.
One day they cut a randomenvelope open and you know
there's a thousand dollars, ahundred dollar bills in there.
Well, I just lost a thousanddollars and I got to explain
that they instantly gonna raiseyour security level.
I don't care what securitylevel you're at, like, if you're
(20:58):
at a minimum, you about to be ahigh security level, right,
instantly.
Usually, when they raise yoursecurity level, you go up one
step at a time.
So you go from a minimum to alow, to a medium, to a close,
which is monitor movement, uh,to a high, to a super max.
Um, so like you get caught withcash, cell phones, anything
(21:22):
like that, you might as wellpack your shit because you ain't
gonna be in the mix for toolong.
They gonna send you straight,like they will literally put you
on a in a transport the nextday.
You know, ain't no waiting fora ride out, like you gone.
So you know, cash is still kingin prison and really it's only
(21:44):
exchanged at the highest levelsof transactions.
So usually, like I said, drugs,cell phones, you know organized
crime, you know stuff of thatsort.
But when we talk about like,like, say, mid-level stuff, you
(22:06):
know I went to the soups.
Soups is standard currency.
Food is, you know, pretty muchthe average man's goal.
The more exotic the food or theharder it is to get, the more
it's worth.
And so in prison in Ohio you'reallowed to order I think it's
two food boxes a day fromapproved vendors and in these
(22:31):
food boxes, you know, yourfamily can go online and order
them for you have it sent fromthe vendor to the prison and you
get, man, if you're like me,you get all the stuff you can't
get anywhere else.
So I remember telling stories tomy mom when I would call her,
(22:52):
you know, to my girlfriend atthe time or whatever, and they'd
be like oh, what you doing.
I'd be like, oh, man, you knowjust cooked a meal.
You know me and a homie cookeda meal.
Oh, what y'all eating?
Oh, roast beef.
You know there's the episode wetalked about food where me and
Joe was making lasagna.
We made spaghetti squash, youknow, like we were really just
(23:17):
doing the damn thing.
We were eating really good inthere and it was because when
people owed us money, especiallypeople that didn't regularly
have money, we would just say,oh, man, don't pay me in.
You know random food items,soups and envelopes and coffee.
(23:39):
I would say, man, order me afood box in your name.
You know cause.
You know your family's notgoing to send you food boxes.
You're only allowed to get twoa year.
You're not going to use yourtwo allotment.
Go ahead and use one of them toorder me a food box.
So if you owe me a hundreddollars, I'm going to say, man,
just order me a hundred dollarfood box.
Um, or send the money to myfamily and they'll order the
(24:02):
food box in your name so theycould max it out, cause there's
a certain amount of weight thatyou can have on there and once
you hit the maximum weight, thenyou're done.
So when you have roast beef,when you have all these exotic
seasonings that you can't onlyget like you know I'm ordering
(24:22):
pretty much in prison all youget is salt, pepper, italian
seasoning and the soup packetsfrom the ramen noodles.
You know we were getting likevegetable flakes, mrs Dash, and
all this other stuff.
We getting roast beef, wegetting chicken, shredded
chicken, we getting, you know,chili, we getting all types of
(24:43):
stuff.
So that's when I was saying youcome pay somebody with that,
like they like, oh shit, like,if it costs you $3 and you going
to do a regular transaction,that $3 might be double, it
might be $6, you know.
So, pretty much that's how itis.
It's pretty much a bartersystem on steroids.
(25:03):
You can pay with services too.
Everything is benign, as, like,I had a guy that ironed my
clothes for me.
I had a guy that did my laundry.
Uh, eventually I had a guy thatcleaned my cell.
Um, you know, I, uh, I was theguy who, uh, at the beginning of
my bit, I drew pictures forpeople.
(25:26):
I wrote poems for people'sgirlfriends on Valentine's day
you know I'm a handmade cardsand, uh, you know, and all this
different stuff.
Man, I would draw portraits onhandkerchiefs and everything.
So that's pretty much how myhustle hand started and how I
survived in prison Because, likeI said, this is the have-nots.
I started off with a nicelittle chunk of change on my
(25:47):
books, but I didn't really knowthe value of the money I had.
So I blew it quick and then Ihad to figure out how to survive
.
And in prison, man, when theprison climate really gets bad
like we did the episode aboutdrugs in prison recently when
(26:08):
the prison climate gets bad,when a prison climate gets bad,
it's kind of like when the poorusurp the rich.
There's people in there wholive very comfortable if you can
be comfortable in prison andit's because they're what we
call prison rich.
They're stable.
They know they got money comingin.
(26:30):
Maybe they run a store, maybethey got family that send them
money, maybe they got money thatthey squirreled away from the
outside.
Whatever it is, they're inthere with the plush you know,
velour clothes, blankets and thematching towels on the floor
that they use as area rugs.
They're eating pretty much outof their box.
(26:50):
They're never going to thechild hall.
There was a time where I didn'tgo to the child hall for four
years.
When you got it it ain't evenworth the trip.
I had a guy I paid to cook forme.
It's really like a balance inyour checkbook thing out here.
You know it's like okay, howmuch money I got.
Okay, how much can I put out.
(27:12):
I got to pay this dude 50 centsto iron my clothes.
I got to pay this guy $2 toclean my sale.
I got to pay this guy $5 amonth to do my laundry.
You know so, you know youbalance that checkbook.
You got stuff coming in, yougot stuff coming out and, to be
(27:32):
honest, man, it was prettyamazing.
It's pretty amazing because ifyou can step out of the current
moment you know thinking aboutit first person, you know I was
in prison.
I'm thinking about it firstperson I was able to step out of
the moment and see the biggerpicture, like, damn, this prison
economy is booming.
(27:53):
You know, like, if any of youguys follow politics or you know
the government, gdp and stufflike that like one prison, one
block, what's cellblock in aprison has a GDP.
And if it was to be, if somenerd was to do a story and
(28:14):
calculate the GDP of one block,I mean really in one cell block,
you could have, I don't know,50, depending on the size I mean
.
So let's say, when I was inToledo there were, I think there
were, 90 people to a pod andthen there were three pods on
(28:39):
each floor.
So six pods per block, I wouldsay each one of those pods alone
was probably doing 50 grand inillicit currency exchanges every
, I would say, month, everymonth, $50,000, $60,000, change
your hands.
You know you got like I said.
(29:01):
You got guys shooting tattoos.
You got guys selling hooch.
You got guys selling tobacco.
You got guys selling hooch.
You got guys selling tobacco.
You got guys selling weed,selling meth, selling heroin.
You got guys, you know, makingpictures and cards.
You know there's guys thatbuild sculptures we talked about
mush faking in one of ourprevious episodes and they're
(29:21):
selling those damn sculpturesfor $150 sometimes, man, and
they're selling those damnsculptures for $150 sometimes,
man.
It's insane and real money.
They'll sell it to the staff.
You know you got guys makingcandy, guys making food,
empanadas and you know whatever.
Like it's really a booming,thriving economy and all this
(29:48):
currency is transactions of somesort.
Currency some sort or anotheris exchanging hands.
So from the outsider peoplethat never been to prison, like
it's hard to imagine likesomebody has the potential to be
living kind of good in therereally.
I mean cause, and it's kind ofeasy, easier to understand how
(30:09):
some people come back to theoutside world and they can't
seem to adjust and it's becausethe rules have changed.
You know, like now I have to goget a job and I have to make a
set amount of money per hour andI have to pay taxes and I have
this.
It's so much oversight thatit's like you know, in prison,
(30:32):
no matter how good or benignyour hustle hustle is, it's
contraband, it's illicit.
You're not allowed to exchangeproperty or money of any sort
inside a prison.
It it's in the rule book.
So anything you do is breakingthe rules.
(30:52):
So when you come home, it's likeit's pretty much especially if
you've ever sold drugs, it'spretty much probably one of the
main contributors to somebodygoing back to what they used to
do, especially if they starthitting roadblocks.
You know, if you come home andyou're trying to do it right and
you're trying to get a job andyou're getting the door slammed
(31:14):
in your face every time, it'sprobably a good chance that
you're going to be like man, letme figure out some hustle Same
stuff you did in prison me.
Figure out some hustle samestuff you did in prison, but out
here the dollar's not as strong, you know, it's not as strong.
(31:37):
The dollar's 10 times as strongin prison.
So when you come out here.
There is no, you know.
Oh, you know I'm going to drawpictures.
And yeah, you could.
You could start a business anddo that.
That's slow, it's going to takeforever In prison.
You start drawing pictures, youpretty much roll in.
The next day you at the heightof your business within a week.
You know, out here, like I said, it's more oversight Now.
You got to advertise it's amacro environment, a
(32:04):
macroeconomic situation insteadof a microeconomic situation.
So you're going to go for themost profitable hustle you can
find, which is usually drugs.
You know, don't get me wrong.
There's plenty of stories thatyou see around town people
cooking out of their kitchenselling plates Best food ever,
you know.
And eventually you know, shoutout to my dude Chef Hero Started
(32:25):
off cooking plates, got him afood truck, you know.
And eventually, you know, shoutout to my dude Chef, hero
Started off cooking plates, gothim a food truck, you know, got
him a storefront.
Next thing, you know, multiplestorefronts.
Next thing, you know, he inreal estate, he boxing, he doing
all this stuff.
That is a perfect story ofsomebody who took that hustle
mentality and just took it tothe max from.
You know, step by step, justtook it to the max from, you
(32:50):
know, step by step.
But coming home from prison, youknow, really, you don't really
have that patience.
You don't have the luxury ofpatience.
You got your PO on your asssaying you got to get a job.
But even if you do get a job, Imean, a lot of times there
ain't enough to pay the bills.
But you got to pay your PO too,and if you don't pay your PO
they can send you back to prison.
So now you're looking for thatway, that hustle, so you can pay
(33:12):
the prison bailiff to keep offthe ass or whatever you know.
So anyway, I've rambled enough.
I've given you guys, I feellike, a good picture of what
currency is in a prison and ifyou guys got any questions, any
further questions of whatcurrency is in prison, please
(33:32):
let me know.
You know what the socials areFacebook, instagram we do have
Twitter, tiktok, you knowwherever you want and email
stories at lockdownthelegacycom.
Hit me up, send me yourquestions.
Even if it's not about currency, whatever it is, I would love
to discuss the topic on one ofour episodes, all right, so for
(33:53):
now, I'm about to leave y'allwith that nice little uh-huh to
think about.
Right, I just put something onyour mind.
Take it and run Peace.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode
of Lockdown Legacy.
Of course, I'm your host, remyJones, and today, once again,
I'm all alone.
But no worries, man, you knowyou're always in for a good one
when you're in my hands, right?
So, first off, I just kind ofwant to slow roll into this man
Updates on my life.
(00:21):
First, one of the reasons whyI'm solo today is because DJ is.
She's on a plane, man.
She's going to a conference in,I don't know, denver, something
like that.
So everybody, you know, keephearing your prayers, safe
travels and whatnot.
But that means that I'm herenot alone, totally, but that
(00:47):
means that me and my co-parent,jacob we got the four crazy
little ones to ourselves Prayfor the dads.
Y'all Pray for the dads becausewe have 100% all on our plate.
But we got this.
In other news, though, this wasthe first week that we really
(01:11):
got outside.
You know, the weather's beenwarm, the rain's been, you know,
at a minimum, and we really gotto start tackling these home
projects at the new house.
And my goodness, when you sayyou really got to have a strong
back out here, man, this countryliving is not for the weak or
(01:33):
the faint of heart, you know,not only have I been actually
for the last month breaking downthe bee boxes from the
beekeeper who owned the housebefore us which, by the way, we
may have gotten through a fewhundred, you know, I'd say two,
300 of them, but there'sprobably a thousand out there,
(01:56):
you know.
So we, we really haven't evenput too much of a dent into it,
but on top of that, this was thefirst week that we mowed.
So that was interesting.
The mowing of four acres is notsomething you do in an
afternoon.
It actually took us two days todo, both of us together.
(02:19):
You know, dj was on the ridelawnmower, I was out there with
the push mower and the weedwhacker.
You know we had to double teamit, but we got it done.
And for real, the rain wasthreatening to come in and just
ruin the whole thing.
Man, it was, uh, it was quitedisappointing.
But on top of that, I got a lotof stuff going on, man.
We, um, we got a barn, we got abarn and we managed to get some
(02:45):
more of the previous owner'sstuff out of there.
You know he had a tractor.
I mean just random stuff, youknow, random stuff, man, but we
managed to get it out.
And you know things are movingalong, man.
I got that man cave building andit's starting to empty out.
(03:05):
So I'm starting to justrandomly walk in there at times
and you know, future plan, youknow, just imagine and envision
things how I want them.
Right now it's a total mess, tobe honest.
But you know it's mine, it'sall mine.
I was very shocked when DJ toldme that she wanted no parts of
(03:26):
it.
But you know, when I said Iwanted a man cave when we were
shopping for a house, man, I wasreally just thinking like a
room or maybe like a corner inthe garage.
But now I got this whole damnbuilding to myself and you know
the mind can run rampant of whatI want to do.
But reality be like calm down,like I ain't got money for that,
(03:49):
I ain't got time for that, youknow.
But a man can dream and youknow who knows, over the next 10
, 20 years it might be what Iwant it to be.
I might surprise myself.
Be what I wanted to be, I mightsurprise myself.
So you know, pretty much that'sbeen the last week or the last
(04:11):
month really is just homeprojects.
You know DJ graduated.
That took up a lot of our timein the last month.
We got birthdays out the wazooright now.
You know, my youngest justturned five.
Uh, my second youngest nope,I'm sorry, my second oldest is
(04:31):
her birthday's this week comingup, wow.
So, yeah, we, we doing thebirthday thing and then we'll be
done for a while to furtherclose to the end of the year.
But you know, life is life andwe doing us over here, man, we
rolling with it.
So I appreciate y'all forjoining in.
(04:52):
I appreciate y'all for rollingwith us.
You know, shout out to the dayone listeners, shout out to the
new listeners.
You know this is a very muchappreciated thing that y'all
doing.
I guess y'all appreciate me too.
So it's appreciation all around.
So let me get on to the nextpart of this thing.
Man, I wanted to talk today I'mgoing to keep this episode
(05:18):
brief, man, because for realit's one of them just get it and
go type thing, but I wanted totalk about currency.
It was actually a conversationwith somebody that made me want
to talk about this, because theyhad no idea, like, what the
prison economy is like inside,you know.
(05:39):
And so every time it was likeevery two minutes of this
conversation, it was like theirmind was blown again and they
thought somehow money was justlike it is out here.
You know you got cash, you gotcredit, you got, you know, debit
cards and whatnot and I waslike, eh, kinda.
(06:02):
So in this episode I'm going totry to break down all the
different forms of currencyinside the prison and I'm sure I
will miss some, because youknow this is mostly from my own
experience.
But you know, in other statesI'm sure they got different
stuff going on In other, youknow in the feds, all that stuff
, other countries.
But I'm going to let it beknown right now money, all money
(06:28):
, ain't the same.
Money has a different valuebased on what it is, and in a
lot of ways it is like out here.
You know, you might have acredit card, it could be a visa
or a MasterCard and it might beaccepted everywhere.
But you might have somethinglike American Express that's
people are like, nah, we don'ttake that.
Or even some places nine daysthey're saying we don't take
(06:50):
cash.
Sorry, so it's the same on theinside.
So just to be blatant and notleave you guys in too much uh,
uh, x.
What's the word I'm looking forgood grief suspense wow, I was
on a whole other wrong startingletter.
Anyway, to not leave you in toomuch suspense, I'll let you
(07:13):
know right now that food inprison is like pretty much the
best bet.
The best bet.
Another standard currency isstamps like pre-stamped
envelopes or like a book ofstamps.
But it's all about who you'redealing with and what you're
dealing for.
(07:33):
So in general, pretty much youcan pay anybody with a book of
stamps or stamped envelopes.
But certain people I meanthat's not what they're into
they're going to tell you stampsgot half value, you know.
And then if you gotstate-issued stamps, which you
know, they could either have novalue or even less value.
(07:56):
So it depends on what situationyou're in, but pretty much
anybody except stamps, because Imean there was a time when I
ran a store in prison and I wasalso shooting tattoos and so
many people wanted to pay me instamps.
I don't know why they had somany, but I remember sending
(08:18):
home a package so my familycould cash in the stamps at the
post office.
Man, I must have had like athousand stamped envelopes,
which is crazy to imagine.
But you know, hey, it's realmoney, you know.
As far as the economy goesinside.
But food, you know we're talkingabout the have-nots.
(08:40):
But food, you know we'retalking about the have-nots.
You know so if your choice isto go to the cafeteria you know
the chow hall and eat, or tohave food in your box to eat,
man, everybody hands down isgoing to go for the food in a
box.
So the food in your box couldpotentially have a higher value
(09:02):
than standard.
You know.
So if you say, like soups,ramen noodle soups, that right,
there is, like the US dollar,everybody got one, everybody's
seen one and it's preferred, youknow.
But how many soups can youconvey, right?
So when you need to pay ahigher price, now all of a
(09:24):
sudden we're talking aboutyou're going to go buy a TV in
$0.25, $0.50 increments withsoups.
Nah, we're going to needsomething better than that.
So you can use little debbies,bags of coffee.
That's pretty much how that'slike going from ones to like
fives and tens.
(09:44):
That's pretty much how that'slike going from ones to like
fives and tens.
You know, usually coffee manholds a very high value and
sweets.
So if you got any type oflittle Debbie's, the more exotic
and hard to get, the higher thevalue, you know, and I'm
(10:05):
telling you, man, I have boxesof cosmic brownies Don't let it
be no holiday.
And they got the little zebracakes and Christmas trees and
all that because, man, peoplewas on it.
And we would actually writeletters, like they call it a
kite.
We would write kites to thecommissary, I don't know
administrator or whatever, andwe would ask them to get certain
(10:26):
stuff, because we knew if theycame in there with like some,
you know, some caramel bars,some apple crumbles or something
like that, like we was going tobuy them all because they only
going to have maybe a month andyou ain't going to see them
again for a year.
So all of a sudden now you'resitting on a gold mine.
It's like an investment in thestock market, you know.
So that's how we got down.
(10:51):
You wanted anything like hey,man um, say, you don't got money
on your phone.
Hey, why don't you sell me aphone call?
Like all right, man Um, a phonecall nowadays might cost 50
cents.
But you might tell somebody,you know, give me $2.
Well, what that means is a $2equivalent.
They're going to go to thestore.
You could ask for somethingspecific.
You know, give me a bag ofcoffee, I'll give you a call.
You know whether you got moneyon your phone or not, or whether
(11:16):
you're on phone restriction,whether you need a.
You know a three-way call,anything like that.
You know, give me $5.
Give me $2, anything like that.
You don't give me five dollars,give me two dollars, whatever.
So give me the equivalent.
But you know we talked aboutcontraband in prison before we
talked about the hustle.
So if y'all ain't hear that, goahead and check out the catalog
, man, because we got some greatepisodes.
(11:37):
But you know, I said I used toshoot tattoos.
I, I shot tattoos and I ran astore.
So money as far as commodities,food stamps, sodas and all that
stuff.
But I had it on on thatplethora of it to the point
(12:04):
where I paid the person in thecell next to me to have like
basically a warehouse, to usetheir cell as a warehouse.
I stuffed boxes of LittleDebbies under their bed and
stuff, you know, and I paid themweekly to house all of that.
But when it came to tattoos nowwe're talking about I made
really shooting tattoos theamount of money that some people
(12:29):
make out here working a areally good job, you know.
Um, this was in.
Let me see, this is in 2010.
I would say I would say 2009 to2011, 2012, something like that
.
I was shooting tattoos and Iwas charging people $40 an hour
for, like, if it was somethingsmall and quick, minimum $40.
(12:51):
And once I had the store, itwas so stacked up I didn't want
you to pay me in.
You know, soups and debbies andKool-Aid and sodas.
You know I was like yo, you gotto ask somebody, paypal my
people some money or somethingyou know, because you know cash
app something.
And so they would.
(13:13):
You know, I would follow themup to the phone.
They would call their family.
Hey, you know, send X amount ofmoney to you know this cash app
account.
All right, I would call mypeople, make sure that it, the
money, went through.
And then, boom, we go in thereand shoot tattoos all day, all
(13:34):
night, you know, until we hittheir their limit or whatever.
But my dude who ended up beingmy bunkie because you know we
had, we had a lot, we had ablock on lock man, we was
enterprising Um, he made Hoochand for those of you who don't
know what hooch is, it's, it hasmany names.
(13:56):
You know it's basically, um,homemade liquor.
It can be made out of anythingand I mean some people call it
toilet wine, some people uh, uh,that it's really got a million
different names.
But the point is, man, like itwas a hot commodity you can make
(14:23):
it out of, we made it out ofmixed fruit and you know, we
bring back oranges.
You know, in prison they giveyou the oranges that really
they're not that sweet andthey're kind of hard, so nobody
eat them.
There'd be a whole pile, maybe20 oranges, on each table in the
chow hall and we would have.
(14:43):
We'd be paying guys to bringthem back for us.
You know, one guy could fitprobably 20 oranges in his pants
, in his shirt.
You know, tuck your shirt in,put them down your shirt, tuck
your pant legs into your socks,whatever, and walk back to the
block and have a whole group ofpeople walk around you so you
don't, you know, stand out toomuch.
But I mean, with that we was,we was killing the game.
(15:07):
I mean, you got one batch ofhooch we weren't selling to the
average inmate, we would go toorganized gangs.
You got the Crips, the Bloods,the GDs In Ohio.
You got Heartless Felons.
You got Aryan BrotherhoodSkinheads.
We had all of them.
(15:29):
We dealt business with all ofthem, regardless of our own gang
affiliations at the time.
So we actually sold hooch tothe Aryan Brotherhood, you know,
and we would like they will buythe whole batch, they not
buying it by the bottle, by thecup, nothing like that.
So they will come like yo, Iheard you got, you know, a batch
(15:51):
coming up Like is it good, theyain't want none of the
low-grade stuff.
They actually wanted us todistill it.
You know, in there they call itclear.
So we would actually have tocook the hooch to distill it.
And you know, hey, man, I got$500.
(16:11):
I got $1,000.
And they would send it like itwas nothing.
You know they, hey, man, I got$500, I got $1,000, and they
would send it like it wasnothing, you know.
So that's where them PayPaltransactions and stuff.
But now we talking about cashequivalent, we talking about
PayPal transactions.
You know, people do get creditin there and credit is king.
(16:33):
But credit is dangerous and I'msure y'all know that from being
out here in the free world,credit is the best thing.
You know, hey, you can go insomewhere and you say, hey, man,
give me $100,000.
And they'll be like okay, hereyou go, here's the terms, and
guess what?
You mess around and can't paythat money back.
They're going to be on your ass.
(16:55):
It's the same way it is inprison, man.
If you run up a tab and I knowpeople that have ran up extreme
tabs with multiple people, tothe point where they were
literally in fear of their livesand they went to the
administration like, hey man, Ineed y'all to send me to a
different prison, you know.
And then poof, they disappearand you got everybody sitting
(17:18):
there.
Don't think that going to adifferent prison gets you out of
it, because people know peopleat other prisons and the worst
thing you can do is be in aplace where you don't know
nobody, but people know you andthey looking for you.
So, anyway, credit is a thing.
You got the from the low tier.
(17:42):
Two for one, hey man, let meget you know a bag of coffee
until store day, you know, onWednesday, or whatever.
Okay, well, you know, give metwo back, you know.
Or or two for three, you know,give me, I'll give you two, you
two, you give me three back, youknow, that's usually how you
make money running the store.
Um, all the way up to.
You know I was shooting tattoos.
He's running hooch like, hey,let me get that.
You know more more often I meanyou got guys that did real drugs
(18:06):
in prison and they were soknown for getting money or you
know whatever hustle that theyhad going on that they could go
to the drug man and be like, hey, let me get $100.
You know I'm good for it and itwas just like here.
They write your name in aledger somewhere, you know, and
that was that.
(18:26):
But those are the mostdangerous people to run credit
with, because you know, when itcomes to drugs, if you can't pay
, it's pretty much over for you.
The violence is off the Richter.
You know shit can really hitthe fan and it can hit the fan
right in front of the CEOs.
They don't care, and it hashappened plenty of times.
(18:48):
I've seen it happen plenty oftimes, unfortunately.
Plenty of times.
I've seen it happen plenty oftimes, unfortunately.
But you know there's all thesealternate forms of currency, but
cash does exist in prison.
You know.
I don't want people to thinkthat it's like this thing that
(19:09):
you don't see until you get out.
You may not, depending on whatsocial circles you run in out
you may not, depending on whatsocial circles you run in, but
if you're in the mix especiallyin the drug game and the cell
phones and the you know realhigh price stuff like you're
going to see some cash hit yourhand.
And the first time I seen somecash hit my hand it blew my mind
(19:29):
.
I was probably three years inprison.
And this is when cash changed.
This is when the big face youknow hunters came out and they
had the blue and the orange andall that shit on the paper
Somebody gave you that.
I was like what the fuck isthat?
I didn't even know what it was,and that just goes to show how
things change on the outsidewhile you're in prison.
(19:51):
Because this dude handed me a$100 bill and I treated it as if
it was worthless because Ididn't know.
But you know I did business withthat individual so much and he
would just come and hand me cash, hand me cash, hand me cash,
and I didn't know what to dowith it.
So I was rolling these $100bills up and putting them in my
(20:15):
art kit and, like pen tubes, youknow, I was rolling them up and
putting them on a string andlacing the string through my
hoodie or through my pants orwhatever you know, because I
just, I just ain't know what todo with them.
I really, I really trust youknow nobody to like send it home
(20:37):
to or how I can send it home.
I know if they would monitor mymail.
One day they cut a randomenvelope open and you know
there's a thousand dollars, ahundred dollar bills in there.
Well, I just lost a thousanddollars and I got to explain
that they instantly gonna raiseyour security level.
I don't care what securitylevel you're at, like, if you're
(20:58):
at a minimum, you about to be ahigh security level, right,
instantly.
Usually, when they raise yoursecurity level, you go up one
step at a time.
So you go from a minimum to alow, to a medium, to a close,
which is monitor movement, uh,to a high, to a super max.
Um, so like you get caught withcash, cell phones, anything
(21:22):
like that, you might as wellpack your shit because you ain't
gonna be in the mix for toolong.
They gonna send you straight,like they will literally put you
on a in a transport the nextday.
You know, ain't no waiting fora ride out, like you gone.
So you know, cash is still kingin prison and really it's only
(21:44):
exchanged at the highest levelsof transactions.
So usually, like I said, drugs,cell phones, you know organized
crime, you know stuff of thatsort.
But when we talk about like,like, say, mid-level stuff, you
(22:06):
know I went to the soups.
Soups is standard currency.
Food is, you know, pretty muchthe average man's goal.
The more exotic the food or theharder it is to get, the more
it's worth.
And so in prison in Ohio you'reallowed to order I think it's
two food boxes a day fromapproved vendors and in these
(22:31):
food boxes, you know, yourfamily can go online and order
them for you have it sent fromthe vendor to the prison and you
get, man, if you're like me,you get all the stuff you can't
get anywhere else.
So I remember telling stories tomy mom when I would call her,
(22:52):
you know, to my girlfriend atthe time or whatever, and they'd
be like oh, what you doing.
I'd be like, oh, man, you knowjust cooked a meal.
You know me and a homie cookeda meal.
Oh, what y'all eating?
Oh, roast beef.
You know there's the episode wetalked about food where me and
Joe was making lasagna.
We made spaghetti squash, youknow, like we were really just
(23:17):
doing the damn thing.
We were eating really good inthere and it was because when
people owed us money, especiallypeople that didn't regularly
have money, we would just say,oh, man, don't pay me in.
You know random food items,soups and envelopes and coffee.
(23:39):
I would say, man, order me afood box in your name.
You know cause.
You know your family's notgoing to send you food boxes.
You're only allowed to get twoa year.
You're not going to use yourtwo allotment.
Go ahead and use one of them toorder me a food box.
So if you owe me a hundreddollars, I'm going to say, man,
just order me a hundred dollarfood box.
Um, or send the money to myfamily and they'll order the
(24:02):
food box in your name so theycould max it out, cause there's
a certain amount of weight thatyou can have on there and once
you hit the maximum weight, thenyou're done.
So when you have roast beef,when you have all these exotic
seasonings that you can't onlyget like you know I'm ordering
(24:22):
pretty much in prison all youget is salt, pepper, italian
seasoning and the soup packetsfrom the ramen noodles.
You know we were getting likevegetable flakes, mrs Dash, and
all this other stuff.
We getting roast beef, wegetting chicken, shredded
chicken, we getting, you know,chili, we getting all types of
(24:43):
stuff.
So that's when I was saying youcome pay somebody with that,
like they like, oh shit, like,if it costs you $3 and you going
to do a regular transaction,that $3 might be double, it
might be $6, you know.
So, pretty much that's how itis.
It's pretty much a bartersystem on steroids.
(25:03):
You can pay with services too.
Everything is benign, as, like,I had a guy that ironed my
clothes for me.
I had a guy that did my laundry.
Uh, eventually I had a guy thatcleaned my cell.
Um, you know, I, uh, I was theguy who, uh, at the beginning of
my bit, I drew pictures forpeople.
(25:26):
I wrote poems for people'sgirlfriends on Valentine's day
you know I'm a handmade cardsand, uh, you know, and all this
different stuff.
Man, I would draw portraits onhandkerchiefs and everything.
So that's pretty much how myhustle hand started and how I
survived in prison Because, likeI said, this is the have-nots.
I started off with a nicelittle chunk of change on my
(25:47):
books, but I didn't really knowthe value of the money I had.
So I blew it quick and then Ihad to figure out how to survive
.
And in prison, man, when theprison climate really gets bad
like we did the episode aboutdrugs in prison recently when
(26:08):
the prison climate gets bad,when a prison climate gets bad,
it's kind of like when the poorusurp the rich.
There's people in there wholive very comfortable if you can
be comfortable in prison andit's because they're what we
call prison rich.
They're stable.
They know they got money comingin.
(26:30):
Maybe they run a store, maybethey got family that send them
money, maybe they got money thatthey squirreled away from the
outside.
Whatever it is, they're inthere with the plush you know,
velour clothes, blankets and thematching towels on the floor
that they use as area rugs.
They're eating pretty much outof their box.
(26:50):
They're never going to thechild hall.
There was a time where I didn'tgo to the child hall for four
years.
When you got it it ain't evenworth the trip.
I had a guy I paid to cook forme.
It's really like a balance inyour checkbook thing out here.
You know it's like okay, howmuch money I got.
Okay, how much can I put out.
(27:12):
I got to pay this dude 50 centsto iron my clothes.
I got to pay this guy $2 toclean my sale.
I got to pay this guy $5 amonth to do my laundry.
You know so, you know youbalance that checkbook.
You got stuff coming in, yougot stuff coming out and, to be
(27:32):
honest, man, it was prettyamazing.
It's pretty amazing because ifyou can step out of the current
moment you know thinking aboutit first person, you know I was
in prison.
I'm thinking about it firstperson I was able to step out of
the moment and see the biggerpicture, like, damn, this prison
economy is booming.
(27:53):
You know, like, if any of youguys follow politics or you know
the government, gdp and stufflike that like one prison, one
block, what's cellblock in aprison has a GDP.
And if it was to be, if somenerd was to do a story and
(28:14):
calculate the GDP of one block,I mean really in one cell block,
you could have, I don't know,50, depending on the size I mean
.
So let's say, when I was inToledo there were, I think there
were, 90 people to a pod andthen there were three pods on
(28:39):
each floor.
So six pods per block, I wouldsay each one of those pods alone
was probably doing 50 grand inillicit currency exchanges every
, I would say, month, everymonth, $50,000, $60,000, change
your hands.
You know you got like I said.
(29:01):
You got guys shooting tattoos.
You got guys selling hooch.
You got guys selling tobacco.
You got guys selling hooch.
You got guys selling tobacco.
You got guys selling weed,selling meth, selling heroin.
You got guys, you know, makingpictures and cards.
You know there's guys thatbuild sculptures we talked about
mush faking in one of ourprevious episodes and they're
(29:21):
selling those damn sculpturesfor $150 sometimes, man, and
they're selling those damnsculptures for $150 sometimes,
man.
It's insane and real money.
They'll sell it to the staff.
You know you got guys makingcandy, guys making food,
empanadas and you know whatever.
Like it's really a booming,thriving economy and all this
(29:48):
currency is transactions of somesort.
Currency some sort or anotheris exchanging hands.
So from the outsider peoplethat never been to prison, like
it's hard to imagine likesomebody has the potential to be
living kind of good in therereally.
I mean cause, and it's kind ofeasy, easier to understand how
(30:09):
some people come back to theoutside world and they can't
seem to adjust and it's becausethe rules have changed.
You know, like now I have to goget a job and I have to make a
set amount of money per hour andI have to pay taxes and I have
this.
It's so much oversight thatit's like you know, in prison,
(30:32):
no matter how good or benignyour hustle hustle is, it's
contraband, it's illicit.
You're not allowed to exchangeproperty or money of any sort
inside a prison.
It it's in the rule book.
So anything you do is breakingthe rules.
(30:52):
So when you come home, it's likeit's pretty much especially if
you've ever sold drugs, it'spretty much probably one of the
main contributors to somebodygoing back to what they used to
do, especially if they starthitting roadblocks.
You know, if you come home andyou're trying to do it right and
you're trying to get a job andyou're getting the door slammed
(31:14):
in your face every time, it'sprobably a good chance that
you're going to be like man, letme figure out some hustle Same
stuff you did in prison me.
Figure out some hustle samestuff you did in prison, but out
here the dollar's not as strong, you know, it's not as strong.
(31:37):
The dollar's 10 times as strongin prison.
So when you come out here.
There is no, you know.
Oh, you know I'm going to drawpictures.
And yeah, you could.
You could start a business anddo that.
That's slow, it's going to takeforever In prison.
You start drawing pictures, youpretty much roll in.
The next day you at the heightof your business within a week.
You know, out here, like I said, it's more oversight Now.
You got to advertise it's amacro environment, a
(32:04):
macroeconomic situation insteadof a microeconomic situation.
So you're going to go for themost profitable hustle you can
find, which is usually drugs.
You know, don't get me wrong.
There's plenty of stories thatyou see around town people
cooking out of their kitchenselling plates Best food ever,
you know.
And eventually you know, shoutout to my dude Chef Hero Started
(32:25):
off cooking plates, got him afood truck, you know.
And eventually, you know, shoutout to my dude Chef, hero
Started off cooking plates, gothim a food truck, you know, got
him a storefront.
Next thing, you know, multiplestorefronts.
Next thing, you know, he inreal estate, he boxing, he doing
all this stuff.
That is a perfect story ofsomebody who took that hustle
mentality and just took it tothe max from.
You know, step by step, justtook it to the max from, you
(32:50):
know, step by step.
But coming home from prison, youknow, really, you don't really
have that patience.
You don't have the luxury ofpatience.
You got your PO on your asssaying you got to get a job.
But even if you do get a job, Imean, a lot of times there
ain't enough to pay the bills.
But you got to pay your PO too,and if you don't pay your PO
they can send you back to prison.
So now you're looking for thatway, that hustle, so you can pay
(33:12):
the prison bailiff to keep offthe ass or whatever you know.
So anyway, I've rambled enough.
I've given you guys, I feellike, a good picture of what
currency is in a prison and ifyou guys got any questions, any
further questions of whatcurrency is in prison, please
(33:32):
let me know.
You know what the socials areFacebook, instagram we do have
Twitter, tiktok, you knowwherever you want and email
stories at lockdownthelegacycom.
Hit me up, send me yourquestions.
Even if it's not about currency, whatever it is, I would love
to discuss the topic on one ofour episodes, all right, so for
(33:53):
now, I'm about to leave y'allwith that nice little uh-huh to
think about.
Right, I just put something onyour mind.
Take it and run Peace.
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