September 25, 2024 • 29 mins
We dive into the history, development, misuse, controversy of, and hidden world of prison toilets.
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Music:
Intro and Outro: Music Derived from "Barroom Ballet" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Transition Music: Blossoming by Podington Bear. www.podingtonbear.com Artist: Podington Bear --
Sources:
https://dudefoods.com/how-make-your-own-prison-wine/
https://www.acornvac.com/everything-to-know-about-prison-toilets
https://www.acornvac.com/how-it-works-prisons-jails-and-correctional-facilities
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Hunter Hoover (00:01):
You know, dirk's a turd. He probably
vapes. He probably vapes in the bathroom and
doesn't respect his mom like an idiot.
Welcome back to privy. Privy is
a podcast about bathrooms
recorded in my home
(00:22):
bathroom. I'm your host, hunter
Hoover, and I love bathrooms.
Welcome back, everyone. It's strange,
uh, if you're hearing this, it's only. It's been
the same normal amount of time since I last
was here with you on the podcast, but it has been
well over a month. I had a little peek behind the curtain. I
had a little bit of stuff banked, and I have started
(00:45):
back at the high school. Um, and
my banked episodes are now gone.
So, um, here I am, late night. Not
super late, but late for me. I am an old man.
Um, late night record, uh, just
to get caught up here and get
back into the swing of things. The good news
is that we are well on our way out
(01:07):
of the heat. The awfulness that has
been the heat of summer. The trees are starting to turn a
little bit red. The pumpkin spice
is back in stock and in
season, and things are looking
up for fall consequences of
pumpkin spice. It seems to have gotten
(01:27):
more expensive, as did everything. And also,
pumpkin spice, when it is. When it is in the
form of coffee, seems to just fly
through me at a rate that. I mean,
coffee does that, but the pumpkin
spice variant seems to fly through me at a rate that
is. That is unique to pumpkin spice. I don't know
(01:48):
if the pun. If it's the pumpkin or the spice, I'm gonna blame
the vegetable, as I usually do. Uh,
but, yeah, it just seems to really cruise right through me.
And. And now, you know, more than. Than you
ever hoped or. Or could ever possibly
dream to know about pumpkin spices
effect on my. I would
(02:08):
say gut health. Um, yeah, gut health
is good. Or gutted. Gut
unhealth, depending on how you look at it.
As I said, I'm back to work at the high school,
and, um, one of the things.
And the bathroom calls have already been happening.
I was but two weeks in, and I'm standing in the hallway,
(02:28):
and a girl comes out of the bathroom, and she tells me that, um,
there's blood everywhere. And I'm like, first of
all, I used to be a janitor. So, like,
I know I have that, like, this guy has seen some
stuff in the bathroom look. But, like,
I'm sitting here thinking, like, as a young lady,
I would have wanted to tell anybody but a male
(02:49):
adult about any sort of blood in the
women's bathroom. Like, that's just in my
brain. I would not want to cross
that. But, man, she had no, she had no problem
letting me know. I get on the horn to the, to the
custodian, like, hey, um, hate to be this
guy, and I bet you're wondering why this radio
call is coming from, again, adult male. Um, but
(03:11):
yeah, there's report of blood in the, in the girl's bathroom.
It's just this, it's just this crap that, like,
I'm almost thinking, like, go find a female
trusted adult and tell them about the blood.
But happy fall.
One of my coworkers at the high school, um, she often
says something that, that
(03:32):
rings very true, and that is, is
that this, this coworker, she doesn't like to go to the
bathroom in front of people, which is a fair, which is a fair
thing. Um, to not like. It's not that I don't like, it's
not that I like going to the bathroom in front of people. I
just. I'm kind of agnostic on that point. Like,
I'm. I'm kind of bathroom fluid, if you will. I'll,
I'll go to the bathroom if there's people in the bathroom, if there's people
(03:54):
outside the bathroom, if the stall doors open,
it's really all the same. Uh, the experience
is, I guess it's a little different. Most people are more afraid of
you than you are of them. If you don't shut the stall door, is what I
found. But she doesn't like to go to the bathroom in front of
people. And she has remarked that that fear of
having to use the restroom in front of people you do
(04:14):
nothing know is what has kept her
out of prison. Now, the us
prison system has fallen under
much scrutiny. Some at the
criticism of bad premises, that the
prison system fails to do what it is supposed to
do, um, which seems to say that there aren't really
(04:35):
any real crimes and people are just the product
of their circumstance, la deda, so forth and
so on. Prisons, however, do serve a
purpose. Um,
some have questioned the purpose of prisons. Do
they do what that purpose is? Um,
the idea was that they were to reform people and give a
(04:55):
chance to, uh, uh,
perhaps come out of prison better than they went in,
I think was one of the desires and goals.
But others have questioned how effective
is prison? We here on
privy desire and plan
to tackle none of those problems this
week. Rather, if you do the
(05:17):
crime, you do the time, but while
you do the time, you will have access to a
toilet. And this week on privy we're
talking all about that access
as we dive into the world of
prison bathrooms. Prison toilets.
(05:41):
If you're listening to this episode from a
prison bathroom, I don't know if you're allowed to send
emails, um,
but email us. Privycastmail.com
um, the idea of prison bathrooms and where
you would go if you went to jail.
Uh, prisons prior to the
18 hundreds were less about
(06:02):
changing those who had done wrong and reforming
them. That's where this idea of reformatories comes in.
But the prison system prior to the 18 hundreds
was really less concerned, um, with
that. Rather, it was more
about holding the person in prison
and in jail until they were either
(06:23):
sentenced to their full punishment, killed,
or removed to some other
place that, you know, who knows where they end up?
It's difficult to say. You know, back then,
there wasn't this big push to really keep
track of where everything was and where everyone was.
But it wasn't until there was a shift in
(06:44):
seeing what changes prison
or penitentiaries could make in a person,
whether they could make them penitent
penitentiaries. Um,
and for a lot of the history of prisons, it wasn't
until those changes took place that the
idea of where they went to the bathroom was of a chief
(07:04):
concern for a lot of history
and a lot of the history of prisons. Uh,
your toilet was often a plastic
bucket placed in your room to be used
for all of your functions, top, top, bottom,
and bottom, round two. And that bucket would be emptied
once per day. And that was in the good situations.
(07:25):
There were some situations in those
pre prison era prisons where you
were expected to skeet it in the corner, you have to establish
a pea corner. Dwight Schrute taught us that.
Um, but it is reported
that the American Bar association
states that those under
(07:45):
incarceration, so those who have been incarcerated
have the right to regular access
to public bathroom amenities at any
time. And those public
bathroom amenities must be
reasonably clean, have reasonable
function, and have a minor level of
privacy under the 8th amendment of the
(08:08):
constitution, um, barring
the use of cruel and unusual punishment.
So, in other words,
in time,
as the prison systems have changed, so too
have the laws, uh, that
surround and the rights that the people in those
(08:29):
systems have. Now,
we're not here to make an argument about whether or
not those rights should exist and to what extent.
Rather, we are reporting what is the
history of prison toilet. One of the
solutions they have undergone in
many prison facilities where there are sufficient funds
(08:50):
to do so, um, is they have just opted
to put, like,
open faced toilets. Toilets in
each cell. Well, not open face. That's a different situation. We're gonna get to
that. But, like, toilets in each cell, for
individual inmates to have their own toilet.
Now, this makes prison
facilities legally abiding with that bar
(09:12):
associations ruling about toilets. But in a
world where prison inmates love
being in their cell, because my understanding is, is when
you tell a person, hey, you need to sit in this box and you're not allowed
to leave, nine times out of ten, they really enjoy it.
Right? Like, they're. They're super happy about that.
No. Um, um. For the audio only
(09:33):
viewer, you didn't see my. My stupid face,
but no, they don't.
And these toilets, you would then
presume, would be a source of relief to the inmates
and those guarding them. All parties involved have
a place to drop a stack. But prison
toilets end up being
the source of much trouble and frustration
(09:55):
to the prison staff, especially
in these individual cell toilets known as
wet cells. Wet
cells. Speaking of wet.
Yeah.
Oh, it's got a grip and
rip. We gotta keep things moist here on the show,
(10:15):
you know, just keep it real damp.
But wet cells often come equipped.
Wet cells sounds bad, by the way. Wet cells
often come equipped with a toilet and
a sink, which both share a
water line in some way. Um, usually
these toilets and sinks are often made from stainless
(10:37):
steel. Think, uh, about, like,
parks and recreation bathrooms if you've ever been to,
like, a park or a campsite, that. That
stainless steel vibe. Yeah, they do it for a
reason. As was noted, many prisoners
don't like to be in prison. Get
it? I know it's weird, but as
a way to get a break from their cell, these wet
(10:59):
cells, they would clog the toilet, make it
back up or flood into their cell. So then they would have
to be removed from their cell while it
is being cleaned. In situations where maybe
they share a cell with a cellmate,
this is done sometimes to get back at the
cellmate or to get away from the cellmate for some
(11:19):
time. It's really a roll of the dice,
though. I think prisons should have a set of
rooms that are just slightly less comfortable
than the regular cells, where the inmate will have
to live until they can correct the problem they've
caused. Like, if you. If you
jam, like, pillowcase after pillowcase and. And
you're just wadding toilet paper all up into
(11:42):
that. All up into that toilet, and you just jam pack
that g just like Bink
and it's just stuffed full,
and then you flood your
cell, you should not get what you want
like, put them in a slightly less comfortable
cell while it's cleaned. Not permanent. It's just a holding
pattern. Um, and maybe they'll do it less
(12:05):
often. I don't know. That's just my thought.
But as a way to get a break, they'll sometimes do
this. Um, and
this doesn't always work. In some prisons, they have
begun using a vacuum plumbing system,
which we're going to be discussing a little bit as a solution to these
problems. Another problem
(12:27):
with prison, uh, toilets is
the overuse of water.
It's estimated that inmates flush their
toilet anywhere between 35 and 65
times a day. Now, it is not that they are dropping
that many piles. Rather, it
seems that
this act of flushing the toilet is an
(12:49):
act. It's something they can control about their
surroundings. Um, it's also like, I
imagine you get bored of, and if you're bored, you're going to
look to all sorts of things to entertain yourself.
And for many inmates, flushing the toilet is one of the
things that gives them some sort of feedback.
Prison toilets are constructed, as I noted, out of this stainless
(13:10):
steel, often to cut down on vandalism.
If you bust up a porcelain toilet, you're going
to have shards of porcelain that could
very well be used as a weapon. And as you can
guess, the toilets cause problems in
more ways than just clogging. Prison
bathrooms, much like bathrooms
(13:30):
literally everywhere on in the universe,
can be a means of disposing of all sorts
of types of things. I've told the story on the pod before
about how I had to, like, scissor
a diaper, uh, out of an s bend of the
toilet. People will flush all sorts of
nonsense, crappy shreds, you know,
(13:51):
toilet paper, sometimes feminine hygiene products don't do
that. Wipes evidence in
contraband. When you're getting ready to be searched,
can be flushed down prison toilets.
Prisoners with access to toilets
have access to the means by which they can flush
evidence or other contraband down those toilets. Now,
I'm not saying that prisoners should not have access to toilets. They
(14:13):
absolutely need a place to drop a stack.
But the truly sneaky of them who have come
by some sort of string, could even tie it off
in some way, flush it, and then retrieve the
contraband later. In some prison
toilet systems, prisoners, uh, can actually
send messages to one another via the
prison toilets. One simple way is to
(14:36):
empty out the water from the toilet, like the
bowl itself. Um,
and then you can kind of talk
into the toilet,
uh, whose water has been
emptied that shares a
main plumbing line with yours. You know, those, like,
weird, like, playground message
(14:57):
tubes with the cones at the end of it.
And the yellow jackets love to nest
in those cones. Um, and then you go
up, and then you, like, stick your face up to it and you shout into
the cone, praying to God in heaven
that the yellow jackets don't fly out at your face. Um,
and so that way, your friend, who is 30ft away,
(15:18):
who, by the way, obviously just heard what you said because
you're 30ft away and you screamed it, um,
can pretend like he didn't hear you outside the
comb, but he heard it through the
comb. Um, and then you stick your ear up to
it again. See? Yellowjacket comment from
before. And then he pretends to, like,
scream into the cone. Well, this
(15:40):
toilet phoning like thing is kind of like that,
except for you're shouting into your toilet
bowl. They can also pass things to each
other using this, this emptying the toilet bowl
method. Um, it's called
toilet fishing. Instead of catching
fish, however, or passing turds,
inmates will attach pieces of paper or other
(16:02):
material to a string called kites and
flush them down the pipe to the person
down the plumbing line to receive them.
It is noted some inmates have been known to
pass drugs, weapons, and food in this way. And you might be
hearing this and thinking, how do they catch it?
I get the one guy passing it, but how does the next guy get
(16:24):
it? The inmate receiving the items will
shove a bit of bedding and clothing down into the toilet,
clogging it. And when the sending inmate passes
by, when it runs through the system, because it's
like a connected line, it gets caught and then they
just pull it up through with the clothing.
Apparently this is evidenced in a Netflix
(16:45):
drama called jailbirds not seen. It probably won't.
Too much tv to watch,
and I just don't care. But the
inmates in this, who are also
somehow contestants. Reality tv is weird, but
it makes you really question the quality of prison systems here in
the US. I'm just saying. But. But these inmates on the
show will actually try to date each
(17:07):
other. Like they're going on.
Like they're sending each other like
salacious toilet
kites through their various correspondence,
sent through these pooper pipes. It's a wild
world that they live in, but
it's wild beyond belief.
Prisonmingle.com TMTM
(17:28):
TMTM Other, perhaps less
nefarious uses for the prison
toilet include cooking, unsanctioned, um,
food, or food purchases from
the commissary or otherwise. Many of these
concoctions scream of
an incarcerated witch's brew. They're a mix of a
lot of things together. Whatever you can get, toss
(17:51):
it in. There's many famous
prison toilet bowl recipes. One
famous toilet bowl recipe is to make prison
wine. Toilet wine. Um, or as it's
called, prison hooch.
Colloquially, it's known as pruno. One
famous recipe for pruno calls for a one gallon
plastic bag, ten oranges, 8oz of fruit
(18:13):
cocktail, some sugar cubes, six teaspoons of ketchup,
and a towel. I want to note
the trash bag in this recipe is used
in place of the toilet bowl. Nothing
like mixing up a batch of prison hooch in your toilet
bowl. Maybe something we need to try
sometime. Stay tuned.
(18:34):
Some inmates will do their laundry in the toilet if they
don't want to wait until laundry day, or
they're cooking to freshen things. Uh, or they're
looking to freshen things up. Perhaps one of their
toilet note passing dates. Uh, meet
me at yard time. You know what I'm saying? It is
fascinating. Yeah, it's weird.
(18:54):
Others might use their toilet to stay
cool, the water in the bowl being
cooler, often dunking their head in it.
It's a tough look. It's a tough look. They'll
use this cooling ability to chill their milk. They'll put
things that they want to keep cooler down in the toilet
water. You got to do what a baby's got to do. What
(19:15):
a baby's got to do. There's a number of
problems surrounding prison
toilets, and we've noted that. But before
we look at some of these problems and maybe some
possible solutions, um, it is
important, I want to share a few
bathroom related prison
slang as it relates to bathrooms.
(19:37):
So, some prison bathroom slang
includes the term porcelain
termite. A porcelain termite is a
prisoner who breaks their toilet or sink
when they get angry. Not m sure where this
one comes from, but the name is outdated, as prisons have
pretty much gone away from porcelain. So this one's
(19:59):
probably not used too often anymore.
Another one is the term roadkill. Roadkill
refers to cigarette butts picked up by the side of
the road by prison work crews. They're brought back to the
facility, and the collected tobacco
is re rolled with toilet paper, thus, uh, creating your own
tobacco cigarettes. So, that's fun.
(20:20):
That, my friend, is the face of addiction,
and I'm the weirdo, uh, for snitching coffee out of the trash. In
college, time to feed the
warden is another way of
saying that you need to go to the bathroom. Well, it's time to
feed the warden. I'm not really sure where this comes from.
It seems just mean another one.
(20:40):
And this is going to transition us into some,
some bigger concerns as it relates to bathrooms. Is the
term Glock dookie. Glock dookie is
just foul. Um, and it's related to other
very, very nefarious activities
related to control and using what you
have, um, to assault or
get back at people. One common occurrence in
(21:02):
jail is other inmates
throwing or using their bodily fluids to
assault other inmates guards or
as a means of intimidation or power tactics.
To my coworker, who says
that their fear of going to the bathroom in front of other people is what
keeps them out of prison,
(21:23):
I get that fear. But for me, the aspect
of prison which would be much worse
is just people slinging skeet at
you or projectile urinating on
you in an attack, or to get something from you that's just
like, that's just awful. It's
wild. But one invention that has been
circling the Internet, um, and I believe it surfaced
(21:45):
as there was this podcaster that was sharing about his
time in prison, is a term called a Glock dookie. Now,
a Glock dookie is essentially a water bottle
or other container filled slightly with
water. And then you poop, pee,
whatever into the water bottle. Likely or, um,
is likely the case. My turret is usually bigger
(22:05):
than the top of a water bottle. And so, like,
it's hard to imagine
how you don't interface with the turd
first to get it into the standard size water
bottle. It's not worth thinking about. Maybe you got little sky,
tiny, little skinny little pencil turds. Let us
know. Privy castmail.com.
(22:26):
but you get the turds down into the water bottle,
mix it up with all of the other wet that you got in there, and really
shake that guy. And
then you just like, walk up to the person and
it sprays out the stank juice inside.
It shoots, hitting them in the face. It's wildly gross.
It is assault. And with all these, it's just
(22:47):
bad and disgusting. And with all these challenges
posed by prison bathrooms and prison toilets, there
needs to be something done to cut down on the nefarious
deeds that can and often are done
there.
It should be noted
there are other, often less
(23:09):
security prisons where it is standard to have the
toilets centrally located
for all of the inmates to go out and use
them, along with showers so the inmates can be tracked
coming and going by the guard on post.
But one method many prisons are turning to
to help cut down on shady bathroom
(23:30):
deeds is the use of vacuum centers
to help power the water supply and plumbing
of prison bathrooms. The way that these
vacuum centers works is this.
The interface of atmospheric pressure
at the point of the toilet bowl and
a constant vacuum pressure in the waste piping
(23:51):
network provides a highly efficient
flush. So, pretty much think of it as,
like, when you flush the toilet,
there is a vacuum that sucks
it out. It's just like. It's really got a whole Luigi's
mansion vacuum backpack vibe on those
turds. Um, but because of the
(24:11):
suction power of the turd vacuum
toilets, it uses only about half a gallon of
water, which is great. When the push button's
activated, the extraction valve opens.
Think like, camper bathroom toilets, they got a little
extraction thing, allowing atmospheric pressure to push
the waste into the vacuum piping and towards
the vacuum center. A water valve is also
(24:34):
activated, allowing the toilet to be rinsed and
refilled as a result. So, by using less water and
implementing that suction,
they can help clear the poop from the bowl more
efficiently, and, ah, as often the case,
quicker. The nice part about these systems
is when they are used appropriately, is
you can shut vacuums off to inmates cell
(24:56):
toilets. Individual like, oh, block 13
is getting searched. The toilet suction to block
13 is shut off. This is useful if you believe
there's contraband. You can shut the toilet
flush off, and then they
can't flush their toilet and get rid of the contraband
that is believed to be there. It's an interesting thing.
(25:16):
Likewise, much like a parent taking their teens phone so
they can't talk to their loser boyfriend, Dirk, they
kiboshed prison pipe dating.
You can't date through the pipe. And, you know, Dirk's a piece
of crap. You know, Dirk's a
turd. He probably vapes.
He probably vapes in the bathroom and doesn't respect his
(25:37):
mom. M like an idiot.
But these vacuum centers are pretty
useful. As noted, another technology
to decrease misuse is stainless
steel toilets and centrally located showers and bathrooms. We've
discussed this, and these things cut down on many of the
bathroom problems. But these guard controlled
toilets have been the discussion of another concern
(25:59):
in prisons and prison bathrooms,
because it's reported, and I imagine it is
happening, that the guards will shut off
inmates toilets as punishment or simply just
to mess with the prisoners. And while it is
reasonable to be able to shut off the water for limited
amounts of time, moving inmates searches, et
cetera, the American Bar association,
(26:22):
as we stated at the beginning of the episode, has
noted, um, that
they need access to clean,
um, water working
toilets. And so there's an ongoing
discussion about how long the inmate
can be kept in their cell with the water
off. In fact, in many
(26:44):
circles, when this is kept off for too long, it's
viewed and likely is a form of torture.
It's removing a reasonable,
reasonably expected and regular. Right
now, I understand that there's an argument
that's like, well, the person's in prison.
And I understand like, people do stuff that's wrong. And I'm not here to
like weigh in on whether or not I think that
(27:06):
they should be able to do this. I'm just telling you that there is an argument
on both sides that about for
and against these vacuum center
toilets. The other thing to remember
is prisons have changed so
much. What was once a bucket and
maybe even just a peek corner and something that was
viewed as a privilege and a courtesy has
(27:29):
now turned into the right,
the right to running and flushable water
for long periods, if not all periods of
time. Prison toilets are
weird. They're wild. Who knows what's going on. Apparently
we're dating each other through the toilet and I
pray that no privy listener makes their way to prison.
(27:49):
If you're in prison hearing this again, write to us. We'd love to hear from
you. Privycastmail.com. we'd love to get your
perspective, share your perspective on the toilets that you experience
there. But this is going to bring us
to the end of another episode of Privy. Thank you so
much for joining us. Um, thank you for being here.
As always. Leave us a rating, a review.
The five star option is our preferred and every review
(28:12):
left on Apple Podcasts and Spotify podcasts.
We will donate a, uh, dollar to the wounded warriors and living
water international, reminding you to keep pooping in the free world.
And that free world was not always free and some parts of it
are less free than others and don't have safe water.
Rating and review a reminder, we do have a sticker
shop. Um, it's very limited in that
(28:33):
when I'm out I will have to make more, but, um, you can
check that out at privy
dash, cast.com, at our website and at the top there
should be a link that will take you to the Google form to fill
out. I will admit it's a little clunky, um,
but in an attempt to, um,
see if there is interest, this is how we're doing it.
(28:54):
Uh, I want to thank Kevin McLeod and Poddington bear for
the use of their music this week. Thanks Kevin and Poddington. You
can check Kevin and Poddington's music out links in the
description below. This has been another episode of
Privy. Thank you so much for being here. Follow us on social at
privycast. Keep pooping in the free world. Own your
stank. Avoid the Glock dookie. And now,
(29:14):
as always, don't forget
to flush.
You know, dirk's a turd. He probably
vapes. He probably vapes in the bathroom and
doesn't respect his mom like an idiot.
Welcome back to privy. Privy is
a podcast about bathrooms
recorded in my home
(00:22):
bathroom. I'm your host, hunter
Hoover, and I love bathrooms.
Welcome back, everyone. It's strange,
uh, if you're hearing this, it's only. It's been
the same normal amount of time since I last
was here with you on the podcast, but it has been
well over a month. I had a little peek behind the curtain. I
had a little bit of stuff banked, and I have started
(00:45):
back at the high school. Um, and
my banked episodes are now gone.
So, um, here I am, late night. Not
super late, but late for me. I am an old man.
Um, late night record, uh, just
to get caught up here and get
back into the swing of things. The good news
is that we are well on our way out
(01:07):
of the heat. The awfulness that has
been the heat of summer. The trees are starting to turn a
little bit red. The pumpkin spice
is back in stock and in
season, and things are looking
up for fall consequences of
pumpkin spice. It seems to have gotten
(01:27):
more expensive, as did everything. And also,
pumpkin spice, when it is. When it is in the
form of coffee, seems to just fly
through me at a rate that. I mean,
coffee does that, but the pumpkin
spice variant seems to fly through me at a rate that
is. That is unique to pumpkin spice. I don't know
(01:48):
if the pun. If it's the pumpkin or the spice, I'm gonna blame
the vegetable, as I usually do. Uh,
but, yeah, it just seems to really cruise right through me.
And. And now, you know, more than. Than you
ever hoped or. Or could ever possibly
dream to know about pumpkin spices
effect on my. I would
(02:08):
say gut health. Um, yeah, gut health
is good. Or gutted. Gut
unhealth, depending on how you look at it.
As I said, I'm back to work at the high school,
and, um, one of the things.
And the bathroom calls have already been happening.
I was but two weeks in, and I'm standing in the hallway,
(02:28):
and a girl comes out of the bathroom, and she tells me that, um,
there's blood everywhere. And I'm like, first of
all, I used to be a janitor. So, like,
I know I have that, like, this guy has seen some
stuff in the bathroom look. But, like,
I'm sitting here thinking, like, as a young lady,
I would have wanted to tell anybody but a male
(02:49):
adult about any sort of blood in the
women's bathroom. Like, that's just in my
brain. I would not want to cross
that. But, man, she had no, she had no problem
letting me know. I get on the horn to the, to the
custodian, like, hey, um, hate to be this
guy, and I bet you're wondering why this radio
call is coming from, again, adult male. Um, but
(03:11):
yeah, there's report of blood in the, in the girl's bathroom.
It's just this, it's just this crap that, like,
I'm almost thinking, like, go find a female
trusted adult and tell them about the blood.
But happy fall.
One of my coworkers at the high school, um, she often
says something that, that
(03:32):
rings very true, and that is, is
that this, this coworker, she doesn't like to go to the
bathroom in front of people, which is a fair, which is a fair
thing. Um, to not like. It's not that I don't like, it's
not that I like going to the bathroom in front of people. I
just. I'm kind of agnostic on that point. Like,
I'm. I'm kind of bathroom fluid, if you will. I'll,
I'll go to the bathroom if there's people in the bathroom, if there's people
(03:54):
outside the bathroom, if the stall doors open,
it's really all the same. Uh, the experience
is, I guess it's a little different. Most people are more afraid of
you than you are of them. If you don't shut the stall door, is what I
found. But she doesn't like to go to the bathroom in front of
people. And she has remarked that that fear of
having to use the restroom in front of people you do
(04:14):
nothing know is what has kept her
out of prison. Now, the us
prison system has fallen under
much scrutiny. Some at the
criticism of bad premises, that the
prison system fails to do what it is supposed to
do, um, which seems to say that there aren't really
(04:35):
any real crimes and people are just the product
of their circumstance, la deda, so forth and
so on. Prisons, however, do serve a
purpose. Um,
some have questioned the purpose of prisons. Do
they do what that purpose is? Um,
the idea was that they were to reform people and give a
(04:55):
chance to, uh, uh,
perhaps come out of prison better than they went in,
I think was one of the desires and goals.
But others have questioned how effective
is prison? We here on
privy desire and plan
to tackle none of those problems this
week. Rather, if you do the
(05:17):
crime, you do the time, but while
you do the time, you will have access to a
toilet. And this week on privy we're
talking all about that access
as we dive into the world of
prison bathrooms. Prison toilets.
(05:41):
If you're listening to this episode from a
prison bathroom, I don't know if you're allowed to send
emails, um,
but email us. Privycastmail.com
um, the idea of prison bathrooms and where
you would go if you went to jail.
Uh, prisons prior to the
18 hundreds were less about
(06:02):
changing those who had done wrong and reforming
them. That's where this idea of reformatories comes in.
But the prison system prior to the 18 hundreds
was really less concerned, um, with
that. Rather, it was more
about holding the person in prison
and in jail until they were either
(06:23):
sentenced to their full punishment, killed,
or removed to some other
place that, you know, who knows where they end up?
It's difficult to say. You know, back then,
there wasn't this big push to really keep
track of where everything was and where everyone was.
But it wasn't until there was a shift in
(06:44):
seeing what changes prison
or penitentiaries could make in a person,
whether they could make them penitent
penitentiaries. Um,
and for a lot of the history of prisons, it wasn't
until those changes took place that the
idea of where they went to the bathroom was of a chief
(07:04):
concern for a lot of history
and a lot of the history of prisons. Uh,
your toilet was often a plastic
bucket placed in your room to be used
for all of your functions, top, top, bottom,
and bottom, round two. And that bucket would be emptied
once per day. And that was in the good situations.
(07:25):
There were some situations in those
pre prison era prisons where you
were expected to skeet it in the corner, you have to establish
a pea corner. Dwight Schrute taught us that.
Um, but it is reported
that the American Bar association
states that those under
(07:45):
incarceration, so those who have been incarcerated
have the right to regular access
to public bathroom amenities at any
time. And those public
bathroom amenities must be
reasonably clean, have reasonable
function, and have a minor level of
privacy under the 8th amendment of the
(08:08):
constitution, um, barring
the use of cruel and unusual punishment.
So, in other words,
in time,
as the prison systems have changed, so too
have the laws, uh, that
surround and the rights that the people in those
(08:29):
systems have. Now,
we're not here to make an argument about whether or
not those rights should exist and to what extent.
Rather, we are reporting what is the
history of prison toilet. One of the
solutions they have undergone in
many prison facilities where there are sufficient funds
(08:50):
to do so, um, is they have just opted
to put, like,
open faced toilets. Toilets in
each cell. Well, not open face. That's a different situation. We're gonna get to
that. But, like, toilets in each cell, for
individual inmates to have their own toilet.
Now, this makes prison
facilities legally abiding with that bar
(09:12):
associations ruling about toilets. But in a
world where prison inmates love
being in their cell, because my understanding is, is when
you tell a person, hey, you need to sit in this box and you're not allowed
to leave, nine times out of ten, they really enjoy it.
Right? Like, they're. They're super happy about that.
No. Um, um. For the audio only
(09:33):
viewer, you didn't see my. My stupid face,
but no, they don't.
And these toilets, you would then
presume, would be a source of relief to the inmates
and those guarding them. All parties involved have
a place to drop a stack. But prison
toilets end up being
the source of much trouble and frustration
(09:55):
to the prison staff, especially
in these individual cell toilets known as
wet cells. Wet
cells. Speaking of wet.
Yeah.
Oh, it's got a grip and
rip. We gotta keep things moist here on the show,
(10:15):
you know, just keep it real damp.
But wet cells often come equipped.
Wet cells sounds bad, by the way. Wet cells
often come equipped with a toilet and
a sink, which both share a
water line in some way. Um, usually
these toilets and sinks are often made from stainless
(10:37):
steel. Think, uh, about, like,
parks and recreation bathrooms if you've ever been to,
like, a park or a campsite, that. That
stainless steel vibe. Yeah, they do it for a
reason. As was noted, many prisoners
don't like to be in prison. Get
it? I know it's weird, but as
a way to get a break from their cell, these wet
(10:59):
cells, they would clog the toilet, make it
back up or flood into their cell. So then they would have
to be removed from their cell while it
is being cleaned. In situations where maybe
they share a cell with a cellmate,
this is done sometimes to get back at the
cellmate or to get away from the cellmate for some
(11:19):
time. It's really a roll of the dice,
though. I think prisons should have a set of
rooms that are just slightly less comfortable
than the regular cells, where the inmate will have
to live until they can correct the problem they've
caused. Like, if you. If you
jam, like, pillowcase after pillowcase and. And
you're just wadding toilet paper all up into
(11:42):
that. All up into that toilet, and you just jam pack
that g just like Bink
and it's just stuffed full,
and then you flood your
cell, you should not get what you want
like, put them in a slightly less comfortable
cell while it's cleaned. Not permanent. It's just a holding
pattern. Um, and maybe they'll do it less
(12:05):
often. I don't know. That's just my thought.
But as a way to get a break, they'll sometimes do
this. Um, and
this doesn't always work. In some prisons, they have
begun using a vacuum plumbing system,
which we're going to be discussing a little bit as a solution to these
problems. Another problem
(12:27):
with prison, uh, toilets is
the overuse of water.
It's estimated that inmates flush their
toilet anywhere between 35 and 65
times a day. Now, it is not that they are dropping
that many piles. Rather, it
seems that
this act of flushing the toilet is an
(12:49):
act. It's something they can control about their
surroundings. Um, it's also like, I
imagine you get bored of, and if you're bored, you're going to
look to all sorts of things to entertain yourself.
And for many inmates, flushing the toilet is one of the
things that gives them some sort of feedback.
Prison toilets are constructed, as I noted, out of this stainless
(13:10):
steel, often to cut down on vandalism.
If you bust up a porcelain toilet, you're going
to have shards of porcelain that could
very well be used as a weapon. And as you can
guess, the toilets cause problems in
more ways than just clogging. Prison
bathrooms, much like bathrooms
(13:30):
literally everywhere on in the universe,
can be a means of disposing of all sorts
of types of things. I've told the story on the pod before
about how I had to, like, scissor
a diaper, uh, out of an s bend of the
toilet. People will flush all sorts of
nonsense, crappy shreds, you know,
(13:51):
toilet paper, sometimes feminine hygiene products don't do
that. Wipes evidence in
contraband. When you're getting ready to be searched,
can be flushed down prison toilets.
Prisoners with access to toilets
have access to the means by which they can flush
evidence or other contraband down those toilets. Now,
I'm not saying that prisoners should not have access to toilets. They
(14:13):
absolutely need a place to drop a stack.
But the truly sneaky of them who have come
by some sort of string, could even tie it off
in some way, flush it, and then retrieve the
contraband later. In some prison
toilet systems, prisoners, uh, can actually
send messages to one another via the
prison toilets. One simple way is to
(14:36):
empty out the water from the toilet, like the
bowl itself. Um,
and then you can kind of talk
into the toilet,
uh, whose water has been
emptied that shares a
main plumbing line with yours. You know, those, like,
weird, like, playground message
(14:57):
tubes with the cones at the end of it.
And the yellow jackets love to nest
in those cones. Um, and then you go
up, and then you, like, stick your face up to it and you shout into
the cone, praying to God in heaven
that the yellow jackets don't fly out at your face. Um,
and so that way, your friend, who is 30ft away,
(15:18):
who, by the way, obviously just heard what you said because
you're 30ft away and you screamed it, um,
can pretend like he didn't hear you outside the
comb, but he heard it through the
comb. Um, and then you stick your ear up to
it again. See? Yellowjacket comment from
before. And then he pretends to, like,
scream into the cone. Well, this
(15:40):
toilet phoning like thing is kind of like that,
except for you're shouting into your toilet
bowl. They can also pass things to each
other using this, this emptying the toilet bowl
method. Um, it's called
toilet fishing. Instead of catching
fish, however, or passing turds,
inmates will attach pieces of paper or other
(16:02):
material to a string called kites and
flush them down the pipe to the person
down the plumbing line to receive them.
It is noted some inmates have been known to
pass drugs, weapons, and food in this way. And you might be
hearing this and thinking, how do they catch it?
I get the one guy passing it, but how does the next guy get
(16:24):
it? The inmate receiving the items will
shove a bit of bedding and clothing down into the toilet,
clogging it. And when the sending inmate passes
by, when it runs through the system, because it's
like a connected line, it gets caught and then they
just pull it up through with the clothing.
Apparently this is evidenced in a Netflix
(16:45):
drama called jailbirds not seen. It probably won't.
Too much tv to watch,
and I just don't care. But the
inmates in this, who are also
somehow contestants. Reality tv is weird, but
it makes you really question the quality of prison systems here in
the US. I'm just saying. But. But these inmates on the
show will actually try to date each
(17:07):
other. Like they're going on.
Like they're sending each other like
salacious toilet
kites through their various correspondence,
sent through these pooper pipes. It's a wild
world that they live in, but
it's wild beyond belief.
Prisonmingle.com TMTM
(17:28):
TMTM Other, perhaps less
nefarious uses for the prison
toilet include cooking, unsanctioned, um,
food, or food purchases from
the commissary or otherwise. Many of these
concoctions scream of
an incarcerated witch's brew. They're a mix of a
lot of things together. Whatever you can get, toss
(17:51):
it in. There's many famous
prison toilet bowl recipes. One
famous toilet bowl recipe is to make prison
wine. Toilet wine. Um, or as it's
called, prison hooch.
Colloquially, it's known as pruno. One
famous recipe for pruno calls for a one gallon
plastic bag, ten oranges, 8oz of fruit
(18:13):
cocktail, some sugar cubes, six teaspoons of ketchup,
and a towel. I want to note
the trash bag in this recipe is used
in place of the toilet bowl. Nothing
like mixing up a batch of prison hooch in your toilet
bowl. Maybe something we need to try
sometime. Stay tuned.
(18:34):
Some inmates will do their laundry in the toilet if they
don't want to wait until laundry day, or
they're cooking to freshen things. Uh, or they're
looking to freshen things up. Perhaps one of their
toilet note passing dates. Uh, meet
me at yard time. You know what I'm saying? It is
fascinating. Yeah, it's weird.
(18:54):
Others might use their toilet to stay
cool, the water in the bowl being
cooler, often dunking their head in it.
It's a tough look. It's a tough look. They'll
use this cooling ability to chill their milk. They'll put
things that they want to keep cooler down in the toilet
water. You got to do what a baby's got to do. What
(19:15):
a baby's got to do. There's a number of
problems surrounding prison
toilets, and we've noted that. But before
we look at some of these problems and maybe some
possible solutions, um, it is
important, I want to share a few
bathroom related prison
slang as it relates to bathrooms.
(19:37):
So, some prison bathroom slang
includes the term porcelain
termite. A porcelain termite is a
prisoner who breaks their toilet or sink
when they get angry. Not m sure where this
one comes from, but the name is outdated, as prisons have
pretty much gone away from porcelain. So this one's
(19:59):
probably not used too often anymore.
Another one is the term roadkill. Roadkill
refers to cigarette butts picked up by the side of
the road by prison work crews. They're brought back to the
facility, and the collected tobacco
is re rolled with toilet paper, thus, uh, creating your own
tobacco cigarettes. So, that's fun.
(20:20):
That, my friend, is the face of addiction,
and I'm the weirdo, uh, for snitching coffee out of the trash. In
college, time to feed the
warden is another way of
saying that you need to go to the bathroom. Well, it's time to
feed the warden. I'm not really sure where this comes from.
It seems just mean another one.
(20:40):
And this is going to transition us into some,
some bigger concerns as it relates to bathrooms. Is the
term Glock dookie. Glock dookie is
just foul. Um, and it's related to other
very, very nefarious activities
related to control and using what you
have, um, to assault or
get back at people. One common occurrence in
(21:02):
jail is other inmates
throwing or using their bodily fluids to
assault other inmates guards or
as a means of intimidation or power tactics.
To my coworker, who says
that their fear of going to the bathroom in front of other people is what
keeps them out of prison,
(21:23):
I get that fear. But for me, the aspect
of prison which would be much worse
is just people slinging skeet at
you or projectile urinating on
you in an attack, or to get something from you that's just
like, that's just awful. It's
wild. But one invention that has been
circling the Internet, um, and I believe it surfaced
(21:45):
as there was this podcaster that was sharing about his
time in prison, is a term called a Glock dookie. Now,
a Glock dookie is essentially a water bottle
or other container filled slightly with
water. And then you poop, pee,
whatever into the water bottle. Likely or, um,
is likely the case. My turret is usually bigger
(22:05):
than the top of a water bottle. And so, like,
it's hard to imagine
how you don't interface with the turd
first to get it into the standard size water
bottle. It's not worth thinking about. Maybe you got little sky,
tiny, little skinny little pencil turds. Let us
know. Privy castmail.com.
(22:26):
but you get the turds down into the water bottle,
mix it up with all of the other wet that you got in there, and really
shake that guy. And
then you just like, walk up to the person and
it sprays out the stank juice inside.
It shoots, hitting them in the face. It's wildly gross.
It is assault. And with all these, it's just
(22:47):
bad and disgusting. And with all these challenges
posed by prison bathrooms and prison toilets, there
needs to be something done to cut down on the nefarious
deeds that can and often are done
there.
It should be noted
there are other, often less
(23:09):
security prisons where it is standard to have the
toilets centrally located
for all of the inmates to go out and use
them, along with showers so the inmates can be tracked
coming and going by the guard on post.
But one method many prisons are turning to
to help cut down on shady bathroom
(23:30):
deeds is the use of vacuum centers
to help power the water supply and plumbing
of prison bathrooms. The way that these
vacuum centers works is this.
The interface of atmospheric pressure
at the point of the toilet bowl and
a constant vacuum pressure in the waste piping
(23:51):
network provides a highly efficient
flush. So, pretty much think of it as,
like, when you flush the toilet,
there is a vacuum that sucks
it out. It's just like. It's really got a whole Luigi's
mansion vacuum backpack vibe on those
turds. Um, but because of the
(24:11):
suction power of the turd vacuum
toilets, it uses only about half a gallon of
water, which is great. When the push button's
activated, the extraction valve opens.
Think like, camper bathroom toilets, they got a little
extraction thing, allowing atmospheric pressure to push
the waste into the vacuum piping and towards
the vacuum center. A water valve is also
(24:34):
activated, allowing the toilet to be rinsed and
refilled as a result. So, by using less water and
implementing that suction,
they can help clear the poop from the bowl more
efficiently, and, ah, as often the case,
quicker. The nice part about these systems
is when they are used appropriately, is
you can shut vacuums off to inmates cell
(24:56):
toilets. Individual like, oh, block 13
is getting searched. The toilet suction to block
13 is shut off. This is useful if you believe
there's contraband. You can shut the toilet
flush off, and then they
can't flush their toilet and get rid of the contraband
that is believed to be there. It's an interesting thing.
(25:16):
Likewise, much like a parent taking their teens phone so
they can't talk to their loser boyfriend, Dirk, they
kiboshed prison pipe dating.
You can't date through the pipe. And, you know, Dirk's a piece
of crap. You know, Dirk's a
turd. He probably vapes.
He probably vapes in the bathroom and doesn't respect his
(25:37):
mom. M like an idiot.
But these vacuum centers are pretty
useful. As noted, another technology
to decrease misuse is stainless
steel toilets and centrally located showers and bathrooms. We've
discussed this, and these things cut down on many of the
bathroom problems. But these guard controlled
toilets have been the discussion of another concern
(25:59):
in prisons and prison bathrooms,
because it's reported, and I imagine it is
happening, that the guards will shut off
inmates toilets as punishment or simply just
to mess with the prisoners. And while it is
reasonable to be able to shut off the water for limited
amounts of time, moving inmates searches, et
cetera, the American Bar association,
(26:22):
as we stated at the beginning of the episode, has
noted, um, that
they need access to clean,
um, water working
toilets. And so there's an ongoing
discussion about how long the inmate
can be kept in their cell with the water
off. In fact, in many
(26:44):
circles, when this is kept off for too long, it's
viewed and likely is a form of torture.
It's removing a reasonable,
reasonably expected and regular. Right
now, I understand that there's an argument
that's like, well, the person's in prison.
And I understand like, people do stuff that's wrong. And I'm not here to
like weigh in on whether or not I think that
(27:06):
they should be able to do this. I'm just telling you that there is an argument
on both sides that about for
and against these vacuum center
toilets. The other thing to remember
is prisons have changed so
much. What was once a bucket and
maybe even just a peek corner and something that was
viewed as a privilege and a courtesy has
(27:29):
now turned into the right,
the right to running and flushable water
for long periods, if not all periods of
time. Prison toilets are
weird. They're wild. Who knows what's going on. Apparently
we're dating each other through the toilet and I
pray that no privy listener makes their way to prison.
(27:49):
If you're in prison hearing this again, write to us. We'd love to hear from
you. Privycastmail.com. we'd love to get your
perspective, share your perspective on the toilets that you experience
there. But this is going to bring us
to the end of another episode of Privy. Thank you so
much for joining us. Um, thank you for being here.
As always. Leave us a rating, a review.
The five star option is our preferred and every review
(28:12):
left on Apple Podcasts and Spotify podcasts.
We will donate a, uh, dollar to the wounded warriors and living
water international, reminding you to keep pooping in the free world.
And that free world was not always free and some parts of it
are less free than others and don't have safe water.
Rating and review a reminder, we do have a sticker
shop. Um, it's very limited in that
(28:33):
when I'm out I will have to make more, but, um, you can
check that out at privy
dash, cast.com, at our website and at the top there
should be a link that will take you to the Google form to fill
out. I will admit it's a little clunky, um,
but in an attempt to, um,
see if there is interest, this is how we're doing it.
(28:54):
Uh, I want to thank Kevin McLeod and Poddington bear for
the use of their music this week. Thanks Kevin and Poddington. You
can check Kevin and Poddington's music out links in the
description below. This has been another episode of
Privy. Thank you so much for being here. Follow us on social at
privycast. Keep pooping in the free world. Own your
stank. Avoid the Glock dookie. And now,
(29:14):
as always, don't forget
to flush.
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