Breakfast in prison

This episode features part of a conversation that I recently had with Luis Miguel Salinas who is currently serving a 44 year to life sentence in Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, California. We started talking about breakfast but ended up discussing the structure of prison politics. Enjoy!

Episode Transcript

(00:26):
This is crazy prison stories. Hey, what's going on? Everybody's mike.
So today I have part of aconversation that Louise and I had recently.
Um I started talking about breakfast andthen and we kind of just ended up

(00:46):
talking about how how things work inprison in general. So I thought it
was pretty interesting. So yeah,I hope you do too. Enjoy.
So basically, you know there's somethere's a ground us and that's basically that
you you know, you come outof your cell whenever your don't opens,

(01:07):
So any type of movement, youknow, you come out. So you
don't want you to be in yourcell like they want everybody out. So
for breakfast, everybody has to comeout, you know, unless you ask
permission to stay back, you know, and if you stay back, it's
because maybe you're sick or something.You know, there's there's a reason,
not just be you don't feel likegoing to breakfast, not just do you

(01:29):
don't feel like waking up earlier.You know, that's just part of the
program. And you know yet what'scalled and you a telephone number. They'll
be monitored and recorded. You know, you got scheduled hours of program from
what we call program tim's usually likefive thirty am until nine pm. You
know, it's got to you gottabe up, you know. So you

(01:53):
know, we walk to breakfast.You know, No breakfast is not it's
not that far because it's it's athere's a level three. It's it's kind
of a small yard. There's onlyfive buildings and then there's there's they got
the kitchen and then the gym andthen all the medical and canteen and program
all that stuff like like all rightthere. So basically we just take we

(02:19):
walk out and we go around thetrack, you know, so we're I'm
in building two, so I gotto do like a full like the full
circle on the track to go togo to child and go in there.
And there's not like you know,no seating or angium or nothing like that.
It's just you you sit down orwhere there's an open spot so you
can sit next to anybody, doesn'tmatter, like you're you know, you

(02:43):
got to sit in an open spot. So going there, we sit down
and most of the time we're sittingwith the people next to us, you
know, or a neighbor. Soand then we we you know, eat
our breakfast and they'll call the tablesto dismiss us, but we wait until
everybody's done. So if they calla table to be dismissed and one of

(03:05):
the guys isn't done, we allsit there and we wait wait for that
guy to get done. Once he'sdone, then we'll get up, you
know, just out of respect.And then uh, you know, get
up and we take our trays tothe over to the scullery and you know,
we walk out, get our lunchersto give us a damnless announcis it
will walk around the track, comeback into the building. Is that usually

(03:29):
like a calm time for people?Are like just things pop off that at
all or well in the morning,I haven't seen anything happened in the morning,
but at dinner turn you know,there's been several incidents. Uh,
just just like they say about aweek ago there was a there was a
stabbing inside of the inside of thechold had some white some white stabbed another

(03:52):
white um. And then like maybelike a week before that, there was
a stabbing outside of the chowd hall. Like walking back to the building,
they're the stabbing right there. Soyou know, when they have to happen,
they help us, you know,that's the thing. It's like any
opportunity and they just do it,you know. So yeah, happened that

(04:12):
at any time. No, it'scool. Yeah, I was just curious
about how how bread supposed to,like you said, with us, we
have you know, there's a setof ground rules for for us, for
the Southerners, you know, andyou know it's basic rules. It's not
it's not like crazy stuff. Youknow, it's just you gotta act right,
you know what I'm saying, Likeyou gotta be respectful, like you

(04:33):
know, you gotta you can't refuseyou know, like if they're trying to
move you, they come black,you gotta move. You can't refuse him.
I know I'm not moving, youknow, because you don't know why
that you don't you don't know whythe movie need to be they want you
somewhere else or or maybe the copsor like they need to sell whatever you're
doing. But basically you're not You'renot supposed to be refusing anything. You

(04:55):
just go with it. And ourpeople like we've never been and the type
of people that are constantly complaining,you know, you know, we just
kind of like take it in thechain and walk on. You know what
I'm saying. And some of theseother guys, you know, they do
a lot of complaints. We doa lot of complaining about everything. But
we're not like that. We neverdidn't like that because it you know,

(05:18):
and it makes you look weak thatyou can't handle situations, right, I
mean, we're imprisoned. At theend of the day, we're imprisoning.
They're saying Disneyland. You know,I'm saying, we're not. They're not
going to give us every little thing. You know, They're gonna burn us,
They're gonna they're gonna, you know, get over on us. That's
just the way it is. It'sprison. Yeah, no, that's that's

(05:39):
interesting. I don't think about itlike that, but I guess it's like
important. I guess they like theydon't want to like house problems with the
administration either, or they want likeeverybody to kind of like do it eat
the time as much as possible.Yeah, exactly, Like the main the
main priority is for us to youknow, program, you know, get

(06:00):
what we got coming, you know, be respectful because at the end of
the day, like you don't gainnothing from being dispiteful and from doing stupid
things, you know, But ifit comes down to it, you know,
that's that's like a last result,Like, hey man, if these
guys are disrespecting us, you know, and it gets bad, it's like,

(06:23):
what do you expect? You knowwhat I'm saying, Like, we're
not gonna We're not gonna just backdown and not do nothing about it,
you know, But it have tobe a serious situation for that, because
at the end of the day,you're you're endangering a lot of people,
you know, So so something can'tjust happen just like that, you know

(06:43):
what I'm saying. Like, it'slike, if you do cause a situation,
you're responsible. You're responsible for thatsituation and for the people that got
hurt in that situation. So youhave to answer to that. Why did
you do what you did? Whatwas the reasons behind it? Was it
a good enough for you? Andbecause if it wasn't a good enough reason,
then you felt them, you know. So for the most part,

(07:08):
they're trying not to they're trying notto do anything drastic unless it's like absolutely
necessary, like there's no other choice, you know, And the situation is
having the rules that that much,I mean, back in the days,
back in the days, it was. It was a lot a lot of
stuff would happen, you know,like a lot of riots, a lot

(07:30):
of times, you know, goingon with the with the CEO's going on
with the cops because it was morehigh I think it was more tense.
You know, it's not the notmore stuff now it's like it's not like
that really, you know, butreally has changed. Man, the prison
has changed a lotsses since I starteddoing time. It's just changed a lot.

(07:56):
I guess with the CEOs, theythey kind of like appreciate the Southerners,
Like, do they have like amore respect for the But I think
for the most part, but theydo. They do. They do like
the fact that there is a structurebecause you know, without the structure,
it's just it's just chaos. Andyou know, they say it themselves like

(08:20):
they hate working on on the PCyards because the PC yards are basically like
the wild wild West, everybody forthemselves. There's no nobody, answers to
nobody, and there's just a bunchof little clicks, you know, a
bunch of little crews and they basicallydo whatever they want do. They have
no they have no type of structure, They have no type of rule,
you know. So there's a lotof a lot of assaults on officers and

(08:43):
there's a lot of shit going on, but they see the difference. They
see the difference like they come overhere on the general population yard and you
know, for the most part,you know, the southern is are respectful
and don't don't cause any like stupidyou know, things like getting actually like

(09:07):
talking to these seals a certain way, or talking to these females certain way,
dispecting these females, you know whatI'm saying, Like it's very different.
So I think a lot of themdo appreciate that because even some of
these compsol will go and like Isaid, there's always a position of a

(09:30):
Southerner that speaks directly to the consil. It's like it's the committee, you
know, like um, so there'salways one of each race. So whenever
there's any issues with the population,you know, they talk to them first.
They talked to the to that committeefirst, and then that committee goes
and talk to the population. Youknow. So when they're having problems,

(09:52):
they know that they can voice itand they know that it will get addressed,
and they know that it will getfaced, you know, so they
can appreciate shit that and then thoseother places I don't think they have any
of that because you know, thenext managing can be like he don't speak
for me, fucking you know.So there's other prisons too that are that

(10:13):
are you know, they're going tobe far stricter also because of who's there,
you know, and the people thatare there, the people that are
that are running it, you know, they they want it how they feel
it should be run. So youknow, some place could be really relaxed,
other places could be very very strict. So yeah, I mean the

(10:35):
rules are the same, man,but it just depends on who's enforcing those
rules, you know, right,yeah, yeah, But at the end
of the day, it's it's forthe best because like I said, you
know, it's it's it's a goodthing. I don't think it's a bad
thing. I think that bad administrationtakes it as a bad thing because they
don't want constructure, they don't wantorganization, they don't want on the right

(11:00):
on paper. But for the onesthat are actually here in living it,
you know, working in it,they they can appreciate that, right,
But like on paper, insto thatcommental like the big wigs but the people
that are in charge of all theprisons, all that shit, they don't
want this, they don't want underthat. Yeah, so they they've tried
for for many, many, manyyears to break that structure, to to

(11:24):
break individuals that, you know,we have leadership goals by locking them in
solitary confinement for forever, for betterfoot's call and we're tell abone number,
we'll be monitored and recluded. Theyhave sixty seconds year manning. No just
recent, you know, like withinthe last within the last few years.

(11:45):
You know, that's when a lotof that stuff has changed. You know,
like they they said no more,no more long shoot term, you
know, no more solitary confinement fora long period of time. A lot
of things have changed. Let metell you back better gets from Mila