October 16, 2025 • 17 mins
- More insights from a woman serving life without parole in a women's prison. What awaits Donna Adelson as she transitions from jail to life without parole?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What to know. Al Labyer's Welcome to another episode of
Pretty Lies and Alibis. I'm Gigi. It's Thursday, October sixteenth.
Hope you guys are having a good day so far.
I have to say you guys liked the jail to
Prison episode yesterday. Like I said, It's something I've done
in the past, but I've always wanted to redo it
a bit. I've got a lot more to add, so
(00:21):
guess what, We're going to do another one today. I
appreciate all of the emails and the inboxes saying hey,
that was a great episode. Helps me to know what
you like so I can keep doing it. I'm here
to please. Tomorrow, we're going to go through the Tomorrow,
we're going to go through the commissary list. A lot
of you guys have reached out saying I love that
kind of stuff, and also an average monthly menu or
(00:44):
the Florida Department of Corrections, and we'll see what else
we can dig up. We're gonna start off with some
prison slang of the day, backdoor parole that means to
die in prison. And for a cooking hack, taffy can
be made by me non dairy creamer with pre sweet
and kool aid. You add droplets of water and you
(01:04):
keep working that mix until you have a taffy consistency.
I'm gonna have some more prison hacks at the very
end of the episode. So my contact has access to
legal shows on TV. All of the true crime networks
are available in the common room, and they do watch
true crime. So if in Florida they have access to
true crime networks, they very well may know who Donna
(01:27):
is because her trial was heavily covered. As we know,
the biggest thing working against Donna is that she is
convicted of killing a father of two young children. Any
crime that affects children is an enhancer on the inside
to other inmates, is just one of the unforgivables. Prison
is described by my contact as a society outside of society.
(01:50):
She said, in prison, there are criminals and there are convicts.
Most of the prisoners are convicts, but a large portion
are criminals, and they hold on you that criminal behavior
and have no intention of changing. They will challenge staff
the rules, and that compromises the safety of the facility
at times. And the bad part is the restrictions and
(02:11):
the confinements are prison are largely based on the actions
of the criminals. My contact is in with a couple
of very high profile criminals, the terpin' mother, that's the
case where the children were all chained to the beds
and really skinny and being abused. And also Diane Downs,
who has been her cellmate, so she definitely has experience
(02:33):
being around people who are very high profile in the
true crime world. Their case is known far and wide.
Some people will befriend Donna just for the novelty of
being around a high profile inmate, but as a high
profile inmate, it can be scary because everybody knows your
name and then they assume they know you. There are
(02:53):
people who will love to talk out loud about Donna
and her case, hoping that she will attempt to jump
into the conversation.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
They will try to bait her.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
One of the hardest things my contact experience was the
absolute culture shock of her life when adjusting to prison life.
There's not one thing that functions as it does on
the outside, and the difference between prison and jail is
like night and day. Prison has its own currency system,
its own rules, the social statuses are not like they
(03:23):
are on the outside, and those are all things that
take people a very long time to acclimate to once
they start their sentence in prison. But no matter how
long you were sitting in jail awaiting your trial, going
to prison is like starting all over. So what was
her experience like arriving to prison? She emailed me and said,
(03:44):
once we were off the freeway and the bus started
making turns, the tension on the bus was obvious. Half
of the occupants would be home within a few years,
but the other half wouldn't see home for twenty years
and some never. Someone yelled welcome to prison. She was
one of the life to be left off the bus,
but she said she really didn't want to leave the
bus because she knew the moment she stepped off, she
(04:07):
was stepping into a new world that she would never
be able to leave. They lined the prisoners up against
the wall and removed all of their cuffs and shackles.
This made her feel vulnerable and very naked. She wanted
those back on. Everybody was marched to receiving They were
told to turn and face the wall. They were then
sent to a holding cell where they were given a
(04:28):
moo moo dress, a pair of socks, and flipflops. She
was told to undo her hair and take off all
of her clothes. Any personal items you have on your
person are taken. They will ask you if you have
anything to surrender. From there, they are put in a
circle naked, and then they are strip searched in front
of everybody. She was told to face the officer, lean over,
(04:51):
shake out your hair, lift both breasts to be sure
nothing is hidden. You lift up to show your underarms.
You fold down your ears so they and see behind you.
Even lift your body rolls. You turn away from the officer,
You bend over and spread them, and you cough three times.
After that, they were allowed to dress. An inmate clerk
(05:12):
had advice for her within an hour of arriving at prison.
Don't hook up with girls who aren't yours, and don't
do drugs you can't afford. From there, they're called out
individually for processing. She saw the items taken from her
that she had since the day of her initial arrest,
but at that point those things that used to be
very dear to her seemed very unfamiliar. She was asked
(05:35):
if she wanted to donate the items or have the
prison destroy them. She didn't care, so they tossed the
stuff in the trash can, and she said she watched
as a ring she had worn for years fall deeper
into the trash can, and it was very symbolic for her.
It was almost like watching her life. She had her
picture taken for her prison ID, and then she had
(05:55):
interviews with a registered nurse and then a psych tech.
From there, they watched an orientation video about the prison,
and she said, this is the slowest day ever.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
They were giving.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Box lunches and then you go to an interview, and
that interview determines where you're going to be housed. My
contact asked for segregation, but she was denied. She does
not like interacting much with other inmates, just to avoid
the drama, but she was told unless there was a
security issue, she would be in general population. They were
(06:26):
given a bed roll and then their toiletries put into
a line and then taken to the receiving yard. Once
she got to her cell, she was in there with
seven other women. Can you imagine the first night there
were two very loud alarms for fistfights and cells, and
someone also shattered a window. She said she was on
edge already. It was frightening and it was a big
(06:49):
reality that this would be the rest of her life.
She was very shaken by the violence around her that
she saw in the first few weeks of her time
in prison. She said, prison is full of chaos and
anger at times. Some of the women are just wild
and uncivilized. She found peace by just staying in her
cell and did not socialize much with others for the
(07:10):
first few years she was in prison. To be able
to go into general population, you had to be cleared
by medical, dental, and mental health. But once you're cleared,
they call it being sent over the wall, meaning to
general population. Even with good health, it can sometimes take
six to eight weeks where she is to be cleared
to go over the wall. She knew people that waited
(07:34):
for months, and she really didn't care because she knew
she was in for life and at this point nothing
is a rush. When she was given her permanent cell number,
she went in and her roommate was cooking something that
smelled horrible and it just made her nauseous. The look
on her face told the story, and her cellmate made
very clear, this is my cell.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Get used to it.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
The cellmate told her to put her stuff down and
that she would tell her how she runs her room now.
Before she was put in that cell, she was told
by staff if her cellmate was not a good fit,
she could fill out a request to move, which only
happens on the weekends. But also there can be a
bit of a stigma attached to saying I don't like
(08:15):
this person. Some of these women have been in for decades.
They have very close knit groups, So the minute you
say I don't like my cellmate, you may have issues
with their friends who are loyal to them.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
So for the most part, you just suck it up
and deal with it.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Her cellmate was very specific of the rules of the room,
like keep your hair pulled up because I don't like
when hair gets all over things. She was told to
keep her area clean at all times, scrub the toilet
after every use, and if she did not do a
courtesy flush or keep the toilet clean, her cellmate said
she would only allow her to use the common restroom
(08:52):
in the day room. Her cellmate expected her to shower
once a day and to scrub that shower after each
use and then and she was also told what sink
in the room she could use. She was told if
she tattled about anything that happened in that cell, she
would leave bruised, bloody, and limping. She was informed this
(09:12):
cell has a system and you are not here to
disrupt the flow of the room. The inmate told her
she was the law in that cell. The first phone
privilege she got was exciting, but all of a sudden,
she said, she was too scared to call because she
did not know what she was going to say to
her loved ones. At the end of the day, after
head count and everybody is locked in their cell, they
(09:34):
would be broad mail if there was any for them.
Any hope for a letter or picture kept her awake
to wait and see if she got any. Most of
her friends stopped communicating as soon as she was arrested,
and those who were left pretty much did the same.
After sentencing. She recently told me that every picture is
a shock to the system. Her nieces and nephews are growing,
(09:55):
her parents are getting older, and you are missing every
second of it. Using the phone before she got a
tablet was a privilege. The problem was that the lines
are long, and sometimes you might wait for an hour,
but you might get called to yourself for head count.
You might get called because you have a meal. It
doesn't matter how long you waited. You don't get to
(10:16):
jump the line. When it's time again for everybody to
line up to use the phone, you just wait and
cross your fingers you actually make it to the phone.
Season inmates are excellent at talking to you and at
the same time making mental notes of the new inmates
strengths and weaknesses. The strengths and weaknesses are often exploited
to the benefit of other inmates, and every action in
(10:39):
prison usually has another motive that the newbie is completely
unaware of.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
She said.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
She tells all new inmates to sit back for a
month or two, keep to yourself, and just watch people.
People will reveal their true selves. I've seen more new
intakes trust the wrong inmate, and sometimes within hours of
arriving to prison, they are now the drug mule for
that inmate. Or they may have to share commissary, or
(11:05):
do the inmate's laundry, or get family on the outside
to put money on their books.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
She said.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
The number one cause of drama in prison that she
sees is debt, usually revolving around drugs or canteen. There
are days when passing time becomes nearly unbearable. Each second
passes with excruciating slowness, and as time ticks by, she said,
it could almost be heard like.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
A slow faucet leak.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
You hear the drip, drip, drip, and there's no task
that you do that takes long enough.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
She said.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
At times, the skin on your body feels heavy and
there's this desire to shed it, almost like a winter's coat.
The sounds all around feel amplified with the constant drip
of the seconds going by, the TV blaring in the background.
Somebody's yelling, somebody's crying, somebody's having a mental health episode.
People are talking loudly, some people are seen. It all
(12:01):
merges together like a roar that sounds like an urban
street scene. It takes concentration to decipher words spoken to
you from three feet away. Sometimes people in prison are
superior at acting, and they do not need an acting coach,
she said. In Hollywood, agents search high and low for
people who can cry on cube, but she says, I
(12:22):
dare you to find an inmate who cannot. She also said,
if you can seek, you will find, so be careful
what you seek. Just some random things she had in
her last email, The reason you see inmates who are
shackled at the ankles. Wearing several layers of socks is
to keep the cuffs from digging into your skin. If
you don't have toilet paper, an older book with a
(12:43):
lot of miles on it has softer paper and you
can guess the rest. She recommends to check the expiration
dates on your food. It's not like it's going to
get replaced if it's out of date, but you're just
ensuring you don't get sick from old milk or food.
Every prisoner represents multiple victims and many lives lost. This
(13:04):
includes the living victims and also the family members of
the inmates in prison. No one but yourself or a
truly dysfunctional person will make your needs a priority, or,
worst of all, somebody with nefarious intentions. The life in
prison and the death penalty are considered pretty much one
of the same to inmates. The toll on families who
(13:26):
have to travel to visit is very hard because there's
a lot of hoops to jump through. Sometimes it takes
hours for your family to drive to get to the visitation.
They have to go through all the red tape of
being searched. Sometimes you have to take a bus to
be transported to the facility with other family members, and
then you have to wait for the actual visitation. Some
(13:46):
family sacrifice a whole weekend for an hour of visitation.
But just because your family made the time and the
effort and spent money to visit you doesn't guarantee you're
going to have that visit. You could get in trouble
right before your schedule visitation that can be taken away
in an instant. Also, if there is a staff shortage
(14:06):
or if the facility is put on a lockdown, that
can affect whether or not you actually get your visit
that day. What if some cell may etiquette never touch
anything that doesn't belong to you. Courtesy flushing is essential.
You have no option but to accept it if somebody
takes your stuff. Bunkies share their body odor as well
(14:28):
as their drug induced philosophy and knowledge of criminal activities.
She has now learned the easiest stores to steal from,
the best ways to hide drugs on the outside, and
pretty much every other criminal activity you could imagine. There
are groups to help prisoners reach what is termed insight.
This is the realization of your crime, which is the
(14:49):
nexus of your crime, what led you there, meaning the
core factors who all was hurt by your actions, and
in her group, they even consider people down to the
ones who read the news articles. They teach you what
you need to do is rehabilitate and make amends. The
group's efforts are hampered by an inmate's obsession with survival, addiction, anger,
(15:12):
personal loss, and grief.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
She said.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
The public fails to realize that to a prisoner, the
greater victim, no matter what the crime is their own families.
They know their loss, their grief, their suffering, their sacrifices.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
She said.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
The victim's families are not in touch with us then
or now, so it's easy to overlook their pain and
suffering and their lasting hurt. This is why insight groups
help to broaden a prisoner's idea of who is the
actual victim and who they hurt. People get away with
a lot of things in prison, and the reason is
the commanding officers don't really intervene unless somebody is getting hurt.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
She said.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
The last thing Donna is gonna want to do is snitch.
It only takes one time and then you're branded. If
you snitched in jail, it somehow follows you to prison.
Hundreds of miles away, and that is one label you
don't want to follow you.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
But what did Donna do?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Snitched a couple of times about some attacks on the stand,
so that could be something she has to deal with
in prison. And we're gonna end this with a few
more prison hacks. Maxi pads have a ton of uses.
You can sweep the floors when you don't have a broom.
They can be used as shoe inserts, and you can
make your pillows more comfortable. If you don't have money
(16:27):
to buy a foundation through the commissary, you can make
your own. You mix baby powder, lotion and instant coffee
grinds together. You customize based on the color you need
for lipstick. One way is to mix crayons and petroleum jelly.
For eyeshadow, they will mix a colored pencil with chalk
and baby powder and there's your eyeshadow for me. It
(16:49):
is so interesting to get this first hand look from
somebody who is a lifer, a first time offender, because
what she has seen over the years really gives a
lot of insight into what really happens in prison versus
what you see on a show about prison or any
kind of a real life drama. These very little things
(17:10):
that become part of your everyday life that you would
never deal with on the outside are the hardest parts
of prison. It's not the big dramas, although it does happen.
So tomorrow we'll do another episode. But that is it
for today. Hope you guys have a good rest of
your afternoon and we will see us soon.
What to know. Al Labyer's Welcome to another episode of
Pretty Lies and Alibis. I'm Gigi. It's Thursday, October sixteenth.
Hope you guys are having a good day so far.
I have to say you guys liked the jail to
Prison episode yesterday. Like I said, It's something I've done
in the past, but I've always wanted to redo it
a bit. I've got a lot more to add, so
(00:21):
guess what, We're going to do another one today. I
appreciate all of the emails and the inboxes saying hey,
that was a great episode. Helps me to know what
you like so I can keep doing it. I'm here
to please. Tomorrow, we're going to go through the Tomorrow,
we're going to go through the commissary list. A lot
of you guys have reached out saying I love that
kind of stuff, and also an average monthly menu or
(00:44):
the Florida Department of Corrections, and we'll see what else
we can dig up. We're gonna start off with some
prison slang of the day, backdoor parole that means to
die in prison. And for a cooking hack, taffy can
be made by me non dairy creamer with pre sweet
and kool aid. You add droplets of water and you
(01:04):
keep working that mix until you have a taffy consistency.
I'm gonna have some more prison hacks at the very
end of the episode. So my contact has access to
legal shows on TV. All of the true crime networks
are available in the common room, and they do watch
true crime. So if in Florida they have access to
true crime networks, they very well may know who Donna
(01:27):
is because her trial was heavily covered. As we know,
the biggest thing working against Donna is that she is
convicted of killing a father of two young children. Any
crime that affects children is an enhancer on the inside
to other inmates, is just one of the unforgivables. Prison
is described by my contact as a society outside of society.
(01:50):
She said, in prison, there are criminals and there are convicts.
Most of the prisoners are convicts, but a large portion
are criminals, and they hold on you that criminal behavior
and have no intention of changing. They will challenge staff
the rules, and that compromises the safety of the facility
at times. And the bad part is the restrictions and
(02:11):
the confinements are prison are largely based on the actions
of the criminals. My contact is in with a couple
of very high profile criminals, the terpin' mother, that's the
case where the children were all chained to the beds
and really skinny and being abused. And also Diane Downs,
who has been her cellmate, so she definitely has experience
(02:33):
being around people who are very high profile in the
true crime world. Their case is known far and wide.
Some people will befriend Donna just for the novelty of
being around a high profile inmate, but as a high
profile inmate, it can be scary because everybody knows your
name and then they assume they know you. There are
(02:53):
people who will love to talk out loud about Donna
and her case, hoping that she will attempt to jump
into the conversation.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
They will try to bait her.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
One of the hardest things my contact experience was the
absolute culture shock of her life when adjusting to prison life.
There's not one thing that functions as it does on
the outside, and the difference between prison and jail is
like night and day. Prison has its own currency system,
its own rules, the social statuses are not like they
(03:23):
are on the outside, and those are all things that
take people a very long time to acclimate to once
they start their sentence in prison. But no matter how
long you were sitting in jail awaiting your trial, going
to prison is like starting all over. So what was
her experience like arriving to prison? She emailed me and said,
(03:44):
once we were off the freeway and the bus started
making turns, the tension on the bus was obvious. Half
of the occupants would be home within a few years,
but the other half wouldn't see home for twenty years
and some never. Someone yelled welcome to prison. She was
one of the life to be left off the bus,
but she said she really didn't want to leave the
bus because she knew the moment she stepped off, she
(04:07):
was stepping into a new world that she would never
be able to leave. They lined the prisoners up against
the wall and removed all of their cuffs and shackles.
This made her feel vulnerable and very naked. She wanted
those back on. Everybody was marched to receiving They were
told to turn and face the wall. They were then
sent to a holding cell where they were given a
(04:28):
moo moo dress, a pair of socks, and flipflops. She
was told to undo her hair and take off all
of her clothes. Any personal items you have on your
person are taken. They will ask you if you have
anything to surrender. From there, they are put in a
circle naked, and then they are strip searched in front
of everybody. She was told to face the officer, lean over,
(04:51):
shake out your hair, lift both breasts to be sure
nothing is hidden. You lift up to show your underarms.
You fold down your ears so they and see behind you.
Even lift your body rolls. You turn away from the officer,
You bend over and spread them, and you cough three times.
After that, they were allowed to dress. An inmate clerk
(05:12):
had advice for her within an hour of arriving at prison.
Don't hook up with girls who aren't yours, and don't
do drugs you can't afford. From there, they're called out
individually for processing. She saw the items taken from her
that she had since the day of her initial arrest,
but at that point those things that used to be
very dear to her seemed very unfamiliar. She was asked
(05:35):
if she wanted to donate the items or have the
prison destroy them. She didn't care, so they tossed the
stuff in the trash can, and she said she watched
as a ring she had worn for years fall deeper
into the trash can, and it was very symbolic for her.
It was almost like watching her life. She had her
picture taken for her prison ID, and then she had
(05:55):
interviews with a registered nurse and then a psych tech.
From there, they watched an orientation video about the prison,
and she said, this is the slowest day ever.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
They were giving.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Box lunches and then you go to an interview, and
that interview determines where you're going to be housed. My
contact asked for segregation, but she was denied. She does
not like interacting much with other inmates, just to avoid
the drama, but she was told unless there was a
security issue, she would be in general population. They were
(06:26):
given a bed roll and then their toiletries put into
a line and then taken to the receiving yard. Once
she got to her cell, she was in there with
seven other women. Can you imagine the first night there
were two very loud alarms for fistfights and cells, and
someone also shattered a window. She said she was on
edge already. It was frightening and it was a big
(06:49):
reality that this would be the rest of her life.
She was very shaken by the violence around her that
she saw in the first few weeks of her time
in prison. She said, prison is full of chaos and
anger at times. Some of the women are just wild
and uncivilized. She found peace by just staying in her
cell and did not socialize much with others for the
(07:10):
first few years she was in prison. To be able
to go into general population, you had to be cleared
by medical, dental, and mental health. But once you're cleared,
they call it being sent over the wall, meaning to
general population. Even with good health, it can sometimes take
six to eight weeks where she is to be cleared
to go over the wall. She knew people that waited
(07:34):
for months, and she really didn't care because she knew
she was in for life and at this point nothing
is a rush. When she was given her permanent cell number,
she went in and her roommate was cooking something that
smelled horrible and it just made her nauseous. The look
on her face told the story, and her cellmate made
very clear, this is my cell.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Get used to it.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
The cellmate told her to put her stuff down and
that she would tell her how she runs her room now.
Before she was put in that cell, she was told
by staff if her cellmate was not a good fit,
she could fill out a request to move, which only
happens on the weekends. But also there can be a
bit of a stigma attached to saying I don't like
(08:15):
this person. Some of these women have been in for decades.
They have very close knit groups, So the minute you
say I don't like my cellmate, you may have issues
with their friends who are loyal to them.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
So for the most part, you just suck it up
and deal with it.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Her cellmate was very specific of the rules of the room,
like keep your hair pulled up because I don't like
when hair gets all over things. She was told to
keep her area clean at all times, scrub the toilet
after every use, and if she did not do a
courtesy flush or keep the toilet clean, her cellmate said
she would only allow her to use the common restroom
(08:52):
in the day room. Her cellmate expected her to shower
once a day and to scrub that shower after each
use and then and she was also told what sink
in the room she could use. She was told if
she tattled about anything that happened in that cell, she
would leave bruised, bloody, and limping. She was informed this
(09:12):
cell has a system and you are not here to
disrupt the flow of the room. The inmate told her
she was the law in that cell. The first phone
privilege she got was exciting, but all of a sudden,
she said, she was too scared to call because she
did not know what she was going to say to
her loved ones. At the end of the day, after
head count and everybody is locked in their cell, they
(09:34):
would be broad mail if there was any for them.
Any hope for a letter or picture kept her awake
to wait and see if she got any. Most of
her friends stopped communicating as soon as she was arrested,
and those who were left pretty much did the same.
After sentencing. She recently told me that every picture is
a shock to the system. Her nieces and nephews are growing,
(09:55):
her parents are getting older, and you are missing every
second of it. Using the phone before she got a
tablet was a privilege. The problem was that the lines
are long, and sometimes you might wait for an hour,
but you might get called to yourself for head count.
You might get called because you have a meal. It
doesn't matter how long you waited. You don't get to
(10:16):
jump the line. When it's time again for everybody to
line up to use the phone, you just wait and
cross your fingers you actually make it to the phone.
Season inmates are excellent at talking to you and at
the same time making mental notes of the new inmates
strengths and weaknesses. The strengths and weaknesses are often exploited
to the benefit of other inmates, and every action in
(10:39):
prison usually has another motive that the newbie is completely
unaware of.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
She said.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
She tells all new inmates to sit back for a
month or two, keep to yourself, and just watch people.
People will reveal their true selves. I've seen more new
intakes trust the wrong inmate, and sometimes within hours of
arriving to prison, they are now the drug mule for
that inmate. Or they may have to share commissary, or
(11:05):
do the inmate's laundry, or get family on the outside
to put money on their books.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
She said.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
The number one cause of drama in prison that she
sees is debt, usually revolving around drugs or canteen. There
are days when passing time becomes nearly unbearable. Each second
passes with excruciating slowness, and as time ticks by, she said,
it could almost be heard like.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
A slow faucet leak.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
You hear the drip, drip, drip, and there's no task
that you do that takes long enough.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
She said.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
At times, the skin on your body feels heavy and
there's this desire to shed it, almost like a winter's coat.
The sounds all around feel amplified with the constant drip
of the seconds going by, the TV blaring in the background.
Somebody's yelling, somebody's crying, somebody's having a mental health episode.
People are talking loudly, some people are seen. It all
(12:01):
merges together like a roar that sounds like an urban
street scene. It takes concentration to decipher words spoken to
you from three feet away. Sometimes people in prison are
superior at acting, and they do not need an acting coach,
she said. In Hollywood, agents search high and low for
people who can cry on cube, but she says, I
(12:22):
dare you to find an inmate who cannot. She also said,
if you can seek, you will find, so be careful
what you seek. Just some random things she had in
her last email, The reason you see inmates who are
shackled at the ankles. Wearing several layers of socks is
to keep the cuffs from digging into your skin. If
you don't have toilet paper, an older book with a
(12:43):
lot of miles on it has softer paper and you
can guess the rest. She recommends to check the expiration
dates on your food. It's not like it's going to
get replaced if it's out of date, but you're just
ensuring you don't get sick from old milk or food.
Every prisoner represents multiple victims and many lives lost. This
(13:04):
includes the living victims and also the family members of
the inmates in prison. No one but yourself or a
truly dysfunctional person will make your needs a priority, or,
worst of all, somebody with nefarious intentions. The life in
prison and the death penalty are considered pretty much one
of the same to inmates. The toll on families who
(13:26):
have to travel to visit is very hard because there's
a lot of hoops to jump through. Sometimes it takes
hours for your family to drive to get to the visitation.
They have to go through all the red tape of
being searched. Sometimes you have to take a bus to
be transported to the facility with other family members, and
then you have to wait for the actual visitation. Some
(13:46):
family sacrifice a whole weekend for an hour of visitation.
But just because your family made the time and the
effort and spent money to visit you doesn't guarantee you're
going to have that visit. You could get in trouble
right before your schedule visitation that can be taken away
in an instant. Also, if there is a staff shortage
(14:06):
or if the facility is put on a lockdown, that
can affect whether or not you actually get your visit
that day. What if some cell may etiquette never touch
anything that doesn't belong to you. Courtesy flushing is essential.
You have no option but to accept it if somebody
takes your stuff. Bunkies share their body odor as well
(14:28):
as their drug induced philosophy and knowledge of criminal activities.
She has now learned the easiest stores to steal from,
the best ways to hide drugs on the outside, and
pretty much every other criminal activity you could imagine. There
are groups to help prisoners reach what is termed insight.
This is the realization of your crime, which is the
(14:49):
nexus of your crime, what led you there, meaning the
core factors who all was hurt by your actions, and
in her group, they even consider people down to the
ones who read the news articles. They teach you what
you need to do is rehabilitate and make amends. The
group's efforts are hampered by an inmate's obsession with survival, addiction, anger,
(15:12):
personal loss, and grief.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
She said.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
The public fails to realize that to a prisoner, the
greater victim, no matter what the crime is their own families.
They know their loss, their grief, their suffering, their sacrifices.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
She said.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
The victim's families are not in touch with us then
or now, so it's easy to overlook their pain and
suffering and their lasting hurt. This is why insight groups
help to broaden a prisoner's idea of who is the
actual victim and who they hurt. People get away with
a lot of things in prison, and the reason is
the commanding officers don't really intervene unless somebody is getting hurt.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
She said.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
The last thing Donna is gonna want to do is snitch.
It only takes one time and then you're branded. If
you snitched in jail, it somehow follows you to prison.
Hundreds of miles away, and that is one label you
don't want to follow you.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
But what did Donna do?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Snitched a couple of times about some attacks on the stand,
so that could be something she has to deal with
in prison. And we're gonna end this with a few
more prison hacks. Maxi pads have a ton of uses.
You can sweep the floors when you don't have a broom.
They can be used as shoe inserts, and you can
make your pillows more comfortable. If you don't have money
(16:27):
to buy a foundation through the commissary, you can make
your own. You mix baby powder, lotion and instant coffee
grinds together. You customize based on the color you need
for lipstick. One way is to mix crayons and petroleum jelly.
For eyeshadow, they will mix a colored pencil with chalk
and baby powder and there's your eyeshadow for me. It
(16:49):
is so interesting to get this first hand look from
somebody who is a lifer, a first time offender, because
what she has seen over the years really gives a
lot of insight into what really happens in prison versus
what you see on a show about prison or any
kind of a real life drama. These very little things
(17:10):
that become part of your everyday life that you would
never deal with on the outside are the hardest parts
of prison. It's not the big dramas, although it does happen.
So tomorrow we'll do another episode. But that is it
for today. Hope you guys have a good rest of
your afternoon and we will see us soon.
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