My experience with suicide watch in prison occurred on the very first night I was there. Arriving at the county jail after midnight, I was processed in by a guard who couldn’t believe that I was 36 years old and had never been in prison. I don’t remember what I said to him and I didn’t hear what the police said to them.
I stripped down to my underwear and put on the ill-fitting orange jumpsuit. They led me to a cell in the interior of the jail. The jail had been expanded many times, and what was once an outside window isn’t any more. It was translucent and flooded the cell with fluorescent light. It was May but cold in the jail. Prisons are often kept cold to slow down bacterial and fungal growth. I think it just promotes the spread of rhino and corona viruses.
A guard came to the cell door and told me to strip naked. I didn’t want to. I was afraid. I already had the jail uniform on and was confused as to what they wanted. He said to take off my clothes or he would come in there and do it for me. I complied and pushed my underwear, socks, and jumpsuit through the wicket. Then he pushed through this flimsy yellow paper garment. It was like a short-sleeved robe but so thin that it was virtually transparent. It only just covered my crotch; my legs and feet were bare.
I yelled: “What the hell is this?!”
No answer.
There was no bedding, just a vinyl mattress. I was angry and didn’t understand what was happening. I told them I was cold and demanded a blanket. They didn’t care. I easily ripped off the sleeve of the fragile garment to wrap around my freezing feet. Laying on my side with the bare shoulder underneath, I curled up and folded the mattress to cover my legs. I fell asleep for a moment which caused me to let go of the mattress. It flopped down, waking me up. I didn’t sleep that night. A cold, lonely night, naked and afraid.
They brought cold cereal and milk for breakfast the next morning but wouldn’t give me a spoon. I went off. I called them pigs who were trying to make me eat like an animal. Sticking my face into the bowl like a dog!
An inmate worker slipped me a spoon and got in trouble for it. I yelled at the Corrections Officer again, told him I had the spoon up my ass the whole time. A lie which could have garnered me an unpleasant search. I believed they were punishing me and I responded with rudeness.
Nothing they were doing seemed like help to me and still doesn’t today, even though I now know what they were doing. The prison guards told me how lucky I was that the psych doctor was scheduled to be there the next day, or I would have spent many nights like the first. I hate to think how angry I would have gotten or what I might have done.
Handcuffed in front, I shuffled out of the cell. Virtually naked in front of staff and other prisoners who gawked at the “crazy, suicidal white boy.” I told the doctor that I wasn’t suicidal, had no intention of harming myself or others and asked if I “could I please have my underwear back?”
Responding to suicidal tendencies with sleep deprivation isn’t going to help anyone. Prison can only remove the means to kill yourself, not the desire. Psychiatric care is stretched thin in prison and relies largely on medications to sedate and subdue individuals bent on harming themselves or others. Our entire criminal legal system is focused on the control and punishment of people, not providing therapy for depression.
The only possible way to make your first night in jail more frightening is to be naked, cold, and confused. I would have said anything to get clothed. I don’t know how people find the will to kill themselves; I like myself too much.
I don’t know how prisons should deal with suicidal tendencies. I only know that suicide watch is the worst punishment they have, and people are going to say anything to avoid it.
Richard Gross #FF9878
SCI Phoenix
PO Box 33028
St Petersburg, FL 33733
