You're making this way, way more complicated than it should be. You must have been locked up for some violent shit because I was never really that paranoid. I saw 1 fight when I was there, happened right in front of my eyes. One street kid was feeling tough and blood ended up everywhere. They were 2 latinos and I had never even seen a fight that up close so I was caught like a deer in the fucking headlights, I didn't know what.the.fuck.was.going.on when everything went from 0 to 100 in .5 seconds.
I shat right in front of my roommate and he'd just turn the other way. I didn't look when he was shitting. I hated the smell but after 10 minutes it'd pass.
Jail is horribly boring and the energy is terribly negative but that's about it. I must have read for about 15 hours a day, and that was a great escape. Hours would pass and I'd forget I was even locked up in a cell. Probably the worst is the dreams that you're outside the walls just having a normal day then you wake up in jail. Was a kick in the nuts every time that happned.
It's clear you never spent a day in prison.
Maybe an overnighter in county for being drunk and disorderly. But I can tell by the way you write you don't know nothing about serving time. First, nobody... and I mean NOBODY calls their cellmate a "roommate". Cause you're not locked in a "room". Rooms have pretty rugs, furniture, mirrors, tables, windows you can open ... etc. Cells are reinforced CONCRETE AND STEEL. 6' X 9' big. And in NJ county jails there's always 3 people in a cell. It's the most densely populated state in the US and like many facilities it suffers from overcrowding. So you had 2 people on a bed and 1 person on the FLOOR right by the shitter.
If you happened to get the floor spot then you had to sleep 2 ft from where people had to shit. If the person on the toilet didn't courtesy flush properly... the person on the floor mat would get up and put your head in the toilet. That's the 1st thing you learn in prison or jail. "Courtesy flush" doesn't mean "flush 1 time". It means "keep flushing till the smell is gone". It means ask your cellys if you need to flush more. You show respect to get respect.
Also, to call someone your "roommate" is to indirectly say, "I never spent a day in prison". Cause like I said prisons don't have rooms and beds. They have cells and mats.
You say I'm "complicating things" cause you don't understand a thing about prison politics. If you were ever shipped to state prison calling people your "roommate" you'd become a target immediately. People would know it was your 1st time in. They'd know you're not familiar with prison lingo or politics. And they might not beat your ass for it but someone would
definitely correct you or steal your shoes. Even a decade after you got out you'd still know not to call cellys "roommates". Cause it downplays the reality of what serving time is really like. Something pewep can do cause he wants to sound cool.
But when you're facing 7 years, 10 years, 20 years... the days drag by. I've seen time break down the strongest mfkrs alive. 5 days feels like 5 months. 5 months feels like 5 years. It's no Cool Hand Luke type shit. It's modern gang warfare, crips, bloods, saints, westside, eastside, northside, southside, myside, yourside.... you gotta know where the fuck you are, where you stand and what you're doing every minute you're locked up. There ain't nothing easy or fun about it. Nothing you're gonna meditate through cause someone
will stomp or shank your ass while you're busy spacing out or trying to run spells on them.
I wanna make sure younger guys are aware. Serving time ain't cool. It's not easy. It's not fun. It's no place for anyone to be.
Especially in the good old US of A where dudes are serving 20+ years for crossing a state line with some ecstasy meanwhile his cellys serving 8 years for killing his girlfriend. The US prison industrial complex will devour you whole. It will spit you out and you'll feel meaner than you can imagine. Half the dudes are in there for drugs serving ridiculous amounts of time cause some politicians wanna get rich off the poor rather than rehabilitate anyone. There's some poor mfkr right now serving LIFE without parole cause he LENT HIS CAR to some friends then WENT TO SLEEP. While he was SLEEPING his friends robbed someone for weed, killed a girl.... and that dude who lent the car is now serving LIFE w/out parole. That's the cruel, evil and twisted joke of a system that our tax dollars are funding.
/end rant