The entire prison system in Texas is currently under lockdown which started on Sept. 6, 2023, to address drug-related violence. We have all gone through lockdowns in some shape or form during the pandemic. But imagine being confined to your room only, not your apartment or house, without internet, without shower, without AC and not having enough to eat every day for more than a month. According to a report by CBS, current 14% of prisons in Texas have no air conditioning, 55% have partial air conditioning and 31% have full air conditioning. Much of Texas is over 90-degree Fahrenheit for the most part of the day. Now luckily, Ray’s unit has AC. But that’s probably the only saving grace in this statewide lockdown.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice Prisons

Temperature map captured at 05:50 p.m. EST on 09/17/2023 Sept. 13, 2023 Sigh! This truly sucks. I don’t know about other prisons, but Texas shakedown lockdowns are the worst possible thing among all the things in Texas prisons, of which they have many that mess with you.

But this is the most because we’re stuck in a cell for a whole month, dead! No rec, no showers, no commissary, not much at all. We people in solitary confinement are used to this, but we miss our recreation and no commissary. I have one big bar of soap now, and I have to make this last a whole month. They gave us three bars of soap this week (Editor’s note: Soap bars given out in prison are hotel size soap bars which are used for all purpose cleaning including laundry)? Not enough at all. Like, what can you do with three bars of soap to last you a week? And TDCJ does nothing about it. If your sandwiches aren’t anything but two pieces of bread, TDCJ will do nothing about it.

They make you suffer for a whole month just so they can search your cell and strip you out to find drugs or cell phones or any type of free world contraband. One month, they search the whole building, and we’re just waiting because 12 building is the last building, and solitary confinement is last for everything. So if the world were to end, the solitary confinement would be left for dead in a cell, forgotten.

I’ve been here for years, and it sucks, honestly it does. So waiting it is, day after day, week after week, eating nothing but bread and water, losing weight, and feeling angry and hungry. Some people can’t take it and try to kill themselves just to escape lockdown and go to another unit. Most just wait and thug it out.

Then when they do get to the search part, they shake the whole pod down, cell after cell, strip you out in nothing but boxers. Dogs smell you. If you’re on a list for STG, they make it worse for you and put you in the shower for a whole hour. Tear your cell up, throw stuff out, even if it’s your property legitimately, they still throw it out, make an excuse that it’s altered. Anything they see or feel like, they just throw away. You come back to your cell with your property everywhere, literally. You have to clean and put your cell back together and still wait some more. That is the worst part, though, the search process, then the waiting again.

This time will be worse because a statewide lockdown is in place, and they will take their time searching for drugs, which is their purpose. But we prisoners suffer in the process of it all. It’s frustrating, stressful, and it definitely pisses you off.

Just today, a guy came from 3 building to seg for arguing with a security officer over the confiscation of his fan. Shit like this happens, and worse things happen. I once saw a security officer plant a cell phone on a guy in a rice bag, put the guy back in his cell, left a note but talked to him beforehand, telling him, “I found this in your cell. Tell me who is selling drugs, and I won’t have charges pressed?” The guy responded by saying, “Fuck you.” He could do what he do. The security officer never did anything, but he could have, and they would have taken his word for it. Who are they going to believe, a criminal or a public servant that works for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice?

This is the truth and the shit we go through, and this is only a couple of parts of it. We go through so much more. To live inside this place is to live in hell. You just have to be strong and use the positive side of it all. Use it to your advantage so that you better yourself and don’t ever come back to prison….