Crushing Boredom

When drugs make it in to the jail

It’s like hungry hungry hippos

400 bored drug addicts

All looking to escape

The harsh reality

They find themselves in

I met an inmate

Said he had made 60 grand

Bringing drugs into the jail

They come in through visits

Or the occasionally corrupt staff

And the whole mood of the block

Or the minimum security cottages

Becomes one of boisterous intensity

I’ll never forget

The night our whole pod

Awake on the balcony

At 4 in the morning

Trying to stay silent

While the screws did their rounds

It’s a terrible thing

Some lose their mind

But it certainly adds colour

To the otherwise crushing boredom

—

Two of the defining features of jail are drug use and boredom. The former is often used to counteract the second. Do a long enough sentence and sooner or later something will come into your environment that there’s only so many times you can turn down.

I’ve seen the most timid or straight cons use weed for the first time, ice for the first time and even heroin. In fact it takes a substantial amount of will power to get through jail without becoming a drug addict to some degree. At the end of the day cons are all desperate for something to take the pain away or to give them a good day where there are so few otherwise.

Let all be forgiven.