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.