Intake at Shelton

     After my sentencing hearing, I was sent from King County jail to Shelton which is Washington State’s intake prison.  I was sent there near the end of November and upon my arrival, about 2AM, I was placed in a room about 6×6 feet, cement floor, cement roof, and cinder block walls and a steel door.  The bus we road on had no windows we could see out (they were blacked out) so we had no idea where we were.

     It was cold enough that I could clearly see my breath, I would guess around 45°F, clearly there was no heat and it was pretty much at the outside ambient temperature.

     I was told to strip off all my clothes, which they then took, leaving me completely naked in that cold room for at least 45 minutes.  I rapidly went from goose bumps, to shivering, to violently shivering, to lying on the cement floor in a fetal position violently shivering, before they finally tossed in a pumpkin suit and said to put it on.

     They want you to know, right off the bat, that your life is in their hands and they can make it as miserable as they like or take it altogether on a whim.

     There are some very good people working within the prison system and there are some extremely sadistic bastards.  The bad employees make the job more dangerous for everyone else as well as prisoners.  As a prisoner, you can file a grievance, but you aren’t allowed to bring witnesses to a hearing and so it comes down to the officers word against yours making the whole process essentially meaningless.