Hustles In Prison Analysis

This article written by Patrick Larmour, an inmate at High Desert State Prison, talks assiduously about the different type of “hustles” found within prison. According to Larmour “cash rules everything” even inside prison, where there is not an abundance of cash. These hustles are other ways for these inmates to earn cash. The way Larmour structures his article he separates the type of hustles that are found within the prison. The first are hustles like smuggling drugs and cellphones, selling pharmaceutical meds, making alcohol and extortion. The other kinds of hustles include positive hustles like making sculptures from soap, ironing and sewing. Larmour paints an in depth picture of the conflict between hustles within prison according to their

With this story, Larmour presents a fairly obvious contrast between the types of hustles, and these two types of people that partake in these hustles. The inmates that are on the forefront of these illegal hustles tend to be looking for “lucrative” jobs or are just plain crazy like the “vultures” that scoop up guards’ spit out tobacco to make cigarettes. Then there are the inmates that strive to make their money doing “positive” hustles because they do it more for the people that they are around rather than for “their desire for money.” This contrast between the inmates can tell us more about our society. As a society we almost like to glorify the negatives that occur within our society, rather than focusing upon the positives. This article is a good example in itself; a majority of the article describes all the negative things that happen within prison with a miniscule paragraph about the positive things that have happened. It seems that the negative hustles are more interesting than the positive ones, which is why they get more attention in all aspects of life. This can be blamed on many societal aspects like media coverage, all the way to TV Shows like Orange is the New Black. It seems that we have become a society that glorifies selfishness over selflessness. Rather, we should begin to highlight the more constructive things that happen in our society rather than the dreadful things that paint a negative