Prison Shakedown Chapter 6 Analysis

Chapter 5 illustrates the concepts of shakedowns, fakedowns, and solitary confinement. The author describes the varying levels of intrusiveness in relation to a shakedown. The first and least disruptive level is referred to as a fakedown. The concept of a fakedown relies on the panic of the inmates. The officer, or CO will announce that there will be a shakedown at a certain time so that inmates will dump their contraband. During shakedowns, it is imperative that contraband be discarded. In most cases, there is no announcement and the process can take days. In fact, “It can take days for the officers to show up at our doors after the initial lockdown. Until then, we sit in our cells…we cannot take showers” (George, Page 76). The author points

She takes pride in her ability to create food items from commissary that far surpass that on the Fluvanna menu. Due to the author’s location within the honor wing, she is granted access to a microwave, which greatly increases her culinary ability. The author also proclaims the unethical practices used by the food services division of the prison to greatly reduce their expenses at the cost of the inmates’ safety. Many prisoners that do not have the funds must go without the luxuries of prison life, which are the most commonplace items to those not incarcerated. The author brings attention to the hassles that accompany prison life, and complains of much power the C.O has over their entire life. She specifically cites the “new system that unfairly hampers women of a lower socioeconomic class by setting up difficult hurdles for their families to leap just to provide a little comfort to their incarcerated loved one”(George, Page

This project led to the author’s first published poem and lead to an immersion into poetry of all types. Upon further examination of the chapter we find that our author acts as a tutor for GED classes at the prison, impacting other inmates in her occupational capacity. The author details her encounter with a Russian inmate with limited English capabilities, whom she helped. Lastly, the author details tattoo’s in the Fluvanna prison system, and the crude methods that area employed to get the end