Since I don't have 12 hours worth of work to do each day, I will be taking a few minutes whenever I can to post some of my observations from the Tent City Experience.
Phase 1: The Staging Area
To be admitted into Tent City you check in through The Lower Buckeye Jail (LBJ) facility in South Phoenix. It is my understanding that most inmates in tent city are Self Surrenders, (i'd like to shorten self surrender to SS but it feels too Hitlery) meaning that as part of their sentencing they are assigned a particular date to show up to begin their jail time.
The staging area outside LBJ has a large parking lot and a waiting area for self surrender inmates. As I arrive at 8 AM, I see that there is a line that is about 50 people long waiting to get in to the jail.
I'm all about being punctual to a court ordered jail sentence but if the door isn't open yet, I'm not going to stand in line like I’m waiting to get into The Ghost Bar in Vegas. Also there is a perfectly good waiting area with about 20 benches where I can sit and chill out until somebody in the jail decides to start letting people in.
Prominent above the people waiting in line is a large bronzed sign which has a list of stuff you can bring into the facility as part of the self surrender:
· Two towels – I decided against bringing any towels to the jail because I’ve seen American History X five times. I don’t care if this is minimum security county jail, I’m not taking a shower in a prison. As I found out soon enough, the towels that they allow you to bring in are put to good use as pillows while waiting in holding cells until you are processed into tent city. It would have been nice to know that. Maybe when they mention two towels they could also drop in the following addendum – to be used as pillows in holding cell while we botch your paperwork, lose your fingerprints, misplace 300 pound inmates, misspell your name, surf the internet, have a potluck, eat birthday cake, watch football games on TV and basically do everything you can possibly do in a prison except for process you into tent city in a timely manner. I personally witnessed all of those things from my holding cell which was across the hall from the deputy’s lounge. Details to follow in Phase 3.
· One paperback book
· One plastic flashlight c-cell or smaller
· A non-hooded jacket or sweater – more to come on this
· A wallet – One of the nicer deputies pulled a Velcro wallet from one of the inmates during the frisk and commented sarcastically that he hadn’t seen one of those in awhile. One of the other inmates wondered aloud if he got it from Miller’s Oupost.
· Up to 40 dollars in cash – This is money that can be used at the commissary. I knew this going in, so I brought 2 twenty dollar bills. The “commissary” turned out to be 4 vending machines that only take ones and quarters and there is a change machine that only changes ones and fives. One of my first prison transactions was changing a twenty into 4 fives. Not as cool as Andy Dufresne buying a rock hammer and a Rita Hayworth poster from Red but I wanted to start small and not attract too much attention from the warden.
· A non-electric clock. Non-electric is essential because there are no outlets in the tents. I considered a Grandfather clock but it was a little too bulky to get into my car. I also considered a sun dial but then realized most of the time I would be serving would take place at night so it would be rendered useless by mother nature. I decided to forego the clock and just roll with the next allowable item on the list.
· A wristwatch – I haven’t owned a wristwatch since about 1988 so I grabbed one at the dollar store for, get this, a dollar. It seems to lose about 5 minutes per day. That may sound good for a one dollar watch until you consider that in the 1600s they had timepieces that lost only 10 seconds per week.
· A ring
· A clear plastic bag to hold all of your stuff
I knew about this list of items ahead of time because the confinement order that tells me the date of my surrender has a phone number to call that will tell you this same list. Why don't they just put the list on the confinement order instead of giving you a phone number to call? Because, as you will soon find out, the folks at LBJ are masters of inefficiency.
At about 8:45, the door finally opens. This is not a good sign because I have talked to a couple of people that have been here since 7 AM which was their assigned time. So basically we are an hour and forty-five minutes delayed already on a process that I hear can take as long as 8-10 hours and we haven’t even started yet.
A heavyset female deputy walks out and starts yelling in the direction of the line of people (side note: in the rest of this blog when I refer to any female deputy, you may go ahead and assume she is heavyset unless otherwise noted). In drill sergeant fashion she tells the group to make a male line and a female line.
"Look at the list on this wall. If you have anything on your person that is not on the list it will be confiscated!" she bellows. She sees that some people, myself included, are wearing stocking caps or beanies. I’d been told by multiple people who have previously served at Tent City to bring one of these to keep warm at night while sleeping in the tents. Now she is saying that I can't have one. Whatever. Maybe they had a rule change and don't allow them anymore. I decide to just get out of line and take mine back to my car. I return from my car and get into the back of the line. She then notices that some of the inmates have on hooded sweatshirts and points at them, then points at the list. "You may not have hooded sweatshirts or jackets", she says. Then follows with "Tuck your hoods into your collar."
So now I'm confused. I can't have a beanie because it’s not specifically mentioned on the list, but I can have a hooded sweatshirt that is specifically prohibited on the list as long as I'm pretending it’s not hooded by tucking it into my collar. I think I may have found a loophole on the beanie so I ask her if I can tuck my beanie into my collar. She doesn't answer, either because she thought I was joking (I wasn't) or because she's paid to be unpleasant. I assume the latter. I decide to let it go and just get checked in.
Next: Phase 2 The Frisk, Medical Clearance and Photos
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