Learning the hard way

I saw the funniest thing I’ve seen since I’ve been in prison today. This morning I woke up early, made my bed and went outside to get in the canteen line.

When I got to the canteen line, I turned around and there was an inmate with his bed in the middle of the yard.

Literally his whole bed.

It turns out he didn’t make his bed right, so the COs made him drag his bed rack outside and made him make and remake his bed over and over for two hours straight. It was so funny. On top of that, it looked like it was going to rain all morning, but lucky for him it didn’t.

Funny punishment

Here at Lancaster work camp, they have an inside ground work crew and their job is to walk around and pick up trash, cigarette butts and pretty much whatever it takes to keep the compound looking nice.

Well yesterday, the sergeant sent eight people around to pick up trash during recreation. Out of those eight people, seven went and sat on the bleachers and decided they weren’t going to do anything and just hoped that the COs wouldn’t notice. Well they did.

Now normally, the COs would make them do push-ups, jumping jacks and other physical training, but instead, the sergeant made those seven people get in a circle and hold hands and walk around in circles (just like ring-around-the-rosie) for about an hour.

Every one of those seven did it with his head down. They were all so ashamed that they couldn’t even look at all the people laughing at them. I have to admit – I was laughing too.

Extreme punishment

Raiford prison is very close to RMC Main - where Ted is.

The following article appeared in the Jacksonville news on July 6, 2009:

Florida prison sergeant gets 3 years for pouring scalding water on inmate

A former Florida Department of Corrections sergeant was sentenced Monday to three years in prison for assaulting an inmate at Raiford by pouring a bottle of scalding water on his chest.

A federal jury in Jacksonville convicted Paul Gregory Tillis of Lake Butler in January of depriving inmate Jerry Williams of his civil rights by causing second-degree burns while the prisoner laid on the floor of his cell. Tillis, 44, also failed to seek medical attention for Williams after the assault, the U.S. Justice Department said.

At the time, Tillis was working as a supervisory corrections officer at Florida State Prison in a wing for inmates who posed discipline problems. He said he poured the water through the food flap of Williams’ cell to determine whether Williams was faking an injury.