Organization of personal space in pre-trial detention centers and colonies
Psychological discomfort - while in a pre-trial detention center or serving a sentence in a colony - is an element that haunts all prisoners without exception. At first, especially if you end up in quarantine in a pre-trial detention center, simply put, in solitary confinement, the newly-minted inmate feels wild melancholy and lack of communication. This is understandable, because man is a social being and conversations with others like himself are extremely important for him.
Especially when you find yourself in such a difficult situation as imprisonment, when you simply need to talk or simply consult with your fellow sufferers. At the same time, a person, at least sometimes, needs to be alone. Collect your thoughts, and just take a break from the busy world. The latter is extremely difficult to do in prison. After being transferred to a regular multi-person cell, difficulties of a completely different nature begin to plague them. There is an acute shortage of personal space.
A prison cell is a very small area of the world in which, willy-nilly, or rather, only unwillingly, different numbers of persons of the same sex are placed. Sleeping places (bunks), as a rule, are placed close together. This is especially true for multi-person cameras. Sleeping prisoners are forced to breathe in each other's faces, without the opportunity to have privacy even while sleeping.
Every prisoner faces a problem, which is that there is no way to be alone for a second. You have to spend all your time in a cramped cell, where each person has about one square meter. In addition, the pre-trial detention center is plagued by constant “excesses”. Let's say there are 25 people in a 16-bed cell. And this means sleep, and eating in turns, and the eternal fight for the toilet, and the TV (if there is one), and other inconveniences. You can forget about personal space in such a situation.
Due to crowding, the atmosphere becomes electric and makes the moral pressure on the prisoners unbearable.
They are taken out for a daily hour-long walk in cells and there is rarely a chance to go out alone. The same goes for washing. It is supposed to be once a week and not a single prisoner misses it. It is not possible to be alone with yourself even under the streams of water, because a step to the right and a step to the left of you, under the same shower, there are a couple of prisoners. And it’s also good if there are enough watering cans and other prisoners in the queue don’t stop and demand that you not delay the washing process.
The same difficulties await after arrival in the colony. Although there is much more space there, in a barracks of about a hundred people there is no need to talk about personal space. Movement around the camp occurs exclusively in formation. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, the same washing - only collective.
However, following a set of seemingly simple rules, you can expand this space. You just need, as in any other similar situation, to set a goal and take a firm step towards it.
Firstly , go into “internal emigration” more often. Elementary reading of fiction, classics, detective stories will expand your space. Some prisoners read for days on end, thereby escaping into completely different worlds, returning to their cell or barracks only occasionally.
Keep up the correspondence. Either using traditional mail or . When you write or read something written to you, you will always go into another world. Remember that in the wild it is more difficult for your loved ones than it is for you and your encouraging letters are very important.
In addition, I have more than once observed how many prisoners are constantly drawing something. I myself would have made a poor artist, but these draftsmen also produced very controversial work. The point is different. They could spend hours drawing various abstract pictures or portraits of some space girls. And for this time they left the cramped world of a prison cell or camp barracks. Such creative explorations are the best way to expand your personal space.
Secondly , if you have already arrived in the colony, be sure to go to work. By doing this, you will expand your personal space at least twice. If the work takes place within an industrial zone, then there will always be its own “ kildym ” (household premises), where daytime sleep is possible, and the use of “prohibitions” is much easier. Going to the industrial zone is a change of scenery, which is extremely important in prison. These are different premises, fewer employees, prisoners, and, consequently, rules - written and unwritten.
Thirdly , you need a calm and secluded sleep at night. And when you are closely surrounded by the faces and bodies of your fellow sufferers, it is not easy to talk about it. “sails” save . Of course, curtaining a sleeping place is prohibited by the Internal Regulations, but penalties for this can easily be avoided. My bunk was hung on three sides - right, left and front. The wall “covered” me from behind. Thus, I was in a tent, fenced off from all strangers, breaths and other things.
Fourth , wake up half an hour to an hour earlier than others. By this time, the “gaming” ones, as a rule, have already dispersed. Others who lead a “nocturnal lifestyle” also cannot stand it and fall asleep. Pitch silence descends on the barracks. And she can only be caught at this time. Only a few out of a hundred people do not sleep. You can have breakfast in peace and no one will interfere with it. I left for work at 6.30 and for me getting up at five was the most useful thing in terms of expanding my space. A whole hour of solitude.
And while I was passing the time in the pre-trial detention center (it lasted for two years), taking advantage of the loyal attitude of the detention center staff, I established my own daily routine. It so happened that there were older prisoners in the cell with me. They woke up at six for morning porridge, talked and watched TV all day, and at 22.00, ignoring the “roads” and other nightly prison activities, went to bed. A deathly silence fell over the camera, lasting a whole cosmic eight hours. Just at this time I woke up and began to read, write and practice intellectual pursuits in a situation of complete peace. The “longitudinal” turned a blind eye to such a violation of the regime and did not insist that I take my sleeping place. I think this is another way to find sources to increase your space.
What's the result? I can say the following: many spend long periods in prison. It is especially difficult for those who spend several years in a pre-trial detention center; they can only find privacy there, perhaps in the toilet. And then, if the camera is large, and there is only one “long range”, you won’t stay there for long. But even in these conditions there is the possibility of expanding personal space. Read, draw, do any kind of creativity, correspond, if possible, adjust your daily routine. In a colony - get a job and take care of a restful sleep. All this is real and will at least somehow solve this problem.
Eldar Fanzisov
Share link:
Rules for using the toilet in a cell, or How to poop correctly.
...there is an everyday question about life in a cell.
Do they actually relieve themselves there in front of everyone?
This is a mockery...
Best regards, Sh.A.V.
(from questions on the forum)
Yes, that’s exactly it – there are no separate toilets. As one American named Sam, who spent almost a year and a half in one of the Ukrainian pre-trial detention centers (I met him a couple of days before his release), said: “I spent a year and a half in the toilet.”
The ritual of visiting this place is one of the most important in the rules of prison dormitory. And, believe me, it is very serious - for violating it you can not only lose respect, make enemies, but also lose your health.
Sometimes this very long distance, also known as a push, also known as a bucket, is symbolically separated from the rest of the space by curtains, but this, of course, is not a hindrance to smells and sounds. When the house is large, it is even more or less tolerable, but when it is small - the size of a bathroom with an area of only 7-8 square meters - then it is even more piquant...
Yes, and it is not always possible to separate this place, where the folk trail is not overgrown, and usually during large riots, all the curtains are torn off. It’s hard to understand why—whether it’s so that someone doesn’t open their veins on the sly behind a curtain. Either because you simply can’t have any laces at all. Or maybe just not - so that even during such an intimate activity, one might say a sacred rite, a person is not left to himself and stupid thoughts do not enter his head.
It was a common occurrence that adult men could not relieve themselves in the cell for the first time. He came, took out his device, held it... hid it, and went back. It’s just physically impossible to do this in front of everyone. Block. You can wait until dark, the uninitiated reader will say. It is forbidden. There is never any darkness in the cell - the light is always on there, all day and night. Such a polar day lasts a couple of years. Remember? “Taganka, all nights are full of fire...” Only there did I understand the meaning of these words.
When the smell spreads throughout the cell, prisoners usually start making a wide variety of jokes about it: “What did you eat?”, “You’re rotting, bro...”, “Burn the cotton wool, it hurts your eyes!” The latter, by the way, is the answer to the question about skinny prison mattresses, if there are any at all - where does the cotton wool go from them and why are they so skinny. This is where it goes - when they walk in large areas, they burn paper or cotton wool to kill the smell. Since paper is not always available, a small piece of cotton wool from a mattress can serve as an air freshener. Trademark "Army Depot Fire" Air Freshener. All rights reserved.
If someone on the push blows his pipe with particular enthusiasm and makes loud sounds, they usually shout something like “Your ass has a cold!”, “Don’t tear it up, let me try it on!”
One heavyweight boxer, who had just arrived at our house, went long distance for the first time to suppress pasta. The sounds of his fart were so colorful that the whole house burst into laughter. Someone uttered a standard joke that almost became fatal for him: “Don’t tear it - let me try it on.” The boxer silently finished his job, walked up to the joker and knocked him out with a light right hook. Having heard enough stories about how hungry prisoners only think about trying on someone’s ass, he perceived this as an attack on his honor and innocence. As a newbie gingerbread man, he was forgiven for using assault, but no one dared to joke like that for a long time.
Etymological digression: the word parasha mentioned above historically refers to a container where slop and piss are poured in cells where there is no sewage system. Usually this is a barrel. Nowadays this is already a rarity, but, nevertheless, it still exists. Like, for example, in one of the buildings in Voronezh. In such cases, the hut is taken to a distant place twice a day - to the toilet somewhere at the end of the corridor, where you can mostly recover. Hence its name. At the same time, the bucket is taken out and drained there. But now both of these words - dalnyak and parasha - usually simply mean a latrine in a cell.
Let's get back to the story. After visiting a long-distance traveler - no matter what the reason - you must wash your hands. And it’s not even a matter of hygiene - without such ritual washing, hands grasping the private end are considered “dirty” - that is, everything they touch becomes finished (finished, remembered). Formally, someone who shakes such a hand is considered offended – i.e. goes into the caste of roosters. In more strict regimes, such a seal can still sometimes be washed off - just as ritually. Permanent caregivers are more philosophical about such things. But for youngsters, that’s all. Krants. Fateful mistake.
In prisons, by the way, you don’t shake hands when greeting people and don’t shake hands. Who knows what you just did with it.
If you forget to wash your hands, you can easily get hit on the head with a chifirbak. A chifirbak is a metal liter mug, into which a package of sugar or salt is placed when used as a percussion instrument. Serious thing. The first time they will simply remind you, and if your memory is poor, they will treat you in such a simple way.
Next point. While someone is laying a larva on a dalnyak, food cannot be taken. Just like vice versa - if someone is eating, you can’t go throw away the clay. In small huts this applies to both shitting and pissing - the bucket is usually next to the table. In big ones it’s usually just for shitting. When there are a lot of people, you won’t wait until everyone has eaten - the bubble will burst.
Certain nuances of this ritual go back into the distant history of each individual prison or even cell and are passed down from generation to generation of inmates. But the outline is the same everywhere.
Photo-1R When you are a child, when someone is on a long journey, you cannot smoke or even hold anything - candy, for example - in your mouth, since at that moment everything turns into mincemeat. Even uncovered with newspaper or unpackaged products become sealed and are simply thrown away. This is easier for an adult. Therefore, when a person enters a house, he is usually first of all interested in how the waste disposal procedure is carried out - what is considered acceptable and what is not.
The same boxer that I just remembered, while someone was throwing away the slag, even closed the Bible and advised others so as not to desecrate the sacred letters. Boxer, what can you do...
You can’t just fart in the house either - you have to go for a push. By the way, they also go there to jerk off - they can’t do it in bed. Everything will be finished, i.e. most horribly and irrevocably desecrated. Anyone caught in such sacrilege loses all authority, if he had any, and is sent to live in a corner near the toilet. Not a single self-respecting prisoner would sit next to him at the table, or lie down on the bunk next to him, or even on the one above him. And certainly not on the bottom one. Liquids tend to flow downwards. And woe to anyone who dares to disagree with this - most likely he will receive a sharpening in the stomach.
This is our order. By the way, have you noticed how many synonyms our people have come up with for the common word “poop”. And that's not all. Age-old wisdom...
Yes, such a small question, but how did I get carried away with the answer...
A really vital question. You shouldn't laugh. Although, I don't think it's funny to you.
