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   Will they knock out his front teeth so he doesn't bite down?   
      
      
    Why Showering in Prison Is Hell   
   “Step by step, I shuffle forward amid the mass of bodies, waiting to get   
   inside.” By Jason Wright   
      
   “Shower time, fellas!” yells a guard as I stand up from my bunk, which is   
   26 inches wide and made of hard steel.   
      
   I hate this bunk.   
      
   “J.W., you showering, man?” says a familiar voice. Looking up, I see James   
   waving me toward the hallway. This article was published in collaboration   
   with BuzzFeed News.   
      
   James—now that’s a character. White guy with blond hair and green eyes;   
   rocks the Bible and a smile all day.   
      
   Walking toward him I wave half-assed. “You are always so cheerful, dude. I   
   hate you, you know.” Life Inside   
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   “Hey, I hate you too, dude. Besides, the faster we get walking to the   
   showers of hell, the faster we get back.”   
      
   He’s right. As we start walking down the hall then step outside, the smell   
   of shit from a nearby pig barn makes my stomach turn. It’s 105 degrees   
   today. Twenty yards later, we turn back inside, into a red-brick hallway,   
   where we walk along a yellow line.   
      
   The hallway is even hotter than the outside. I begin to sweat more. The   
   noise coming out of the prison units is deafening—people yelling and   
   slamming dominoes.   
      
   The line to the showers is 150-plus strong. We walk wearing only boxers   
   and shower shoes; those of us who have families on the outside to provide   
   for us are also carrying our own soap. The hall smells like week-old dead   
   bodies, and that’s putting it mildly.   
      
   We do this every day. I’ve been doing it for 15 years.   
      
   Step by step, I shuffle forward amid the mass of bodies, waiting to get   
   inside.   
      
   “Yo,” I say, “they need to put individual showers in the dorms; this shit   
   is nuts.”   
      
   “Yeah. It’s 2016—you’d think they would have come up with something   
   different by now.” In other words, PREA—the Prison Rape Elimination   
   Act—does not exist in here, and never will.   
      
   Opposite-sex guards can watch you dress and piss, and they make offensive   
   remarks, and it's taken for granted that sexual assault by staff is   
   covered up or ignored. It is the way it is.   
      
   “You two shut it and keep moving,” shouts a female guard as we walk by.   
      
   Now the sounds coursing out of the shower room are overwhelming. Guys   
   shouting to be heard by their friends standing just a few feet away. Sign   
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   “One towel, one soap, one towel, one soap!” shouts the guard manning the   
   process today.   
      
   He hands me a tan bath towel that’s 11 inches wide, and a thin sliver of   
   green soap. I’m shoved into the humidity of the showers.   
      
   Looking around, I can now see more than 300 people trying to bathe in a   
   100-man room. The press of the bodies is thick. It smells of sweat and   
   shit. I step on discarded boxers trying to make my way to the showerheads.   
   Only two guards are in the area, talking by the door and ignoring most of   
   us.   
      
   “Ah, J.W., J.W.!” someone calls out from my left. I look down row two of   
   the showerheads and see R.G., a guy I attend school with. We take classes   
   through a local community college—business and culinary science, nine   
   hours a week. He’s half-black, half-Mexican, and a good dude to know.   
      
   As I pass more people on my way toward R.G., it is impossible not to bump   
   into them. Some of the showerheads are being used by three or more men. I   
   get slapped by wet rags as guys fling them over their shoulders to wash   
   their backs.   
      
   “Dude, they do this shit every time,” R.G. says when I step up next to   
   him, taking a turn under his showerhead.   
      
   “I know. Staff wants the showers done quick.” That’s why they jam us all   
   in here at once.   
      
   Turning around, I see still more people crowding in. Guys are standing   
   damn near butts to nuts.   
      
   “Watch it, J.W., Tevor just came in.” I look behind me again to see the   
   leader of a crew of tattooed gangbangers whom I recently had a run-in with   
   near the weights area on the yard.   
      
   “I ain’t worried; he won’t fuck with me,” I say, hoping.   
      
   The heat in the shower area is worse than anywhere, at least 120 degrees.   
   After soaping up, I look down and see the gutter is clogged; leftover soap   
   mashed into the floor, boxers, and other crap is floating around in the   
   water.   
      
   Suddenly, I hear a smack, a grunt, a call for help. We all fall silent as   
   a fight breaks out in the back corner of row five. Three white dudes and   
   two Latinos are kicking the crap out of a couple of other white guys.   
   What’s funny about it is they’re all naked. What’s not funny is the   
   victims are getting stomped, and nobody is going to help them.   
      
   The two guards walk out the door, ignoring the brawling. Everyone around   
   me looks away too, and like a coward, so do I. Opening Statement   
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   news.   
      
   Stepping away from the showerhead, we make our way into a long line to get   
   clean clothes and boxers.   
      
   “J.W. how do you do it, man? How do you just walk away from that shit?” my   
   friend asks me about the fight.   
      
   “You just gotta learn. Keep your head out of anyone’s business,” I say,   
   automatically.   
      
   Drying off is useless; you just start sweating again. Twenty-five minutes   
   later, we get clothes that are all a size too small or too big. Getting   
   dressed, I bump into everyone around me.   
      
   Finally, I head toward the exit, but am stopped there for another 10   
   minutes by the guards. I’m sweating even more now. The press of those   
   waiting to get out is all around me, the smell like a trash dump being   
   slowly heated.   
      
   The guard motions us out. We drop our towels as we leave.   
      
   “R.G. I’ll see you at school tonight, man,” I say.   
      
   “No you won’t; I have to go work in the kitchen again.”   
      
   “Oh.”   
      
   I walk on, listening to the crowd in the hall and the wings of the prison.   
      
   It’s a long walk back to the dorm, back down the red-brick hallway from   
   the showers.   
      
   Jason Wright, 39, is incarcerated at the Wallace Pack Unit in Navasota,   
   Texas, where he is serving two simultaneous 20-year sentences for   
   aggravated kidnapping and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.   
      
   In a statement, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said that the   
   Pack Unit is fully compliant with the Prison Rape Elimination Act. An   
   April 2018 external audit noted that staff and inmates were aware of the   
   agency’s zero tolerance policy for violence or harassment, TDCJ said, and   
   that the facility had "made efforts to help ensure the elimination of   
   sexual abuse and sexual harassment in the prison.”   
      
   The statement also said that the agency has a grievance system intended to   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)