Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Tales from the Pen, part 2: prison jargon

noun: specialized technical terminology characteristic of a particular subject
noun: a characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves)
again take your pick, although my money's on the 2nd.

Throwed-off: This is how people in the prison system(both offenders and officers) say crazy. I suppose it's because simply saying, "That guy is crazy" would be too...you know, in truth, I just don't know why.

Institutionalized: This term as used an excuse for officers being unable to speak to anyone about anything without peppering their speech with profanity, demolished grammar and you guessed it, jargon.

Trustee: This is a term applied to low security offenders (usually G1, although at Connally most of ours are G2s since we have only a handful of G1 offenders). These offenders work outside the perimeter and often work jobs with little oversight, or are allowed to work with dangerous tools, chemicals, etc. They basically enjoy special privileges. The prisons SSIs (janitors) are both the best and worst examples of prison trustees.

Boss-man(or Boss-lady): This is what the offenders call us when they want something from us.

Bitch-ass-ho-boss: This is what the offenders call us when we've busted them on some offense, caught them in a lie, taken away contraband, or otherwise deprived them of something to which them believe themselves entitled.

Free World: This is a descriptor applied to anything from outside the prison system/world/culture. Free world clothes, free world jobs, free world politics, etc, ad nauseam.

Later,
B.

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