Chris Hedges: Bowl Phone Sex

[marmar]

from truthdig:


Bowl Phone Sex

Posted on Jun 30, 2013
By Chris Hedges


ELIZABETH, N.J.—I am drinking coffee and eating doughnuts in the backroom of a church in Elizabeth, N.J., with Gloria Blount, who has been in and out of Union County Jail over the years, Irene Pabey, who spent about four months there, and Alveda Torrado, who was behind its walls for 18 months. The women, part of a prison support group I help run, are talking about the “bowl phone.”

Union County Jail is a 13-story facility with about 800 prisoners in the center of the depressed city of Elizabeth. Female prisoners are housed on the top floor, men on the floors below.

The prisoners usually are forced to spend 23 hours a day in their cells. There isn’t much structured activity and there are no educational classes. Prisoners who have good disciplinary records—they are referred to as trusties and wear green as opposed to khaki uniforms—are allowed to work in the kitchen or clean the jail but they are not paid.

Life behind bars in Union County jail and some other American penal institutions revolves around an improvised system of cell-to-cell communication through the plumbing. Known as the “bowl phone,” it crudely replicates the speaking tubes in ships that sailors once shouted through. Drained metal toilets are used as megaphones to build friendships, carry out courtship, fall in love—although the lovers may never meet—have phone sex, pray and carry out religious conversion, pass news about court cases and families and exchange gossip. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/bowl_phone_sex_20130630/

[xchrom]

1. du rec.

[Buns_of_Fire]

2. They've found a method of communication the NSA hasn't tapped into.

Yet.

[marmar]

3. Sometimes you kick, sometimes you get kicked.....